How do you start an Outsourcing business?

Hey guys,

I am a student of economics and I have a project for my university which I decided to be on the subject of Outsourcing. More specifically I would be glad to learn how an outsourcing company is registered, what specific details this industry holds, what ground would such companies usually cover and what is their usual method of providing that service. As you can see its really a general question and I wouldn't expect someone to hold my hand and walk me through beginning to end but any info, impressions, famous companies, links and useful sources would be great. I've seen that there are some outsourcing companies around here, but any client of theirs would have valuable feedback too.

Thanks in advance guys, really!

 

Of course, it really depends on what service is being outsourced as to what might be required. Note that I can only speak to what is required in the U.S.

If you are outsourcing nursing services to hospitals, you or your staff will have to be certified as nurses, of course. However, if you are providing outsourced programming services to businesses, no actual certifications would be required. However, if you wish to have a company bank account to accept payments from your clients, your company would need to be registered with local government. You could register it as a sole proprietorship, a partnership or a corporation.

Theoretically, almost any business service can be outsourced. I just met with a company that offers outsourced facilities management for companies. They do maintenance, repairs, upkeep, etc., for companies that do not need fulltime maintenance people. I have seen Accounting, HR, Sales, Customer Service, engineering, R&D, purchasing, legal, and more business functions outsourced over the years. Outsourcing is only limited by the imagination of the service provider. Good luck with your project.

 

Thanks @jrbiz , some very valuable info here.

Yeah, I could've been more specific too. As I am researching the tech industry the outsourcing type I intend to mostly focus upon is the web hosting one. I know that a lot of web hosts prefer to resort to outsourcing to cut their costs and its not that small of a niche, though I'd imagine only the big names take most of the market share.

So if we are looking for this type of outsourcing, is there anything specific in terms of company registration or procedures that apply to the US laws? Anything additional so they can serve international customers? Anything mandatory to start?

Its really baffling as there are a lot of articles and info about outsourcing as a whole but I haven't yet found any useful read on the actual requirements for such companies and how they are "born" so to speak. I'd imagine startup companies would find that very useful

 

I am not an attorney, so please keep that in mind as I discuss this further. If you do not plan to have physical presence in the U.S. (neither your servers nor your business will have offices or space in the U.S.,) you do not need to do much of anything. On the other hand, if you wish to have offices or some sort of U.S. presence, you will need to register as a business with your local town/city government and either get a Federal Tax I.D. (for corporations/partnerships) or a Social Security number (for sole proprietorships) so that you can report any taxable income to federal and state authorities. While we are speaking of taxes, you may have to collect sales tax from some of your clients and you will have to become familiar with the sales tax laws of the state that you are headquartered in and, more than likely, get a retail permit to collect state sales tax. My state, for example, taxes web design and hosting services if the buyer and seller are both located within the state.

 

If you want to outsource site.you can search Google for outsourcing sites.

 

That's a good question, you have just started or going to start. The first step of business is doing a thing in a way then gaining experience from it. Using this experience in doing another thing and continue to gain experience, knowledge and money of course. You should build relationship between people who need to buy and people who needs to sell. A good way of it is making your account in alibaba, a chinese supergiant and search the different manufactures listing there, what they are making. Find if you can use their product and could sell it in your ares or country. I will say start with just 5 things in the beginning then gradually increasing it to other products too.
By selling i do not mean that you have to open a shop or do the shipping. You can take order payment at your account then ask the manufactures to ship directly to the customers which you have made.
Sky is the limit - all you have to take calculated risky. That what "Dhirubhai Ambani" once said.