For most of us who don’t seem to follow business success stories in Australia, here’s the first short story we probably haven’t heard of. Mark McRae is one of the Sunshine Coast entrepreneurs in Australia. He has successfully managed and own multiple businesses (and we’re counting more than 30 companies!) while still maintaining his work-life balance. Considering that he has a wife and three children, we could tell that he’s a really busy man. Yet, he was still able to hire 1,300 people and generated $280 million in online and offline sales for his businesses. That would only be possible with outsourcing, and yes, that’s his secret. Some small business owners may find ‘outsourcing’ as a dirty word, but not for him. He was able to enjoy the full benefits of outsourcing to various countries, such as Malaysia, the Philippines, South Africa, the USA, and India. Mr. McRae shared, as quoted from the news, “Outsourcing can give you access to a dizzying array of highly skilled professionals from all over the world. For example, to produce a professional documentary, I hired a script writer in the USA, film crew from Canada, post-production team in Croatia and editor in Serbia.”
Anything is almost possible with outsourcing – any job, especially if done with a computer, is accessible from any part of the world. Not only have you increased the chances of getting a more experienced person or team to do the job, you also get to save time, resources, and focus more on your businesses’ growth and your life’s bounty. Pat Keegan, SVP for Business Development and Client Solutions at Infinit-O, shared an enlightening article that lists down the typical benefits companies can get from outsourcing. The list includes some unfamiliar ones like enhanced capacity for innovation and competitive necessity.
On the other hand, let’s take a little step forward from outsourcing to crowdsourcing. There’s this success story that I recently read on Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) website, and it’s greatly inspiring. Vivek Wadhwa is also a busy (and noble, I might say) man. His WSJ’s profile seems to tell everything about him already. Moving on, the best thing about his success story is that almost every project that he has done has become successful through crowdsourcing. If you have read the WSJ article, Mr. Wadha took advantage of the available resources and talent pools around the world to promptly finish the projects. That doesn’t stop there, beating the timeline isn’t also the main benefit of doing it – it’s all about quality as well. After reading the article, I was actually amazed by how Mr. Wadha planned all the crowdsourcing tasks. I imagined how difficult it could be, but it didn’t seem more like it.
Now what are the common denominators of both of these stories?
Mark McRae: “With new technology, work is no longer a place, it’s a function, which can be performed anywhere at any time.”
Vivek Wadha: “Distance, location and borders are no longer barriers.”