Outsourcing made easy with remote staffing
John Marchant
In 1999, Business360 founders John Marchant and Roger Sharp believed that the Internet would alter how business services were delivered, that cheap and fast communication combined with better access to information would enable companies to decentralize through outsourcing ‘by-wire’ functions, such as research, analysis, call centers, legal work, translation and data entry and so on. Looking for a name to reflect the full potential scope, they chose Business360.
Most approaches to online service delivery fall into two categories: marketplaces - where buyers choose between bidding providers – and offshore centers, with facilities located in low-cost countries (India, Philippines etc), where the same work could be done at lower pay. Both have their benefits, but users often voice a string of
criticisms: inconsistent quality, lack of immediacy, cumbersome to use, high employee turnover and failure to deliver promised cost-savings.
Roger Sharp
John and Roger’s idea was to build virtual teams to tackle a wide range of specialist assignments. In the area of research, for example, they built a team of some 50 highly experienced information professionals and researchers capable of handling most research assignments. They have added teams of writers, analysts and so on.
The people in these teams are very diverse, but all are highly experienced, professional and motivated. Some live in the heart of large cities, others are located miles from anywhere; some are in western countries, others are from the developing world.
Virtual teams provide cost savings for clients (e.g. lower accommodation and other overhead costs) and using experienced professionals means shorter learning curves and lower (or no) training costs.
Jason Watt (stylized view)
Along the way, John (based in New York) and Roger (on the Kent coast in England) realized that managing these teams would need powerful online workflow management processes, payment tracking and quality control systems. Enter Jason Watt (Ballarat, Australia) who designed and built the systems that do this and now have their own site – ClickNwork – where people interested in teleworking can register their interest and take rigorous tests to join work teams. It has over 70,000 registrants interested in joining work teams, although only a small percentage have been selected for work. If you want to know more about work-from-home opportunities, please visit the site (www.clicknwork.com).
Since start-up, Business360 has grown rapidly, with many of the world’s top corporations using Business360 services. Relationships with clients have grown organically and now span a wide range of sectors and functions. Some clients ask Busines360 to set up new processes designed specifically for them, while others draw on established services that we have built using our teams’ skills and experience. Business360 still does a lot of work in research but along the way it has developed specialized services, including
- estaff360 to build teams to provide high quality services for ongoing needs or temporary assignments
- trendspotter360 to help deliver early insights on important market trends and feed innovation
- insidetrack360 to use intensive research to create advance information for hedge funds and investors that will help trade positions before market-moving news
