Introduction
Mission Statement
The Dynamic Outsourcing System is dedicated to making Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) available, manageable, and affordable for
small businesses and to providing legitimate work opportunities to business professionals and skilled workers that have been impacted by corporate downsizing.
Business Processes
Business processes (e.g., marketing, human resources, accounting, customer service, etc.) within businesses are made up of one or more sub-processes. Customer service, as an example, may
have sub-processes for new accounts, customer orders, customer support, etc. Each of these sub-processes may contain additional sub-processes such as customer information entry, order entry, incident
reports, etc. Together the a business process and all the sub-processes support a particular function required to operate the business.
Business processes fall into two major categories:
- Standard
- Critical
Standard are those that are common to all businesses within an industry and do not provide differentation of your business from your competition. Critical are those based on your core
competencies and do provide differentation to set your business apart from your competition. The 80/20 rule applies here; About 80% fall into the standard category and 20% into the critical category. The
critical category is where you should focus your in-house efforts. The standard category should be candidates for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
Business process outsourcing began to emerge in the 1990’s, but has really taken hold in the past few years. Since its inception it has been always been focused on the large corporations,
a focus which has continued. Businesses began by contracting the standard business processes to other companies which had the focused skills in the area of the particular business processes. The companies providing support for these outsourced processes have become known as
Business Service Providers (BSP).
Business Service Providers (BSP)
Business service providers come in many flavors. Some are focused on a single business process while many now provide support for a wide range of business processes. Some are now providing
support via the Internet using the Application Service Provider (ASP) model where they make their support applications available for businesses to use for a charge.
Utilizing a BSP can be overwhelming for small businesses. They must negotiate contracts, negotiate service level agreements, and monitor for compliance with both. For many small businesses
this overhead requires new skills within the business and may be more costly than supporting a business process in-house.
Dynamic Outsourcing System (DOS)
InventionsOnDemand, LLC, a small business itself, is developing the Dynamic Outsourcing System based on the premise that business process outsourcing should be available and manageable for small businesses. The system does this by first supporting
discreet work tasks
which are a sub-process or even a work task within a sub-process. Things such as data entry, language translation, medical transcription, etc. Data entry may be the entry of a new patient’s contact and history information in a physicians office. Medical transcription may be transcription of the results of a patient office visit in that physician’s office. Language translation may be the translation of a proposal document for a foreign customer. None of these are a complete business process, they are just discreet work tasks. Users of the Dynamic Outsourcing System that want to have work tasks accomplished for them are known as Requesters
. The users of the system which accomplish the work tasks on behalf of the Requesters are known as Providers. A Requester obtains the services of Providers by adding a work task to a
Queue.
Requesters
Requesters are those seeking to have work task accomplished. Requesters may be individuals or companies.
Providers
The hopes and expectations are that many of the very skilled workers that have been impacted by the economy and corporate downsizing will come on board and make their talents available as
Providers. Providers may be individuals or companies.
Queues
Queues are specific to the work task being accomplished (e.g., data entry). Requesters add an entry (work task) to a queue and then manage that work task to completion from the added queue
entry. As part of adding a queue entry, the requester will do things such as; set a bidding start date and time, set a bidding end date and time, set an offer price for the work task, enter or upload
instructions or descriptions for the provider, upload source material for the provider, etc.
From the Provider perspective; the provider will see the request (queue entry), bid on the queue entry (work task) if they desire, monitor the bidding process, alter their bid if they
desire, etc. If they win the bidding for the queue entry, they will; view the instructions, download the source material, complete the assignment.
From assignment to a provider until the provider completes the assignment, there is an internal
communications feature which allows the requester and provider to communicate with each other. Communication is initiated via the queue entry.
Individual or Company
Users of the system may register as an Individual User or as a Company. The major advantages of registering as a company if there will be more than one person
registering are:
- Receiving a single bill for the entire company (when billing becomes effective)
- Receiving a single payment for the entire company
- Report breakouts by company location, department, etc.
- Additional functions for managing company locations, departments, and users
Payment For Services Rendered
There was a great deal of feedback from Providers during the BETA TEST wanting assistance in receiving payments for the services they render to Requesters. With the Internet, requesters
and providers are located all over the world. If proper due payments are not made, it can be very difficult to collect from them.
Although the Dynamic Outsourcing System DOES NOT and CANNOT
take responsibility for payments to Providers, the system does provide function to better insure requester resources for payment are available. As an example; When bidding is complete for a queue entry (work task) the requester’s account must contain sufficient funds to pay the provider’s winning bid price. If the funds are not available in the requester’s account, the requester is required to make a payment sufficient to pay the provider prior to the queue entry (work task) being assigned to the provider. This type of function does not come without additional cost and overhead. PayPal charges the Dynamic Outsourcing System fees for receiving money and paying money. As a result providers are charged a transaction percentage to offset development, maintenance, and support for the function and the PayPal fees associated with them.
The Vision
What follows is the future as it is envisioned by InventionsOnDemand, LLC for the Dynamic Outsourcing System. This is not a commitment to providing any function or providing it as described here. We want to be open and upfront with you about our ideas for the system. This is an effort to let you
know what the current thinking is, some possibilities for the future of the system, and most of all, to solicit your input and feedback. I have been involved in the computer industry, software
development, software sales, and the Internet (since 1965). I have had my share of failures and successes. The successes always
come when you listen to the users and respond to their requirements. Talk to us; I assure you we want what you want! Tony Fulford, President and Chief Technology Officer, InventionsOnDemand, LLC Tony.Fulford@DynamicOutsourcing.com
First and foremost will be the addition of the queues you require to support your business. You request them, we develop them! There will be no charge for the additional
queues unless they are specialized (custom). In parallel there will be the addition of custom forms to support input for your queues (work task) where you require them. You request them, we develop them!
There will be a charge for custom forms. The pricing has not been finalized. You will specify your custom form to use in the QUEUE PREFERENCES
for the queue. Once the inventory of queues (work task) becomes large enough, support for WORKFLOWS will be developed. Workflows will allow you to link two or more queues to build complete support for business processes,
i.e., link the sub-processes to support a complete process. At each of the sub-processes you will have the capability to bid the work task out or have it processed by internal staff. Then there will be
the capability to have the work task reviewed and approved by designated personnel prior to advancing to the next sub-process.
When Web Services (http:/www.uddi.org/ or http://www.ebxml.org/) mature to the point that they merit inclusion, they will be made available for your use. The exact nature of how you will locate them and
include them for your use has not been finalized.
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