Australian businesses, much like the rest of the world, have found that outsourcing many activities that can be done online is turning out to be quite lucrative for business.
Global freelancing company oDesk says Australian enterprises are increasingly outsourcing tasks online as the company passes $US1 billion worth of projects.
Matt Cooper, vice president of enterprise and international at oDesk, told StartupSmart blog that passing the project work milestone is a sign that outsourcing work online has entered the mainstream.
“It’s a big thing for us to break that one billion barrier milestone, but the bigger story is that online work is officially out of beta,” Cooper says. “It’s very early still, but it’s a nice recognition that this is really starting to break into the mainstream.”
The figures released by oDesk show Australians have been outsourcing both technical and non-technical tasks over the last two years.
“This is driven by the huge demand for technical talent. I’m in San Francisco but everywhere you go you see articles about the Australian tech talent shortage,” Cooper says.
Outsourcing growth by the numbers:
“The growth in Australians outsourcing legal was an interesting one for us,” Cooper says. “As more and more companies look to grow internationally, they need legal support and talent in a range of countries.”
Cooper says the growth across non-technical tasks in Australia is part of a worldwide trend.
“It’s indicative of a broader trend that online work is no longer tech. When you look at our business in 2008 and 2009, it was almost entirely technical work, but we’ve seen rapid expansion into legal, finance, writing and translations,” Cooper says.
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Perth, Western Australia’s Natalie Long spent years in the fashion industry before setting off in a new direction and creating her own homewares brand and online store Bowerhouse.
She designs her own homewares for Bowerhouse, which has been in operation since 2012.
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Tanya Collier, founder of Tickle the Imagination Magazine, had always had a love for design and creating things. So after many twists and turns, she finally decided to put her efforts into Tickle the Imagination.
After moving around for a few years, Collier and her family settled in Perth, Western Australia and she got down to the business of running her own online publication, which features designers and makers.
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Started by Melissa Lichocik in 2012 in Perth, Western Australia, The Baby Emporium sells modern and innovative baby products online.
Having her own children inspired Lichocik to stay home and start her own online business. An avid online shopper, Lichocik appreciated the variety of the baby products she was able to find online and decided to bring them all into one convenient online space.
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New research has shown that many of Australia’s new startup businesses — particularly online stores — favour the environment of their local coffee shop or other ‘third place’ (a place for doing business aside from the home or office).
The younger a business owner is, the more likely he or she is to do business in these so-called third places. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, 52% of Baby Boomers feel that doing business in a coffee shop is unprofessional while 45% of Gen X professionals agreed. Only 38% of Generation Y professionals shared this view.
But while the future of business seems to be going the way of working in cafes, there are some drawbacks, including:
Young entrepreneurs Mitchell Harper and Eddie Machaalani are making eCommerce easy for small businesses.
Founded in 2009 and with offices in Sydney and Texas, BigCommerce revealed last year that the company now powers more than 20,000 online stores for retailers, who have processed sales of more than $350,000,000.
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