Pros and Cons of Offshoring for Startups

Offshoring, a business practice that is oftentimes referred to as outsourcing, is very appealing to online startup businesses. In fact, thousands of successful online startups have utilized offshoring to help get their business off the ground. While there are definite advantages to offshoring, you should also be aware of the drawbacks.

Three Positive Offshoring Aspects

1. Cost. Saving money is obviously the most positive aspect of offshoring. You can find workers in other countries willing to do the same work for much less. Sometimes the savings can even be more than 90%.

2. Timeliness. There are many companies that specialize in offshoring and they are able to put multiple workers on the same project to speed up the production time.

3. Flexibility. Since offshoring usually involves freelance work, you typically will only have to pay when there is actually work that needs to be done.

Three Negative Offshoring Aspects

1. Safety issues. Due to the person or company doing your work being in a different country, it’s very difficult to recover any money if a dispute arises. If the work involves any patents or copyrights, you’d be facing even further risks.

2. Lack of control. If someone is working in your office, you can usual control what is being done and when it’s being done. You don’t have anywhere near that amount of control if you are offshoring your work.

3. Follow-up assistance. Getting help after the work is completed can be difficult if you are offshoring. For example, if you have a piece of software created and then it suddenly stops working, finding the necessary help to get it up and running again could prove impossible.

Offshoring for your Online Startup Business (Image: Flickr)