In State Outsourcing

It's funny you can't pick up a newspaper or magazine these days and not see an article about some company outsourcing this or that service to India or some offshore country. What's even funnier (if it wasn't so sad) is that you never read about an organization or business using the tools that make outsourcing possible to make their organization or business more competitive and productive.

For example say you have an open engineering position in the capital city of a state yet the best candidate for the position lives 200 miles away in another part of the state. Let’s also say that the person wants the job but for various reasons doesn't want to move. Should he or she have to? In today’s world I don’t see why it would be a requirement. Unless the job demands that you be in a specific location 24/7 (like running a hotdog stand) and you can always move the hotdog stand. Just about any “professional” engineering or computer job can now be done from just about anywhere. Given a high speed internet connection, a phone and the proper software you can do design and programming work from just about anywhere. For that matter you can manage hundreds of people doing just about anything from anywhere you want to. The days of looking out the office window to make sure everyone has his or her head down over a drafting board is long gone.

So the next time you think read an article about outsourcing this or that job give some thought by how you can take advantage of the tools and technology of outsourcing to expand your staff and fill vacancies while keeping the jobs and experience “AT HOME” or at least in the same state.

We all talk about the “virtual organization” it’s time to start building them!