person-to-person outsourcing and India

Outsourcing of services by medium- and large-sized companies from US and Europe to low-wage countries like India, Russia, (also known as “offshoring”) has been going on for few years now. This trend is clearly helping the low wage countries to meet the demands of increasing population. The "aging" of developed countries has resulted in a lucrative market for "young" developing countries like India and China. With a large number of skilled workers available for relatively low wages the companies in US and Europe can drastically cut down their production costs. Indian companies like Infosys and Wipro are one of the leading outsourcing companies.
A new trend called person-to-person offshoring is rapidly catching up with these industry based outsourcing techniques. Person-to-Person Offshoring (PPO) consists of those services that can be offshored by entrepreneurs who are trying to bootstrap their new organization as efficiently as possible. With technology advances and the growth of the Internet, small offices, home businesses and even everyday individuals can utilize PPO services.

PPO includes

1. online tutoring
2. website development
3. graphic design
   
4. database, software(games or APIs) development
5. writing and translation services
6. accounting and tax preparation services
7. architectural, home and landscape design services
8. marketing and sales support services
9. creating drafts of legal documents
   

Different models are used for PPO.

• The “individual” client signs a contract directly with a vendor in a low-wage country, whose employees (e.g., tutors, admin) work on a full-time or a part-time basis, or as sub- contractors.The payments are usually made through credit card.

1. Indian companies like Satellier,BluentCAD, ASE Designsoft, Exceed International and DimensionICAD ,Xpitax, SurePrep, CCH, IFR, Datamatics, OPI and kpoexperts.com are rapidly making a name for themselves in this category.
   

• The vendors providing PPO services enroll in an online marketplace by paying a monthly subscription fee plus a fixed percentage of the revenue if they win the project through this marketplace.

1. Available marketplaces:

• Guru.com: Guru.com, a Pennsylvania-based company, seems to be the largest marketplace with more than 700,000 registered vendors and freelance professionals. Indians contribute a large chunk of this number.
• Elance.com: Elance.com, a California-based marketplace, is known for its outsourcing
  solutions supporting medium to large enterprises with around 125,000 registered vendors.
• GetAFreelancer.com
• RentACoder.com: The vendoes registered here accept only coding related projects.

The traditional jobs available in India are not sufficiently enough to keep rate of unemployment under control. The population is constantly increasing with a large part of it formed by youngsters with higher skills sometimes well beyond the job requirements. PPO is really helpful for these people as they can work on their own terms and that too from the comfort of their homes.From economical point of view the money these individuals get through this -the "relatively low" term notwithstanding - is really good considering Indian cost of living.The growth of PPO will help to reduce the heavy numbers choosing the traditional sectors of engineering and medical which will again help in reducing the sky high prices of enrolling in these sectors.