Web-Based and Traditional Outsourcing

169

Chapter 11

Web Outsourcing

Examples

As the Web explodes in myriad hues, approaches, and means.

Ease of radio operation and cost was the argument advanced initially by radio

manufacturers after TV was introduced about 50 years ago. Improvements in TV

made it far more appealing than the radio though, in time.

In outsourcing online, the success of the two organizations is dependent on

each other’s success. To deal with the changing business conditions, the relation-

ship requires a moderate amount of dialogue. In traditional outsourcing, contract-

ing with an external entity to take primary responsibility for providing specied

deliverables, business process, and functions is not new. Online outsourcing has

helped to cope eectively with the management burden, thereby reducing the

costs by shifting operations to less expensive locations, thus taking care of high-

turnover, high-touch, and people-intensive processes. A much broader range of

projects, deliverables, products, and services are being outsourced today over the

Internet and other dedicated networks.

Projects That Are Good Candidates of These Models

◾ Repetitive

◾ Labor intensive

◾ Easily dened

170  ◾  Web-Based and Traditional Outsourcing

◾ Non-proprietary

◾ Predictable in volume and delivery date

◾ Knowledge exchange

General Category of Applicable Projects

◾ Coding work

◾ Design of application and/or respective reviews

◾ Software tools development

◾ In-house requirements

◾ Technical consulting for problem resolution

◾ Inviting experts for training

◾ Simple documentation work

◾ Research and development, product development

◾ Internal IT

◾ Customer service and support

◾ Back oce operations

◾ Buying of physical goods (nonsoftware)

◾ Consultancy services

◾ Project planning and management services

◾ Back oce services (i.e., transaction processing such as data entry,

processing)

◾ Web catalog and content management services

◾ Technology services—software verication and validation

Note: us projects of any nature and at all levels of the value chain can be put up

on the portal.

Not just mass production, but production

for the masses, by the masses.

Miscellaneous Examples

e vast elds of creation, to build upon.

Considerable types of creative services can be outsourced online, such as animation,

business writing, music composition, illustrations, photography, instructional design,

editing, textbook manuscript layout, screenwriting, video editing, photo editing, sto-

ryboarding, creative writing, graphic design, proofreading, technical writing, cover

design, art, white paper development, and so many more. Individual examples are

discussed in detail in the following sections.

Web Outsourcing Examples  ◾  171

Example—Design of Application and/or Respective Reviews

e core and its underlying framework.

Consider the need for designing a software application. is would involve issues

relating to design, number of underlying tables, elds, their normalization, etc.

Note: An inappropriate design could aect the robustness of application, and data

integrity, cause excessive coding, and lead to bugs, unanticipated future problems,

enhancement bottlenecks, etc.

Such an issue, if outsourced with inputs from many sources and experts would yield

an optimal design. is would lead to savings in time, eort, resources, quality, etc.

Example—Technical Consulting for Problem Resolution

e expert and his word, a decision enabler.

Consider the occurrence of slow performance issue for an application software

batch process that periodically processes a large volume of data. is may have

become a problem gradually due to the common ever-increasing volume of data

over time. e batch processing may have been within acceptable limits initially

due to lower data volume.

Note: Such a request can aect the contracted service level agreements (SLAS) with

customers and aect regular service adversely.

Such an issue, if outsourced with inputs from many sources and experts would

yield an optimal result.

Example—Application Development

Sourcing from a ready source or building anew.

Consider the need to develop a software application which has a certain functional-

ity set. Developing the same in-house needs, say, 100 person-days.

Vendor organizations which already have similar applications can deliver the

same in much less time and at a much lower cost versus that incurred by the orga-

nization developing it internally.

Example—Web Site Content Writing

Not just building content but also adding value.

Here are some of the services related to the Internet that can be outsourced. Web site

content writing is one of them, because it is known that a Web site is essential, but all