Enlist A Global Work Force Of Freelancers
Small businesses increasingly are tapping a new talent pool: the world.
A new generation of online service marketplaces is giving small companies more opportunities than ever to find specialized expertise and affordable labor.
Main Street businesses can shop a virtual international bazaar of freelancers to recruit computer programmers in Russia, graphic designers in San Francisco or data analysts in India.
These online marketplaces are fueled by several trends. The recession and recent wave of downsizing have forced many corporations to eliminate in-house services and use independent contractors instead. Buyouts and layoffs have pushed many skilled professionals into the freelance marketplace.
Meanwhile, technological advances make remote work and virtual teams more feasible. Business processes are allowing companies to mix and match services with more ease than ever. An array of freelance marketplaces are making services tradable online, much as eBay and Craigslist made goods tradable a decade ago.
These sites include general freelance marketplaces (Guru, Elance, oDesk) and others offering specialties like software (Rent A Coder), personal assistants (virtualassistants.com), graphics (99designs), or creative services (CrowdSpring).
Photo by biewoef.
Jaclyn on July 6th, 2009 8:32 am
That is a pretty cool concept. Today people in business are using freelancers more and more. Look at odesk.com, most of the work that is found on there is some sort of freelance work, minus the ones that are full time for ongoing work with the same boss throughout the duration of you being employed with them. It’s easier and cheaper to go online these days and find freelancers for the work that you need to be done.
Leave a Reply