How to ride the global outsourcing wave

John W. Schoen Senior Producer • Profile • E-mail

Nurani, a graphic designer in Bangladesh, is looking to hitch a ride on the outsourcing wave sweeping U.S. and European companies -– but isn’t sure how to get started.

Meanwhile, Desaray in Philadelphia doesn’t know what to say to relatives who keep bad-mouthing her decision to buy whole life insurance policies with her fiancé.

GLOBAL DESIGNS
A: I have a small graphic design house. I want to contact other houses in USA or Europe for sub-contract basis. Could I? -- Nurani M., Dhaka, Bangladesh

A:Yes, you can. In fact, you can bypass those design houses and sell your services directly to customers looking for outside providers of all kinds services -– from computer programming to accounting.

Last year, an estimated $350 billion worth of work was “outsourced” by U.S. companies alone, according to Cutting Edge Information, a business research firm in Durham, N.C. And that number is expected to grow. Another recent study, by the outsourcing firm Accenture, found that American and European companies plan to boost spending on overseas goods and services by 85 percent within two to three years.

So how do you find this outsourced work? You could contact other graphic design firms -- there are thousands of them on the Web –- or contact employment firms that match up graphic designers with companies looking for freelancers. Even better, you can skip the “middle man” and sell your services directly via Web sites like Contracted Work, Guru.com or Elance Online.

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You’ll pay a fee to these sites to list your services, and another fee when you find a buyer -– typically a percentage of the cost of the project. Some sites, for a higher monthly fee, will guarantee you a minimum number of job leads. (You may want to mark up your service fee to your customers to cover the cost of these listing and transaction fees.)

So if you're not ready to set up your own sales and marketing department, these sites let you outsource the job of finding work around the world. But before you sign up and pay for this service, shop around. Contact the sites you’re interested in, ask to speak to other graphic designers who list there and see what they have to say about the reliability of leads.

And if you haven’t already done so, you’ll probably want to set up a Web site of your own to show off your work. You may even want to outsource some of the work to a professional Web designer. Having a well-designed, up-to-date site of your own will help overcome one of the biggest hurdles identified in the Accenture survey. Companies looking to outsource work say their biggest concerns include doubts about whether outside suppliers would get the job done quickly and reliably. By highlighting recent jobs on your Web site, you’ll go a long way toward putting potential customers at ease.

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