Buying Freelancer Services for Projects

The offshore outsourcing model and buying freelancers' project services offshore, pundits estimate, can bring cost savings of 50% to 70% depending on various factors.

"...At companies with revenues of at least $5 billion, as many as one quarter of IT jobs will be moved offshore by 2010" said ComputerWorld in May 2009. Outsourcing statistics show that the largest percentage (around 28%) of projects being outsourced, or the buying of services from freelancers offshore, is in the Information Technology sector.

Like all good things in life, creating cost savings by outsourcing to offshore service providers, is not without its risks. The biggest risks are communication problems. Language, accent, time zone, cultural issues and so on are the common ones. Before buying freelancer services or selecting your service provider, a potential service buyer should check out these things. This will ensure the success of the project and that the cost savings are realised in line with outsourcing statistics.

The key checks should be in those areas of communications, comprehension and understanding. Before selecting freelancers for your projects ensure that you have had some communications via the Project Forum or Private Message system. Better still, text chat or talk to the freelancers via Instant Messaging or Skype.

To ensure that you attract more attention from offshore freelancers you should consider buying "Special" Buyer status. To ensure that your projects are easily noticed, consider upgrading those projects to "Featured" status. Those projects will then be displayed on the front page of this freelancers marketplace  website thereby attracting more freelancer or service provider attention and hence getting more bids on the projects.

You should decide what are the specific freelancers' skills that will be necessary for your offshore outsourced project to be successful. This way you will be able to attract and select the "best" freelancers for your projects.

Always ensure that you have agreed all the details with the freelancer or service provider and that you have recorded such agreement in the Project Agreement, before work on the project commences . A sample Project Agreement for your use is included in this site (Guidelines). In this Project Agreement you should also record the agreements you have reached for your freelance work on milestones, payment schedules, deliverables and overall project timescale. We always recommend use of the Escrow service for the payment of fees to freelancers. This is for everyone's peace of mind.

Keep in touch with good freelancers, they are worth their weight in gold! Offer them new projects! It is easier, quicker and cheaper to go with those whose work you have already experienced, and are happy with, than taking chances outsourcing in the open market.

For addition information about buying offshore freelancer services, and specifying projects, go to the Guidelines section (bottom menu item) or the Outsourcing Institute which has useful information on outsourcing for buyers, service providers (freelancers) and influencers.