Think about offshoring and companies like TCS, Infosys and Wipro come to mind. It could soon change, as freelance professionals are now beginning to enter the offshoring picture. A series of socially networked services marketplaces like Elance, Guru and LimeExchange are sprouting up online to help freelancers tap into various kinds of projects being outsourced by businesses of various sizes. It is encouraging small businesses including startups to outsource.
?We provide the gateway for small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs to tap into global resources,? explains LimeExchange India operations head, Pawan Agarwal. Earlier restricted to mere matching of buyers and sellers or providing simple feedback rating, most of the online exchanges now offer service providers?evaluation, integrated delivery management, knowledge networking and social networking tools. ?We help in looking at the references, recommendations, suggestions and ratings posted by the users about a particular vendor and its services,? adds vice-president (sales and marketing), Sorabh Jerath.
With analysts predicting a revenue of $2 billion by 2015, the industry will continue to be a small part of the total outsourcing pie. Revenue numbers, however, are only a part of the story. To understand the real potential of person-to-person (P2P) services, one needs to look at how they are extending outsourcing momentum to individuals and smaller companies. Currently, there are about 5,00,000 vendors and freelance professionals on more than 90 online marketplaces, according to a recent study by Evalueserve. ?It?s simply a different level in offshoring and not the next level or previous level. This trend shows that even freelancers can get on the offshoring bandwagon and make money,? says Alok Agarwal, chairman, Evalueserve, who has released a paper on P2P offshoring.
The mechanism is simple. A client posts his requirements for a new project in the online marketplace. Enrolled freelancers bid for these projects and showcase their skills and experience. The buyers judge quality and quantity and thus selects a vendor or freelancer for the service. As more and more exchanges come up, new features are constantly being added. Take ?proof of concept? just added by LimeExchange, for instance. ?Our proof of concept feature enables freelancers to earn money from all pre-sales efforts put in during bidding,? explains Lime Exchange VP (technology) Abhishek Gupta. Low-cost countries like India, Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, China, Vietnam, Thailand and Sri Lanka are emerging prominent players in the P2P services market. About 60% of Guru?s 6,25,000 registered freelancers and vendors and 50% of Elance?s 80,000 registered professionals come from low-cost countries. The story is similar on other online exchanges and the number goes even higher on tech sites like Rent a coder, which gets 80% of its programmers from low-cost countries.
India enjoys a lion?s share of the market, accounting for about 30% of the online freelancers in low-cost countries. Clearly, individual professionals will continue to discover many more ways of making bucks, as offshoring momentum trickles down to freelancers.