Offshore Outsourcing to India: 12 Ways Virtual Assistants are Changing the Game

by Virtual Employee Digital Marketer

Outsourcing was formally recognized as a business strategy in the late 1980s. It was around this same time that giants like GE and Amex started looking at India as a promising outsourcing destination. It won’t be farfetched to say (in fact, the dates and data all seem to point to this fact) that India’s foray into outsourcing coincided with, and was perhaps the catalyst behind, outsourcing being recognized as a legitimate and lucrative business strategy.

Over the next three decades, offshore outsourcing to India burgeoned into a mammoth industry that 80 percent of the world’s 500 largest companies now depend on.

The most recent avatar of outsourcing is offshore outsourcing. Also known as remote staffing, offshore outsourcing is a combination of the best that outsourcing and offshoring have to offer. Remote staffing firms in India like VirtualEmployee.com provide a unique business solution to companies, both big and small, by offering them custom-made offices with handpicked virtual employees. A client in this kind of a setup can train their remote employees as they like, communicate with them on a daily basis through cutting-edge telecommunication technology, and guide them through the initial stages of the project.

Once a client and their remote team have found their professional rhythm, the former can then treat the remote offices (and the offshore team) like an extension of their in-house team, without spending a penny on infrastructure, office space, hiring, recruitment, training, or anything else.

With all the benefits of having an employee (and none of the pitfalls), virtual employees –individual virtual assistants and whole teams of remote employees – have changed the way business is being conducted the world over.

Here is a look at 12 key benefits of hiring virtual employees:

Higher Savings: Virtual assistants cost less than full-time employees. Because offshore outsourcing in India handles a majority of the world’s outsourcing needs, and Indian skilled professional services cost about a tenth of what they would cost in say the United States, hiring virtual employees will save you a substantial amount annually.

Lower Liability: Remote staffing firms hire employees that you later pick to work in your team of remote employees. Any and all liability with regard to such employees is taken care of by the offshore outsourcing firm they work for.

Saves Time: You save the time you would have spent on recruiting, hiring, and training new employees. Virtual teams come armed with varied skill sets in a number of fields and you can handpick the ones that suit your requirements.

Scalability: Hiring virtual assistants also comes with the added benefit of getting the opportunity to scale your offshore team up or down according to the needs of your project without having to worry about disgruntled (or overworked, as the case may be) employees.

Saves Office Space: Virtual employees do your work without you having to accommodate them. When you outsource work to virtual assistants, you don’t have to spend on expanding your offices, buying new furniture, computers etc.

Pay Only for Services Used: Unlike full-time employees, virtual assistants get paid only for the duration of a project and you only have to pay for the services that you use.

Greater Talent Pool: Because remote staffing firms employ skilled professionals in different fields, hiring a remote staffing firm means you get access to a bigger pool of talent than an onshore recruitment drive would generate.

Expertise: Offshore outsourcing companies in India tend to hire people with experience and expertise in their respective fields. This ensures the availability of greater expertise to clients that come looking for virtual employees.

Helps Focus on Core Services: When day-to-day work is outsourced to virtual assistants, your onshore team can then spend its time on the core services of the company and also find time for innovation.

More Work in Less Time: With two teams working for you, more work gets done in less time. The productivity of your operations increases significantly, even as the turnaround time is reduced by half.

More Leisure Time: Having a remote team take care of your things allows you and your onshore employees to enjoy some down time and just relax. This ensures that when they get back to work, they do so with a refreshed, rested mind.

24x7 Operations: Offshore outsourcing to India means that your remote team is at work when your side of the world is fast asleep. This means that one of your teams is always working, and is, therefore, always available if and when your customers might need it.