Rita J. Cartwright Southern, Founder
As an onshore Virtual Assistant and small business owner, I feel obligated to inform small business owners about the disadvantages of outsourcing to offshore virtual assistants (VAs).
When you choose to outsource offshore, you are going to encounter virtual assistants who are not familiar with our culture and language. Although, they speak English, generally, it is not their first language. This causes language barriers, communication gaps, and lack of understanding. Is the frustration worth the money you save? Keep in mind, offshore VAs’ cost of living is much lower than ours. They can afford to work for less money. If you choose to outsource confidential personal data offshore, it may not be protected. Firms in India currently are not equally subject to any extensive legislative or regulatory data-protection controls.
Offshore VAs work for an outsourcing firm and are not business owners. They do not have a vested interest in your business other than getting more projects. Most of us, onshore virtual assistants, are business owners; therefore, we understand the operations of a small business, as well as what is required to develop it. Our goals are to establish an ongoing business relationship with you in order to help you reach your goals. We want you to succeed in your business. Erin Blaskie of Business Services, ETC stated in her blog, “These companies are working day and night going through a wide variety of tasks just to get them back out the door. They aren’t spending the time to strategize and become a partner in your business. They are simply providing cheap labor.”
Another disadvantage is offshore virtual assistants can’t operate without access to the Internet. On January 31, 2008, India had an Internet outage due to snapped cables in the Mediterranean Ocean. You can read the entire article here. Onshore virtual assistants’ Internet providers are their phone companies, cable companies or satellite providers. We are not at the mercy of a cable under the ocean.
There are several disadvantages to offshore outsourcing, including drastic differences in time zones. The one main advantage to outsourcing to offshore virtual assistants is saving money. The old adage is true. “You get what you pay for.”
RJ’s Internet Marketing Services
*All links were working when post was published.
sad to say that there are many disadvantages for those people who are work for this offshore in the field of outsourcing. but as i have researched there are companies which resolved these problems assuring their clients to have the maximum benefits regarding to there expectations as a client hiring an offshore agent. the companies state the advantage of having an agent from them this includes the efficiency of there communication skills. i had read this at there site www . agentsofvalue . com
Rita, I couldn’t agree with you more. Virtual Assistants take great pride in supporting their clients with building their businesses – someone who is paid $5/hour will not have that same level of interest. It discourages me when I hear of business owners who are working with offshore VAs just because of the low rates. In fact, I read a post earlier this week about someone who tried working with an offshore company and was horrified with the quality they received.
Thanks for sharing!
Cindy Greenway
Virtual Manager
http://www.HotSkillsVATraining.com
http://www.GrowYourVABiz.com
http://www.MultipleStreamsTeam.com
I caution Virtual Assistants from lowering their rates too much when they start out. You may attract some work, however it makes it difficult to raise your rates once you are established with those clients – they may not value your skill and expertise at the higher rate since they have been receiving it at the lower one.
I’ve seen this happen with several virtual assistants so thought I would share.
Thanks!
Cindy Greenway
Virtual Manager
http://www.HotSkillsVATraining.com
http://www.GrowYourVABiz.com
http://www.MultipleStreamsTeam.com
Learn 11 Continuously-In-Demand ‘Hot’ Virtual Skills and Watch Your Business Explode…
New Class Starting June 3, 2008 http://www.HotSkillsVATraining.com
I dont think I agree with your points here. There are scores of offshore service providers in developing countries like India who provide excellent virtual assistant services. They have highly skilled professional staff who are well versed in English and other languages and ensure optimal quality of services.
I feel while looking for VAs, one should rather look at the quality of work, their experience and expertise instead of discriminating on the basis of geographical locations.
You can certainly find many highly skilled US based virtual assistants in a wide variety of fields at the VAnetworking.com website. VAnetworking.com even has a free ebook, “Finding A VA†(http://www.vanetworking.com/find-a-virtual-assistant) that you may find helpful in your search.
Thanks of the practical advice. We are a team of virtual assistants based in India. This will surely help us in our routine business..
I read this spirited exchange and decided to air my views. I am not a virtual assitant.
1. For a large number of Indians English is their first language, as it is in my case, with Bengali being my mother tongue. But yes, we do speak Indian English, just as Americans speak American English, Asutralians speak Autralian English and so also the written language.
2. As for sharp differences in culture, agreed, those can be problematic.
3. Legislation is not what protects your data, it is the integrity of the person or prescribed systems within the organization. I agree this can be a disaster area and there have been instances of data stealing in India.
4. If you pay peanuts you get a monkey. If someone pays $5 per hour what does he/she expect to receive. Just look at wages in India for that sort of work.
5. As far as Internet connectivity is concerned our machines were running slow in that period. The bit you have written there smacks of lack of technological knowledge. We are talking of a failure in the backbone. India has cables to Singapore and a whole lot of satellites.
Telephone companies in the US provide the last mile connectivity.
On the whole yes, US companies would be safer outsourcing to US VA since failures in the backbone could be rerouted easily.
6. One thing I feel is that VAs in the US should go up the value chain, they should be able to handle things like Pivot charts in Excel and upgrade their work. That is one of the best ways of competing.
Great post, thanks so much for sharing this information.