Truly global scale. Worldsourcing companies have no single corporate headquarters
Porous corporate boundaries.Worldsourcing companies have porous corporate boundaries – meaning they manage a portfolio of “internal” (same owner) and “external” (different owners) resources in most aspects of their work.
Across all business functions. While some business leaders have managed global scale and porous relationships in one or two key functions (e.g., manufacturing and software development), Worldsourcing companies take this approach across all business functions – including marketing, product development, sales and customer service.
Wow, I couldn’t be more excited about how well this defines Flatsourcing, Inc. We are truly a global company and Worldsourcing is our enterprise model. A partnership between teams in Russia and the US with customers worldwide. I don’t think I could define our company better.
Will and I attended a core conversation panel at SXSW called Outsourcing 2.0 led by Sandeep Sood of Monsoon Co. It was a very interesting discussion, and Sandeep worked through a number of topics that are important in the next generation of outsourcing.
We discussed with Sandeep the pros and cons of building a personal connection between an overseas team and client. I offered up that it is important to Flatsourcing that our team in Russia is as connected as possible to cutting edge movements and technologies in Silicon Valley and across the globe. We must understand the environment that are clients operate in to fully understand their strategic direction. For this reason, even if technologies like Twitter, FriendFeed, and Facebook haven’t penetrated Russia yet, it is still important for our team to be active with and understand them.
Furthermore, we position our approach as “replicating hiring an an employee in your office as closely as possible.” We believe this is important because often the roadblocks to successful outsourcing are not technical, they are the fundamental barriers to human relationships: trust, respect and communication. We have found that building a “virtual bond” between our team and our clients via social technologies like Twitter, Facebook, instant messenger and blogging facilitates an understanding of each other and builds the relationship, just as social interaction amongst a team in an office does.
Sandeep felt that keeping business and personal interactions separate is important, and doesn’t encourage his team in India to connect with clients this way. We agreed that this may be more of a reflection of the more corporate environment of his client base than a fundamental difference in the importance of connection between virtual teams. Both approaches are clearly successful as Monsoon has a wonderful client base. We really enjoyed spending time with Sandeep.
One of the core values of our company is building a working environment with our clients based on trust, respect, open communication, and understanding. My strong belief is that one of the fundamental breakdowns in outsourcing 1.0 was the inate distrust that is built into the relationship structure. Of all the bad experiences that I hear about with outsourcing, they often start with eLance or oDesk. In my mind, trust and respect go further than technology can in ensuring a successful working partnership. The oDesk approach monitors a contractor like big brother, which imbues the relationship with a feeling of distrust right off the bat. I haven’t seen a time clock in a internet company ever where employees are required to clock in an out every time they sit down. When a contractor is involved, why do these systems become necessary?
We are thrilled about the recent addition of 4 new clients to Flatsourcing. Each of these clients has a different need that we are meeting. We are doing our best to build a trusting and personal relationship with each of them, and its working great. After all, the closer we are (even thousands of miles away), the more successful we can be together.
xxxxxx <xxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxx.com> wrote:
i HAVE GOOD 500+ OFFSHORE DEVLOPER IN ALL TECHNOLOGIES IN INDIA IF YOU INTERST
WITH US REPLY ME
This type of spam makes me so mad, because it is what drives the impression of outsourced web development that most people have. Would you do business with a company that sends you an email like this? Of course not. There’s clearly no reason to list everything thats wrong with it, but I will anyway:
No acknowledgment of addressee (Hi!)
ALL CAPS
misspelled “DEVLOPER” & “INTERST”
Incorrect grammar
No website for more info
Completely unprofessional
Obviously SPAM
While this email makes me angry with people who try to foist outsourced development on people as if they were buying a $19 DVD Player from Wal-Mart.
But… it also makes me happy, because I know the niche that we are targeting: high-quality, high-value outsourced web development exists because companies like this created an opening for us. This is why our focus on the user experience with outsourcing is what keeps our clients happy and is the reason client references keep us growing.
So, keep it up spammy outsourcers, you’re our best marketing.
