Business News

SIDEBAR: Australian boss defends outsourcing on price, quality

Dec 14, 2011, 6:49 GMT

Sydney - Australia's Matt Barrie, who aims to make his Freelancer.com outsourcing site the 'eBay of jobs,' said giving companies access to 'virtually unlimited labour at next to no cost' would change the face of business.

QUESTION: How would it change business?

BARRIE: All those ideas you have about growing your business you can now get done without the time, hassle and cost that was involved previously. You can now finally get that website built that you wanted, new designs for your brochures, some software built or that iPhone application developed.

It's just so simple and you can find highly skilled people to help you any time of day. Now you can focus on all the fun and value-creating parts of your business. All the things you don't like doing that are repetitive or laborious, you can now get someone else to do.

QUESTION: With outsourcing, seeking the cheapest task, how will businesses foster the sort of loyalty and brand value that Apple Inc has generated?

BARRIE: Crowdsourcing isn't about seeking the cheapest task. It's about tapping into a highly skilled, diverse cloud of labour to get things done. The fact that it's also very cost-effective is a by-product. Always go for quality first and price second.