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Online Center Launched to Help Small and Mid-Sized Technology Businesses Benefit From the Outsourcing Trend Sweeping Larger Firms.
Sunnyvale, CA – June 7, 2004 — In a move to help small and medium sized businesses benefit from outsourcing, Elance Online has unveiled its Web & IT Outsourcing Center (www.elance.com/WebITcenter), a comprehensive outsourcing resource for technology consulting businesses.,/p>
The Web & IT Outsourcing Center, part of Elance Online's Everyday OutsourcingTM service (www.elanceonline.com), is the easy and safe way for businesses to take advantage of outsourcing. Everyday Outsourcing provides free access to firms and individuals that provide a variety of professional services at highly competitive prices.
The showcase of the Center is the free "Be a Profit Maker" webinars led by Elance Online coaches. The goal of these online seminars is to help IT consultants learn how to leverage outsourcing.
According to Gartner, outsourcing continues to be the main source of growth in IT services, and has become a mainstream business practice. Outsourcing is expected to account for 53 percent of the total worldwide IT services market this year and 56 percent of the market by 2007. Previously the sole province of Fortune 2000 companies, the Web & IT Outsourcing Center now enables small and mid-size businesses to take advantage of outsourcing as both buyers and suppliers.
"Many of our customers are technical entrepreneurs and small consulting firms who routinely outsource work to virtual teams," said Elance Online Vice President Raul Mujica. "These teams are assembled and managed through Elance Online to quickly and profitably deliver quality work. The Web & IT Outsourcing Center was developed to help all technology consultants leverage this business model."
Elance Online estimates there are as many as 400,000 small- to mid-sized Web & IT services firms in the United States. For these firms, Elance Online provides a number of proven benefits:
- The ability to sell a broad range of services by leveraging not just their own, but external technical expertise. This leads to more time to support current customers or to develop new ones.
- Leveling the playing field for smaller entrepreneurial firms. Having access to global technical resources, including expertise in short supply, provides the flexibility and economies of scale that large companies enjoy.
- Lower cost of operation. Outsourcing provides significant financial savings for services in many categories like programming, software development, Web design, or database application development.
The new Web & IT Outsourcing Center contains real-life case studies about frequent Elance Online technology buyers, including Texas-based software consultant John Curtis.
Curtis, owner of BTQNet (www.btqnet.com), a boutique IT firm based in Houston, estimates that he depends on Elance Online service providers to complete nearly one third of his client deliverables.
"Elance Online lets me focus on the needs of my clients instead of how things are going to get built," Curtis says. "The biggest benefit for us is price. Some of our clients come to us with budget constraints. While I couldn't afford to do all of the work in-house, I wouldn't want to lose them as a client, so I get help to cost-effectively complete the work through Elance Online."
The Web & IT Outsourcing Center, in conjunction with Elance Online's new content partner, The Developer Shed Network (www.developershed.com), will also provide free access to professional resources and information relevant to the technology services community including the latest tech tips and tutorials on topics like Microsoft technologies, open source, search engine optimization techniques, and resources for choosing the right Internet services and hosting.
"There is nothing like it in the services marketplace segment," said Developer Shed CEO Jonathan Caputo. "Developer Shed's timely content provides unmatched quality for those looking for information about the projects they are buying through Elance Online. We are excited to join with Elance to provide this unique resource to the IT community."
About Elance, Inc.
Elance is the leading provider of software solutions for Services Procurement and Management (SPM) that improve the way organizations buy and manage services - one of the largest components of corporate spending. With the Elance SPM 4 application suite, large organizations can gain visibility into services spend and performance, establish and control enterprise processes, and achieve 10-20% hard cost savings across a broad range of external service categories.
Elance Online enables small and mid-size businesses to pursue Everyday Outsourcingô, an easy and safe way to outsource. Elance Online provides directories, ratings and client feedback to help find the right professionals; easy-to-use tools to describe and manage projects; and access to safe payment solutions. More than 100,000 businesses have achieved financial savings of 60% or more by outsourcing their Technology, Creative, and Business projects through Elance Online.
About Developer Shed Network
The Developer Shed network of websites offers tutorials and timely articles covering programming and developer related topics, computer hardware and gadget reviews, developer scripts, and search engine optimization tutorials. The Developer Shed network is trafficked by over 500,000 unique visitors daily, and features the Internet's most active community of forums for developers.
Links provided in this Release:
Elance Online Web & IT Center: www.elance.com/WebITcenter
Elance Online: www.elanceonline.com
Developer Shed Network: www.developershed.com
BTQnet: www.btqnet.com
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