By Michael F. Carmichael
April 7, 2011
Outsourcing to an overseas source can provide employees who speak English, but… . Besides the strange accent there is a lack of a cultural connection, the inability to understand the natural shorthand references we all make when speaking to coworkers. A “Hail Mary pass” comes to mind when describing a really long shot solution. Knowing that Los Angeles is three hours behind New York and that you can’t expect to reach anyone there before 9:30 a.m. their time anyway or that much of the auto industry still shuts down for a couple of weeks during the summer so don’t bother setting up sales appointments then.
There may be value in going overseas because of the low cost, but what is the hidden cost in having to overcome a communications gap?
| Josh Last in his office in Jerusalem. Clocks indicating his clients' time zones are on his right. |
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Josh Last, founder of GlobeTask, seems to have the answer. Based in Jerusalem, where the cost of living is much lower, GlobeTask uses American workers who have moved to Israel to provide a variety of virtual services.
Last says that he used to do high-level consulting and “everywhere I went I noticed that people were missing good administrative support. Some people were missing just a couple of hours of support while others were missing what could have, should have, been done by a whole team of five or six people.”
In today’s economy, administrative support is often the last to come back when hiring resumes, yet the need for someone to help get things done – such as researching the competitive environment or responding to routine e-mail questions from customers – often doesn’t get done because the staff that’s left is stretched thin just keeping the basics going.
GlobeTask’s approach is to provide administrative services to its American clients at prices that are comparable to those of other offshore suppliers – but without the cultural divide that can often lead to miscommunications and potential inadequate support.
[SYSTEM-AD-LEFGT]“A mid-level manager in Israel bringing home $1,500 a month is in good shape financially,” says Last, “and the average entry-level salary is in the $5-$6 (hourly) range. That’s why we can afford to charge what we do while still providing what our American clients need. It’s a different way of living, but it works.”
There are different levels of service GlobeTask provides. “We have our low-level admin which can include research, data entry and recurring processes,” explains Last. “We have a graphics and Web design team, and then we have a higher-level of admin. They’re the people who can answer phones for you, who can do outbound sales, answer e-mails, do creative writing – blog posts, articles [editor’s note – they didn’t write this article] – that kind of thing.”
Each GlobeTask customer gets a single point of entry via a “virtual assistant.” “All of the work flows through that person,” says Last. “Internally, everyone gets the job that they’re best at.”
Last cites building a website as an example. “You have to research the competition – that’s a low-level admin. Then you have to write the copy – that’s a high-level admin. Finally, you have to create the design and bring it live – and that’s the design team. But the customer only has to deal with one person in the office.”