Advantages and Disadvantages of Outsourcing

The tremendous growth of the outsourcing industry is attributed to the 1) huge benefits that businesses, both small and big, have experienced from outsourcing, 2) emergence and rapid growth of capable service providers who leave the corporate world, and

3) advancement of technology used in the industry.

Advantages of Outsourcing

The top benefits of outsourcing are:

•   Significant  savings on overhead – salaries and training costs
•  Achieve speed - due to round-the-clock shifts in most offshore outsourcers’ location, work is completed fast
•  Improved quality of service due to specialization or field expertise of provider
• More time to focus on core business
•  Increased business opportunities
• Access to highly specialized skills
• Access to better technology  
• Save time and energy
•  Avoid stress and have more time for relaxation and recreation
• Hire only on a per-project basis  

What to Outsource

Some business activities that can be outsourced are customer service, data entry and conversion services, transcription services, finance and accounting services, billing, collection, tax preparation, claims processing, statutory reporting, patent writing, evaluation, architectural services, blueprint creation, translation services, graphic design, website development, typesetting, HR Services such as recruitment, payroll processing, insurance services such as adjustment, claims processing and management, distance learning services such as course development, online training, marketing advertising and PR services such as press release writing, copywriting, marketing plans, social media marketing,  product and brand management, sales management, publishing services, design, legal services such legal research, information gathering, office procedures, and brief drafting.  

Disadvantages of Outsourcing

These are the possible risks and disadvantages to outsourcing:

• Job drain and its economic implication
•  Intellectual property and security issues
•  Loss of direct control
• Standard of quality may be compromised
• Loss of Corporate Social responsibility implementation
• Contractor may not have a genuine commitment to your success
• It has a psychological impact to your in-house employees
• High staff turnover as a result of low employee morale due to outsourcing
•  Non-retention of Talent
• The usual staff training, performance assessment, and feedback will also consume time.  

How to Make Outsourcing Work Best for your Business

Successful outsourcers have developed preventive measures and business practices to ensure foolproof outsourcing activities. These are their recommendations:

1.    Determine your needs. Assess your own competencies, strengths as well as your handicaps. Is it lack of time? What non-core tasks are most time-consuming? This is one way to decide which business tasks can be farmed out.

2.    Know exactly what you’re looking for so you’d know exactly where to look.

3.    Find the right service provider. Review the services they offer, the terms and conditions, their roster of contractors, profiles and other information about the prospective contractors.

4.    If you do not have a service contract ready, then review the service provider’s contract very carefully. If it does not meet your specific terms and conditions propose a revision accordingly.

5.    Communicate your expectations to the contractor. Let them know about your expectations and standards.

6.    Conduct training or orientation. It is important for the contractor to know your company, your company’s mission and vision, your clientele, your system, procedures, and specifications so he/she can align her goals and activities with yours.  

7.    Give your contractor/s enough time to get acquainted with your processes. Be patient as there will be a learning curve on the contractor’s side.

8.    Some measure of trust is necessary to allow for resourceful freedom and inspired creativity.

9.    Keep yourself available to answer vital questions from your contractor.

10. Give honest feedback.

Managers can address any outsourcing risks. In fact, successful Outsourcers have transformed their business practices to cope with these risks. Disadvantages can also be avoided by partnering with the right service provider. If you are really interested in finding out how outsourcing can help your business, then don’t  any of these disadvantages stop you.* written exclusively for 2damcreative

THE CAT WHO CAME HOME TO DIE?

Catloy was about  3 months old when I brought him home in a box in February 2006. He was a gift from a friend who lived in BF Homes. Stariray, my dog, was about the same age as Catloy so they became friends. They used to cavort on the sofa, and Stariray was often the first to give up when play became rough because Catloy had sharper claws.

During his first months at home, he amused us with the speed at which he would catch a mouse and then with the way he would play with the mouse before giving it his deadly __ Catloy would  bounced the mouse up and catch it and repeat the process until the mouse ___

He rid the house of all the ___ mice and slept at the kitchen.

When more dogs arrived, he learned to sleep atop the ref.

FAMILY FARM LOT/HOME LOT  AVAILABLE !!!  AS  LOW  AS  P200T  per  square meter,  Wt.  MANGO  AND  RAMBUTAN  TREES,  &  MINERAL  SPRING  WATER.  LOCATION:  SAMPALOC,  RIZAL – THE   PROPOSED   15^th  municipality  of   Rizal, & the 3^rd  COLDEST  SPOT  IN  THE  COUNTRY;  SAFE AND  SECURE  PROPERTY,  IDEAL  FOR   VACATION/REST HOUSE,  FOR   UNWINDING  AND  FOR   RECHARGING  THROUGH THE  POTENT  ENERGIZING    POWER  OF  THE   SOIL.  FEEL THE  HEAT  OF  THE   EARTH. 

           WHOOZ!!! BREEZY PLACE! :)

v City dwellers  can  have  closer ties with nature, with where their food comes from, with growing things.

v The  climatic, geographic, environmental, cultural,  and  security   conditions  in our small   farms   promote  environmental  sustainability, and   health  through  organic  farming.   Farming  is  the  way   of the future.

v Small family farms are the backbone of a community, a nation, and of society as a whole. A landscape of family farms is settled, balanced and stable, and generally sustainable. It  is  the natural shape of society on the land. Such communities aggregate into strong and secure nations.

v Low-cost food  shall  be  possible   through   small     farms  that   sustain  the  needs  of  the   family.  

v Small  family  farms   adopt  techniques  that  maintain   soil  fertility

  

v The main benefit is health: healthy crops and livestock, healthy soil, and healthy yields, along with low input costs.

v Our nation's economic foundation is built on the backs of   small farmers.  The survival and success  of  small  farms  is   important not   only  to their families, but  also  to consumers, rural communities, the environment, and the global economy. 

v Society benefits from organic food  come in several ways:  it  develops  a local sustainable food economy, addresses  the concerns for their own health, reduce the chemical pollution of the soil, air and water, and reduce land erosion.

v Most importantly, organic agriculture offers an answer to the environment improvement programs established by our governments.

v It  is  industrialization that collapses rural economies, driving the farmers into factories and city slums, fodder for economic growth and a "development" that turns a country from food self-sufficiency to a producer of commodities with massive food import bills 

v Soil erosion, loss of organic matter, hardening of soil, chemical penetration, nutrient depletion, excess salinity and other damage can  be  reduced  through  family  farming.

v The  small  organic  farm   can  help   build  a  strong  economy  for  our  country

MA. FRANCIA  BENGCO

Exclusive  Agent

0916-5159858, 0999-8091655,  0922-4610048

email:  greencodesystems@yahoo.com     savedremnants@gmail.com

FLASH FLOODS SURPRISE MANY NATIONS OF THE WORLD

Why do we get disastrous flash floods everywhere? Well, some people would say the end of the world is near. Not quite, I think. Environmentalists are doing their best to reverse the damage humans have done to our mother earth. However, the beneficial result of their efforts might take a century to manifest. Remember, human activity has been changing the face of the earth for the last 5 thousand years.

So while we can protect the lives of our families from the catastrophe of natural calamities, why not do it? Let’s help save our planet by being earth-friendly, by taking care of our environment, by saving our trees, by not polluting our seas and rivers, etc. In the meantime, let’s try to avoid building our houses on the level of bodies of water, let’s not build our houses atop earthquake fault lines, let’s move our residences away from frequently flooded places.

Move to a flood-free, earthquake-proof house and lot for a low to low-middle income family. Ondoy had ravaged many parts of Luzon, but this place was dry and safe.

The  property   has  a  lot area  of  60m2  ,  a  veranda  overlooking  the  Lagro Grotto  Resort,   A  living  room,  1  bathroom,  kitchen/dining  area,  2 bedrooms,    a  mini  swimming  pool which   could  be  filled  up to  4-5  feet  of  water.  It  is  ideal  for  kids,  for  adult  water  exercises for  therapy  or  health  maintenance,  and  most  importantly,  for  family  bonding. Parking lot is common to 5 homes.

 It  is  close  to  a   shopping mall,  Susana  Mart,  the  Mercury  Drug  store,   hardwares,  service shops,  banks: (PNB, Metrobank, BPI, Landbank),  and  schools (both private & Public)   are  just  mere  walking  distance.   Greenwich,   Jolibee,   Chowking  and  other  food  shops   have already been  operating  in the   community.  Food  in the   wet   MARKET  is  cheaper compared  with  Metro Manila    because of  the  proximity   to   food  suppliers & farms.  The subdivision is part of the province of Bulacan which  is  still  very  much  an  agricultural   province. So this is the reason food prices are cheaper.  The   NEIGHBORHOOD  is  peaceful, it  is  a  SUBDIVISION  COMMUNITY ESTABLISHED  BY A  FORMER  JESUIT  CATHOLIC  PRIEST  who  had  dreams  of  building  affordable  homes   and   ideal  communities  for   Filipinos.   He   required   the  housing  applicants   to   attend  a  2-week  seminar  on  responsible  home  ownership  and   harmonious  social   interaction  within  the  community  itself.  Skyline General Hospital and Medical Center a 5-storey Class A Hospital to be built on Quirino Highway, Barangay Tungkong Mangga. (Beside INC Gumaoc).

I  was  able  to utilize the  entire  60   square  meter  lot   by  expanding  the  floor  area  to  almost  60 square  meters  too ,  because I  used  the  frontage  for  a  veranda,  and  the  back  for  a  kiddie  pool.  So  now  the  Floor  Area  is  also  60  square meters. Most important of all is that the full steel roofing structure allows for a concrete or wooden second storey.- Maria Francia Bengco

For inquiries, please message me at 0999-8091655

How to Tell if the Guy You're Dating is Married

         Research shows that roughly 40 million American singles use online dating and social networking sites to meet new people. Approximately 13.5 million Americans using online dating services are married. If you are serious about finding your true love in an online dating service, make sure you don’t deal with married people.

        

         These are the indicators that the man you met through the dating site is married:

         1. He's never around during Sundays or holidays. Holidays are spent with the family. You can’t be together on Valentine’s Day. You would either have a date before or after that day.

         2. He’s usually not available during late nights every night during the week. He can’t call you, and you can’t get him on the phone. He tells you he goes to bed early so he can go to work early.   

         3. He can’t stay long on the phone during late nights and his voice is either muffled, or almost whispering when he answers your call.

         4. You’ve never been to his house. You haven’t met his Mom, and his other close relatives. These people usually won’t consent to infidelities so he won’t introduce his mistress (you) to them.  

         5. There’s a tan-line, a sign, that a ring was recently taken off his ring finger.

         6. He selects the places you go to. These are usually out of town, never near his place of residence or office. He gives strange reasons for not wanting to go to certain places, parks, restaurants, or public places.

         7. He doesn’t or refuses to give you his home phone number. You only have his cellphone and wireless land phone.

         8. Sometimes he will not answer his cellphone when you are together. If a certain call becomes repetitive and constant, he gives an excuse that the phone signal is weak so he has to go out or walk farther away from you to get a better signal. You don’t hear him talking on the phone. When he returns, you sense that he is no longer focused, a little distracted, anxious, or even hurried. Was it the wife asking him to get some groceries and bring them home? Is there a family emergency?

 

         9. If he restrains you from hard kissing or soft-biting his ears, lips, chin, or neck, he doesn’t want kiss marks to appear on his skin. Only a married man won’t want to show off his kiss marks.

         10. He uses cash (never credit cards) to pay for your restaurant bills, resorts, airline tickets, and shops so that his expense activities won’t show on the billing statements that are sent to the home address.

         11. There are times when you don’t hear from him at all so you get a little worried and try to call him on his phone. There’s no answer. You become even more worried. That’s the time he will call and tell you:  “Love, I will explain later..Don’t worry.” (Was he dealing with guilty feelings?)

         12. His wallet contains a picture of children or a woman with children.

         13. His lovemaking is the best you’ve ever had. Of course, he has the necessary experience, and he does his best to compensate for certain things—such as the marriage that he will never be able to offer. He wants you to become addicted to him, so you’d find it extremely difficult to want another man, not even a unattached guy.

         14.  He alludes to “things he will tell you later.” There’s an air of mystery in him. It’s something that enchants you even more.

         15. When you become suspicious, or he senses that you are starting to get suspicious, he will confess that he’s …been wanting to tell you about the truth—that he is married—but just couldn’t find the right time to do it. He apologizes and gets even more romantic, solicitous, and wonderfully attentive. This stage of confession happens only after he senses that you are already deliriously in love with him. After all, he has been hearing you moan your ecstatic appreciation of his great lovemaking.

         Don’t wait for this confession stage to happen. By that time it could already be too late.  If you become suspicious of a guy’s status, do some research immediately to confirm your gut feeling. Marriages are public records and quite easy to obtain.

         Then don’t become involved with him anymore. Otherwise, you’d ruin your chances of meeting the right guy.  - Maria Francia Bengco

Are you in a Love-Hate Relationship?

          We are all aware of couples who fight a lot and yet could not stay apart. Their union incorporates aspects of both love and hate. Their relationship may aptly be called a love-hate relationship. Extreme love and extreme hate occur in their relationship simultaneously or alternatingly. 

          It happens when a couple who has lost a loving relationship still feel committed to each other. It can exist from the very start, such as during the dating stage when one realizes that the other has told lies but they are still attracted to each other. It could happen during marriage when a couple who have loved and admired each other start to dislike each other for one reason or another, such as when one suspects the other of unfaithfulness. These couples still engage in active sex that usually lacks tenderness and often involves roughness. 

          Hate shouldn’t play a part in any loving relationship. When you become aware of love and hate coexisting in your togetherness, here are helpful suggestions:

          1. Accept that there is a problem so you can start working towards fixing it.

          2. Resolve the underlying issues that are causing it. It might not be easy.

          3. Identify the cause of the “hate” in your relationship and deal with it.       

          4. Develop the “love” part and eliminate the “hate” part.

          5. Both of you should work together to change and improve your relationship.

          6. If you can’t seem to make any progress despite your mutual efforts, seek  professional help. A marriage counselor knows how to help you stay focused on your goal of improving your relationship.

          Change will happen because change is a constant part of life. 

          Wish you the best of luck!

         

WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION

        You’ve probably come across the phrase “optimize your website” and the  acronyms SEO/SEM. These terminologies refer to the process of making  your  website highly accessible among  the millions of websites in the internet. SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization, an artistic and scientific procedure to help your prospective customers/audience find you easily when they need your product or service. SEM means Search Engine Marketing, the process of creating, offering, and delivering goods and services to customers through the strategic use of search engine optimization principles.

     Here are a few essential SEO terms. Most of these were either lifted or  adapted from www.seamoz.org,unless otherwise indicated. Others are my own explanations. (You may check for other available definitions if necessary):

Aging delay. Search engines have  a  way of recognizing if a website  is  very new and these newly-launched sites are allowed to wait until they come of  age. This is similar to the term: “first come, first served.” Senior websites (6 months old and up) get prioritized for higher ranking.

Black Hat. These are optimization practices that are against search  engine policies. The penalty is removal from the index of  search engines.

Bot. (robot, spider) This is a program which acts autonomously. Search  engines use these to index or retrieve web pages. Spammers  use  bots, too, for their questionable intentions.

Cloaking. The  practice of delivering different content to the search  engine spider than seen by the human users. This is considered a  “Black Hat” tactic  and carries a virtual death penalty of the website or domain. It is  banned from the  search engine  results once discovered.

CMS. Content Management System. This is a publishing system that is  used for storing, controlling, revising, semantically enriching, and  publishing  documents such as articles, movies, pictures, phone numbers, scientific data, etc. (adapted  from  Wikipedia)

Content. (text, copy,images) The part  of a  web page  that is  intended  to  have value for and be of interest to the  user.

Density. (keyword density) the percentage of times a keyword or key phrase appears on a page in proportion with the total number of words on the same page.

 The more times the keyword appears in relation to the total number of on page words, the greater the overall keyword density. 

Doorway. (or gateway) A  web page  that is  designed  specifically  to  attract  traffic  from  a search  engine which immediately  redirects users  to  another   site or  page. This is also considered as cloaking. 

Stay around for more optimization terminologies in the next blogs. Copyright 2011 Ma. Francia O. Bengco. (All rights reserved)