Outsourcing – What To Watch Out For With Virtual Assistants

Posted on 22. Jul, 2009 by admin in Business Outsourcing

Not all cases of outsourcing have been beneficial. There are many reasons for this. For instance telemarketers from Asian countries may not be understood by people from European countries.

While outsourcing may not work well in some industries, it has almost become essential in others… Outsourcing and offshoring is beneficial for smaller organisations and solopreneurs to compete with larger organisations with the help of virtual assistants.

The Virtual Assistant (VA) industry works well in both offshoring and outsourcing. This industry came into being when Personal Assistants began to use internet technologies to outsource their skills.

Initially virtual assistants outsourced their secretarial and administrative skills. However nowadays the services they provide has expanded to include graphic design, bookkeeping, event management, phone answering, copywriting, database development website development, internet research, risk management and more.

In simple terms work that can be done on a computer can be provided by a virtual assistant. Digital transcriptions is an excellent example of how work can be outsourced to a virtual assistant.  A recording in digital format can be emailed to a virtual assistant who will transcribe the recording and send it back in a word document in no time at all.

When business owners get bogged down by administrative work their first reaction is to think about hiring a full time employee. Slowly, this thinking is changing and more of them are beginning to realise the advantages of offshoring these jobs.

Outsourcing administrative jobs to virtual assistants gets rid of the taxation overheads, work cover, superannuation and also insurances. These are all taken care of by the virtual assistants. As you are important to them as clients, it is in their interest to look after your business needs. And of course you benefit from saving costs on equipment, furniture, software, furniture and other incidental expenses.

Before you offshore your requirements to a virtual assistant, ask yourself the following questions:

• What outcome do you wish to achieve form the virtual assistant?
• Are you outsourcing a one-off job or is this a long term arrangement?
• Do you need to sign a confidentiality agreement?
• Are the skills and is the experience of the virtual assistance in line with your requirements?
• Are you comfortable with treating the virtual assistants as if they were part of your staff?
• Will your virtual assistant be able to accommodate all your tasks, or will you need to use the services of a few?

Working relationships with virtual assistants can be very fruitful. Some relationships become so strong that they last for years. Relationships such as these have to be nurtured carefully, but the rewards to both the business and the virtual assistant are worth it.

Tags: Offshoring, outsourcing, virtual assistants