Beyond The Net
Outsourcing creates business advantages
By Janine Warner
From animators in the Philippines who create most of Disney's cartoons to programmers in Romania working for international banks, to translators and call centers spread around the globe, more and more work is being done outside the walls of traditional businesses.
But what has historically been the privilege of big companies is now becoming increasingly available to smaller businesses. Now they too are finding ways to outsource projects over the Internet, and businesses that don't follow suit are likely to see more savvy competitors chip away at their profits.
''Within 24 hours you can get bids on your project for a tenth of what it would cost here,'' said Victoria Usherenko, managing director of LiaisonIt, a North Miami Beach-based recruiting agency. ``If the job does not require face-to-face interaction with customers, more and more companies are asking the value question: Why do it here if you can do it more cheaply elsewhere?''
Big U.S. companies have been farming out large programming projects and call centers to countries like India and Russia for years, but smaller businesses increasingly are finding ways to take advantage of these and many other kinds of services over the Internet.
Consider translation projects. U.S. translation services generally charge between 15 cents and 25 cents per word for translation, but companies that use translators based outside the United States can charge as little as six to 10 cents per word. That kind of savings adds up quickly, especially if you're translating a book or piles of documents.
Gus Caldes founded Miami-based Span-it translation services ( www.span-itonline.com) about a year ago and now serves customers throughout the United States with translators in Colombia, Mexico, Spain, Brazil and elsewhere.
''I have a list of 800 official translators not only for English and Spanish, but also Portuguese, Danish, Hebrew and other languages,'' Caldes said.
From his Miami base, Caldes provides a local contact for his clients and a clearinghouse for translation projects that come in from all over the world. ''The nice thing about the company is everything is done through the Internet so it's very easy to manage,'' he said.
Stacey Shaw, founder of Exquisite Secretarial Services ( www.exquisitesecretarial.com), is a virtual assistant. ''A virtual assistant is someone who works from home, off-site, providing the same type of services as your personal assistant, only virtually,'' she said.
Shaw is part of a growing number of independent workers and small agencies that provide everything from data entry to event planning, bookkeeping, human resources, medical and legal services.
Originally from Jamaica, Shaw dreams of bringing this new business model back to her homeland. ''I know that the virtual assistant industry is just taking off in the U.S. and it's not in Jamaica at all yet, but I think it will be very beneficial to small businesses. Jamaican virtual assistants could work for both Jamaican clients and those in other countries,'' she said.
Shaw uses Web-based services, such as Ureach.com and efax.com, to share documents with clients. She also uses instant messaging and online meeting programs to keep in touch.
''When I came to the U.S., I realized there was a need for small businesses that couldn't afford to hire a full-time person with benefits to do part-time [administration] work,'' she said. ``About four years ago, I expanded the idea to becoming a virtual assistant and added specialty services like concierge and travel arrangements.''
Call centers are another common example of outsourcing, and for years companies have been setting up operators in rural areas of the United States to serve urban centers where labor is more expensive. Today, if you call to complain about a bill in Florida, the customer service agent could be in Ireland, the Philippines or India -- popular countries for call centers because labor is cheap and English-speaking employees are easy to find.
Spreading workers around the globe can also help fulfill demands for 24/7 coverage, translators who speak a variety of languages, and back-up services that can help ensure business stability in places where it's harder to manage day-to-day operations. Thanks to the Internet, even workers in the most isolated regions of the world can stay up to date on the latest technologies, training programs and services.
And small businesses, as well as big ones, are finding ways to hire independent workers and contract services across borders.
First publication, The Miami Herald, Mon, Aug. 29, 2002
