According to Wikipedia, a concierge (kôN-syârzh) is an employee who lives on the premises of apartment buildings and serves as a general property caretaker. A clutch of Indian companies, however, is now giving a new meaning to the word.

Anything that can be handled remotely via internet, e-mail, fax, VoIP (voice over internet protocol) phones is a do-able task.

Mumbai–based Tasks EveryDay, part of Alfa Overseas Group, has a workforce of 250 people looking after more than 1,000 clients from the US, UK and Australia. The company’s 25-year-old CEO Suvidh Marwaha says: “We are adding 10-15 new clients daily and we hope to grow to about 5,000-strong staff in the next five years.”

Their client Johnny Johnson is 28, single and works in a small office furniture suppliers company— Premier Suppliers, based out of Washington D.C. Johnson had to cope with a lot of important and not so important work which made his work hours stretch to stressful levels.

But not anymore. For the last three-to-four months, he’s been outsourcing his daily chores like creating new invoices, researching new vendors, manufacturers, fixing his appointments, to Tasks EveryDay.

“It’s a revelation to me that I can actually get my assistant to do so many things; that too in a monthly budget of $1,100-$1,200 (Rs 44,000-48,000),” he says.

At your service

The services being offered by these concierges, or virtual valets, range from regular to bizarre. There are requests for quick information look up, getting music organised, online shopping, wake-up calls with the weather update and a reminder to exercise thrown in, to even getting work done on the company’s quarterly report, market research, documentation, compilation of information and in some cases even getting jobs for their clients.

The India advantage

Evalueserve, a research firm, has predicted that ‘person-to-person offshoring’, both consumer services and services for small businesses, would grow rapidly, to more than $2 billion (Rs 8,000 crore) by 2015 globally. It’s a winwin for all. While the service cost differs from company to company, hourly rates can vary between $7 (Rs 280) and $50 (Rs 2,000), depending on the task, time and expertise. For the clients, that’s an obvious advantage of offshoring to India.

As president of the Long Island chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management, Doug Silverman doesn't have an office, nor does he have a secretary, a fax machine, a computer or even a drinking fountain.

Even so, he's still able to send out mass mailings, coordinate monthly dinner parties, update lists and keep his nearly 1,200 members up to speed on what's going on, despite having a full-time job that has nothing to do with the organization. He acknowledges it would be impossible without Linda Selden, his "virtual" personal assistant.

"She does the work of three or four people," Silverman said. "What does she do? What doesn't she do? Administrative, updating our Web site and member lists, mailings, coordinating our monthly dinner meetings."

If you always wanted a personal assistant but either didn't have the bucks or the chutzpah to get one, finally here's someone you can afford to boss around - a virtual personal assistant.

A virtual assistant, whether hired for personal, small business or corporate office use, is someone you'll probably never meet face-to-face. For as little as $7 per hour, they're usually hired to perform tasks that can be carried out from a remote location using the phone, fax or computer. Planning a destination wedding and need to research hotels in a hurry? You can get a virtual concierge to book rooms, map travel plans, find vendors and tell you the best place to get a spa treatment to boot. They'll even do all that for your guests, too, if you'd like - after all, it's your dime.

No more check-writing

Hate paying bills? Get a virtual bookkeeper and turn that time-killer over to him or her. If you're preparing to move and need to know the primo preschools in your new neighborhood for your prodigy, a virtual assistant can do that, too.

"It eliminates the expense of an employee for the business or individual. It also offers flexibility for the entrepreneur/virtual assistant."

Not surprisingly, most virtual assistants live in other countries and work for companies that specialize in outsourcing.

Suvidh Marwaha, sales director for Tasks EveryDay, which is based in India, says his company charges $6.98 per hour for a basic assistant who's earned a bachelor's degree. If you want someone "smarter" (someone with an advanced degree, Marwaha explains), it'll cost you $14 per hour.

According to Marwaha, about 40 percent of Tasks EveryDay's clients are seeking help with their personal to-do lists. Among the more common requests: Ordering supplies, groceries, online shopping, comparing prices and planning vacations.

"A virtual assistant could research electricians in your area, then set up the appointment and tell you when to be home," Marwaha says. If the client wants a call from the virtual assistant when the electrician's a half-hour away, that can be done, too.

"Our biggest request from personal clients is for a job search," he said. "We can redo your resume, research the type of job you want, set up the interview and just tell you when to show up."

Using locals costs more

In the United States, virtual personal assistants are more often freelance entrepreneurs who charge $45 to $75 an hour for their expertise.

We’ve all, at one time or another, called the customer-service department of a utility company and had a chat with a friendly young man or woman with a distinctly Indian accent.

But outsourcing is no longer the exclusive domain of big multimillion-dollar companies. Nowadays anyone with an Internet connection can offload the most mundane of tasks halfway around the world, thanks to companies such as Tasks Everyday (taskseveryday.com).

Dan Lok, a Vancouver-based Internet consultant, runs Quick Turn Marketing International Ltd. out of his home – and cheerfully admits that “the only two things I know how to do is check email and orders.”

“All the programming, all the Web designing, all the work is outsourced,” he says. “Let’s say I want to create a little program. In the States or in Canada, it would cost $5,000. If I outsource it to someone in India, it would cost me maybe $1,000. It’s a lot less, and the quality is good.”

Last April a couple of UVic students took the outsourcing model to the extreme, launching Indochino, a Web-based business that provides custom-tailored suits for around $300. Customers send in their measurements, and within two weeks the garment is delivered to their door – direct from a tailor in Shanghai.

“We’re paying about a third of the cost, had we gone with a factory model,” explains Kyle Vucko, a 22-year-old commerce undergrad who started the business with 25-year-old political-science major Heikal Gani. “And we’re paying more to the local tailors than anybody else in the region.”

The duo’s business model was enough to catch the eye of AbeBooks Inc. execs Hannes Blum, CEO; Boris Wertz, COO; and John Chase, CFO. They, along with Eric Jordan, founder of PureEdge Solutions, invested in Vucko’s company to the tune of $40,000.

But it’s not just the tailoring that Vucko and Gani are outsourcing. “We’ve got two personal assistants: one in Beijing, one in Shanghai. We pay around $7 or $8 an hour,” says Vucko. “It’s affordable for us, but actually really good money for them because everything in China is a sixth of the cost it is here.”

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You, Too, Can Outsource
By ALLAN HOFFMAN
c.2008 Newhouse News Service

When you hear the term outsourcing, you probably think of Fortune 500 companies hiring firms in India or Russia to develop software or field customer support calls.

That's one vision of outsourcing, but another is emerging, and it is largely about individuals, freelancers and small businesses outsourcing tasks such as wedding Web sites, business card logos and the tutoring of their kids.

Outsourcing is no longer just for the corporate world. Whatever you don't have time to do, you can probably find a virtual somebody in a place far, far away to do it for you. And because you may be hiring someone who lives in a country (or part of the United States) where the cost of living is a lot lower than what it is where you live, you may get a big break on the price. As for service and quality, that's still an open question in what is a nascent niche of the outsourcing realm.

Here's a sample of the projects being unloaded

— Entering data into Quick Books, setting up appointments and following up sales leads.

— Helping to plan an event by entering the names of attendees, creating mailing labels and compiling names of potential donors for a silent auction.

— Researching top-selling items on eBay.

The marketing of "virtual assistant" or "concierge" Web sites captures the blurring of personal and work lives, especially for freelancers and small-business owners. These companies assume you're overstretched and overburdened, both on and off the job, and you can use help on both fronts. Your time is valuable, they say, and you need someone to take a host of time-consuming, tedious tasks off of your hands, whether that means sending a gift to your grandmother or updating your contacts data base.

The possibilities are seemingly endless. Tasks Everyday wants to handle transcription services, market research, Web site maintenance, resume updating and birthday reminders. "At Tasks EveryDay, you can allocate virtually any task which does not require physical presence ... and consider it done!" the site claims.

And what will be left for you to do? Pretty much nothing. If that's your goal, then you may want to read Timothy Ferriss' "The 4-Hour Workweek," a book that's all about outsourcing your life and having a blast with all your free time.

(Allan Hoffman wrote this article for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. He can be contacted at netscan(at)allanhoffman.com.)

Pesky tasks made easy on the net

Gillian Shaw
Vancouver Sun

Deadlines are piling up. One editor wants a story this afternoon; the other wants it yesterday.

The dog is giving me her best guilt-inducing stare; the garburator is threatening to flood the kitchen; guests are arriving and I'm wondering just how long it'll be before the kids get scurvy if I don't get to the produce store anytime soon.

Time to take a leaf out of the business playbook: Outsource.

"Your call is important to us and will be answered shortly by our senior management team," says the soothing voice when I ring up Taskseveryday.com.

Seconds later sales director Suvidh Marwaha is on the line.

"I can help you with that, no problems," he says as I cite my fast-lengthening to-do list.

Remarkably helpful, particularly considering it's almost 3 a.m. in Mumbai, India where he is based.

Plumbing: No worries. The dog: They can arrange the walks. Dinner guests: What time do we need reservations? Or perhaps they'll arrange for a personal chef to cook. Groceries: My personal assistant can arrange for the greens to get delivered.

Marwaha even offers help with research and writing.

"We have some writers available who have a journalism background; they doing ghost writing -- you never know where the person sitting next to your gets their articles from," he says.

How about just taking care of those pesky tasks I'm not getting around to?

"The lowest rate is $6.98 [US] an hour and that's for a personal assistant who will be working for you," says Marwaha. "That's the same for business tasks as well as personal tasks. "If you need to hire an MBA-level person, or somebody who is an accountant or a software developer, that's $14 an hour."

With the Internet erasing geographical boundaries, companies like Taskseveryday.com are competing with local companies in the fast-growing consumer outsourcing market.

"Some clients they just need help on the personal side, some on the business side and some need help on both," said Marwaha. "We have executives who use a personal assistant to do day-to-day jobs likes booking travel, arranging their calendar, making reservations for dinner, ordering groceries online, researching for the television they need to buy.

"If they need help getting their plumbing fixed, we look for the best plumber around and arrange the appointment."

Finding a Fantastic Virtual Assistant

Pattie Simone learns first-hand that hiring an assistant she's never met can be tricky but fruitful

Like most entrepreneurs I've met, on a typical day I spend way too much time doing a range of tasks that I shouldn't. While it's important stuff--following up on networking leads, contacting people I've met at my workshops or cold calling speaking resources--these critical to-do's were getting out of control, and my office piles were starting to spill out onto my dining room table.

So the timing could not have been better when I got this assignment.

With a budget of $100, I set out to find and hire at least two different virtual assistants (VAs), to help me gain control of the burgeoning piles. I approached this like any other time-challenged business owner; I wanted to retain someone with an established track record, at a fair rate. I have a decent amount of experience hiring independent contractors, so I started off with high expectations, despite a tight turnaround time.

My main project was to create a simple database on an Excel spreadsheet, with the names, company name and e-mail address from 150 business cards I had been given at various networking functions. I would provide a note that my VA would e-mail to each contact. Here's what I discovered:

Going back to the drawing board, I reworked my proposal to cover just 35 business cards, and because I'm not a "put-your-eggs-in-one-basket" type of gal, I also decided to Google "Virtual Assistants." Up to 736,000 sites popped up, and I chose TasksEveryday.com, an India-based company that advertised an hourly rate of $6.98! What's the saying, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is? That was the case here.

Yes, they offer that rate and were quite professional, with speedy follow-up to my query. The catch: You can only get that rate (which buys you a suite of services and your own dedicated personal assistant) if you prepay and sign up for a 160-hour package. Since their lowest-priced package was for 40 hours--though still a bargain at $9.98 an hour--I had to pass on this choice for now.

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