Outsourcing Administrative Support Services

Type of Administrative Support Services

Almost all businesses generate large amounts of administrative work and as a result the market for outsourcing services in this area is flourishing.

Much of the work falls within the following categories:

• Data entry – The ability of a business to successfully gather and collate information is often an important factor in its success. Data entry is a simple and fairly self-explanatory task, although work must be carried out accurately. Typical assignments would include entering data from business cards, client information forms or market research documents.
• Transcription – Conversion of information from one medium to another. The most common work in this type of administrative support involves carrying out dictation tasks or typing incorrigible PDF documents into more user friendly, amendable word documents.
• Internet research – Once again, this is a simple concept. Commonly, marketing companies seek internet researchers to visit websites of a certain genre in order to compile a list of key employees and their contact details. This list can then be used to approach these businesses, almost certainly with the objective of selling a product or service. Whilst this is the foundation of the work, it can actually be quite varied, with people requiring information on many different areas.
• E-mail response handling – These are usually customer service roles and can require greater personal contact between provider and outsourcer than some of the outsource services above.
• Personal assistant – Jobs can vary from advising on a discrete task which a small business does not have the expertise to deliver on its own all the way through to full PA / secretarial duties including, without limitation, many of those previously mentioned in this bullet pointed list. As with the last bullet point, these jobs will usually require a person who works in a similar time zone to their employer.

Critically Evaluate the Significance of Outsourcing

A business’s need for many of the web outsource services mentioned above can fluctuate quite significantly, when considering making allowances for these outsource services, make time for some sensible project planning. One major outsourcing benefit is the ability of a business to make quick adjustments to human resources in order to meet specific needs. Big corporations can find good quality staff quickly to meet short term needs whereas smaller companies are able to pay for administrative support services only when they actually need them. In many cases they can operate without staff on the permanent payroll.

Benefits of Outsourcing Administrative Support Services

Hiring at short notice can, of course, be a risk but the online platforms through which outsource services are bought and sold like Freelancer.com and  oDesk.com usually allow contractors to rate one another on the quality of past jobs. These sites even provide details of the most popular web outsource providers, information which is particularly used by bigger corporations looking to meet short term work / resource imbalances. Perhaps even more valuable is the fact that buyers are able to simply record their favorite service providers, whom they can then seek out each time a new opportunity arises. In this way, the online networking arena works in an almost identical way to any conventional networking arrangement – people introduce and sell themselves and then work is provided and secured based on reputation and past performance.

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