The Lone Wolf versus the Pack - Which Are You?

Gone are the days when businesses used to be all about a one man show. Today, responsibility is best delegated to people down in the hierarchy. With more focus being towards core competencies, all mid- and low-level work is gradually being outsourced. So, are you the lone wolf who hordes all the work or part of the pack?

Freelance sites

Today freelancers are all located over the world and they are readily available to take on work regarding specific projects. Depending on their specialized area of expertise, you can delegate all your non-core projects to them. The good thing about such freelancers is that they provide you with high quality services at a fraction of the cost. It's a win-win situation for all parties involved. You as a service buyer get good quality work at lesser cost. The freelancer gets paid a good amount for the project completed. There are plenty of freelance sites these days such as Elance, Rent a Coder, etc. which all promise high quality talent.

Virtual assistants

Hectic deadlines, marketing initiatives, strategic business opportunities waiting to be tapped - does your calendar sound like this? If so, you are just like the many other entrepreneurs who are overburdened with work. To top it all, you also have to take care of essential yet non-value added work like maintenance and support, clerical jobs etc. If you wish to focus on your core competency and leave the burden of these mid- and low-level jobs to someone reliable, consider hiring a virtual assistant. You can avail a plethora of back office support functionalities at a fraction of the cost. Since all virtual assistants are self employed, any overhead costs they bear are at their own expense. So that also saves you considerable money. You only pay for the number of hours put in - unlike in your office where even downtime needs to be paid for. This saves you from a lot of overhead costs and unnecessary expenses. Many small businesses are slowly waking up to the tremendous benefits of such virtual assistant services online.

Product development

Nowadays many companies are even outsourcing components of their product development lifecycle activities. While crucial and company sensitive stages like architecture and conceptualization are still retained, the more non-sensitive steps like coding and testing have largely been outsourced. The reason is that the overall costs of custom development and implementation costs much less when compared to doing it in-house.

Delegation is the key

Today the mantra of success is to move away from micro-management and focus on the core areas. If you are a business owner you need to stop focusing on the entire daily nitty-gritty's of work and instead focus on more strategic business moves. Factors such as expanding into new territories, fine-tuning marketing campaigns, lead generation strategies etc. should top your list of activities, as opposed to activities like website maintenance, organizing and scheduling meetings etc. However, while delegation is important in today's world, every good manager knows that delegation can be recalled if the situation demands. That's why it is important to be on top of things and be aware of what's happening in every aspect of the business.

(c) 2007, Doug and Claudia Brown. All rights reserved. Reprint rights granted so long as article and by-line are published intact and with all links made live.

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