Starting and operating an outsourcing business is definitely worth a try given the very low overheads, especially if your aim is to run the whole operation online. It can get very lucrative for you if you get to a stage where you can consistently source labour online at a price which is even just marginally lower than the market resale price, but there are some basic essentials by way of the tools you need to give yourself a chance of making it a success.
Website
This makes up the bare basics of any remotely operated business, let alone an outsourcing one. There are definitely quite a few outsourcing businesses which don’t have a website to speak of, running into the tens of thousands in fact, but if you’re looking to get in on the action at this particular point along the development of this market then you’ll definitely need to have a website.
Getting one isn’t as expensive as you might think as there are so-called out-of-the-box, turn-key solutions in the form of ready-made WordPress templates that are specifically built for the operation of an outsourcing business. You won’t have to spend more than $75 to $120 max for a complete and customizable turn-key template which is purpose built for the operation of an online outsourcing business, fully-equipped with all the features you could ever need.
Finally, your website will need a domain name, obviously (e.g. www.youroutsourcingbuisnessname.com) and it will also need to be hosted. This will probably add up to a cost of about $13 for the domain name and $5-$15 per month for the web hosting service, the latter of which is determined by factors such as how much traffic your site will be receiving (bandwidth) and just how much of the resources your site generally uses.
Market
This is an essential tool which outsourcing business operators who don’t even have a website have mastered the use of, the importance of which is demonstrated by one’s ability to seek out a market which they’ll service with their outsourced labour. You need to find a market first, above all else, including your website.
Labour source
The labour source is the easiest part of the equation in that you can simply head on over to specialist freelancing platforms such as UpWork and Freelancer to tap into an ever-ready workforce of remote workers to supply the required labour, obviously at a price which is lower than that at which you’ll be reselling those outsourced services to your identified market.
Digital assets
As far as your digital assets go, this is just a selection of any digital tool that makes your job of automating the process of sourcing and delivering the outsourced as streamlined as possible. Unfortunately though this part is up to you, but a good direction to look towards is that which takes into account the likes of cloud computing and cloud storage facilities, online document editing platforms (like Google Docs) and anything else really which simply forms part of the process of operating your online outsourcing business. Most of these digital assets will be discovered by searching for a specific solution to a specific problem or challenge you’ll be facing while running your outsourcing operation.
