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.

With an educated base of highly skilled, English speaking IT professionals, the low-cost solutions that Indian IT companies provide has made India extremely competitive in the offshore outsourcing market. India also boasts of well-structured tax laws, quality certified software firms, a stable political system and excellent IT networking infrastructure. The high quality output of Indian IT businesses is evident from the fact that India now accounts for 65 percent of the global offshore outsourcing market in IT.

Businesses seeking offshore software development are increasingly looking at India for their needs as they enjoy benefits such as fast turnaround time, a workforce willing to perform under pressure, state-of-the art telecom systems and clearly defined IPR laws.

Unlike some other emerging IT markets, India is considered to be a mature offshore outsourcing market delivering proven results. This has kept it ahead of other global players such as Philippines, Singapore, China, Japan and other countries offering offshore software development.

As many Indian software companies have offshore clients based in the US and Europe, the time lag is also favourable, with a lag or 12 hours for the US and 5 for European countries. Companies from the US, Canada and Europe are turning to India for their software development needs primarily to save on their resources and to remain competitive in their industry.

Providing quality software resources for businesses is a challenge that companies in the IT industry are confronted with.  Through offshore software development outsourcing, the business does not need to hire employees and incur expenses on salary or associated labour costs. They only have to pay the outsourcing company for its services, a far cheaper option to paying wages in the US or Europe.  As labour costs are significantly lower in India companies abroad can outsource some of its functions at a much lower rate.

Software resources that can be provided vary in complexity, from applications such as .Net or Java to creating databases, smartcard solution, enterprise resource planning, wireless application, and some other solutions for business.  These software applications require huge financial resources and a large number of skilled professionals to carry out the work.

Outsourcing providers in India have these resources readily available. There are several software companies who staff hundreds of IT professionals fully equipped and trained to handle outsourced projects, saving companies a small fortune in finding and training staff in-house.

Besides monetary benefits, outsourcing can help in-house staff learn new skills and enhance their knowledge in software development.  Collaborating with an overseas team
IT experts, employees can adapt to new techniques and quickly put their skills into practice.