I’ve had a few people ask me this.
Outsourcing
It is when you give all or part of a business process to a third party who run the process, giving you back the result. Most of us outsource our Accounting to an Accountant. 20 odd years ago big corporates outsourced complete processes like all their call centre processes to third world countries. That how this started.
It’s becoming common to outsource IT and Marketing. Business owners usually give these to a specialised service that’s based overseas.
Offshoring
It is when you hire people in another country. They work under your direction. You instruct / train / monitor and manage. They may not be direct “legal” employees – but you selected them, they do what you tell them to do, you can fire them. They could have any skill levels, as anyone you employed at home could.
This is where the big boom and huge productivity gains are. It’s also where there are great new business opportunities.
On my Tour I teach 7 different ways you can tap into the cheaper overseas wages. I also cover how to best use the Culture differences, what works and doesn’t work and how to avoid the various issues.
Equally as important, I open up tour attendees’ thinking to the new business opportunities Offshoring can bring.