To continue reading please register or login to your OHW+ account.
Outsourcing was once exclusively associated with large companies developing large-scale business processes abroad - such as overseas call centres.
PeoplePerHour is effecting a gradual change in this perception by facilitating thousands of small businesses to outsource a wide variety of functions - predominantly to individual freelancers based in the UK.
PeoplePerHour enables businesses to post specific projects they require support for.Relevant service providers are then invited to bid for the projects.
Once the allotted bidding time elapses, the buyer selects a supplier to carry out the work.
Every aspect of the transaction - including payment - is processed securely through the website's Escrow system.
Increasing numbers of UK small business owners are outsourcing a variety of functions for a range of sound business reasons.
Outsourcing is cost-effective and efficiently avoids the red tape issues associated with employing staff.
PeoplePerHour's providers offer every business service imaginable, from accountancy to web programming and everything in-between.
Nigel Salmon, Managing Director of Girasol Homes - a company that specialises in the sale of overseas properties - uses the site to meet a wide range of his business's running requirements.
'Employing people is a nightmare for small businesses,' says Salmon. 'It's expensive and risky. PeoplePerHour.com enables me to easily outsource important tasks like data entry with minimal risk and no fuss. I don't even meet the freelancers sourced through the site: the job gets done and it gets done well. Ultimately that's all that matters.'
Mr Salmon's confidence in the reliable quality of PeoplePerHour's freelancers is fostered by the site's feedback system, which encourages service buyers to contribute and publicise ratings and reviews of providers sourced through the site.
This means all service buyers can confidently commission work based on other business owners' recommendations.
PeoplePerHour has amassed more than six thousand registered service providers within the last twelve months alone. This figure is currently increasing at a rate of thirty percent per month.
The site's founder, Xenios Thrasyvoulou, believes small business outsourcing in the UK will quickly become the norm, not the exception.
'PeoplePerHour's rapid growth is indicative of
