Article Four - Landlord Zone Feb 2010

Do you know what your competitors know? The open secret of outsourcing.

The property sector has in the past been rather slow to take up all that is on offer on The World Wide Web. But that is changing... and fast.

Many companies now conduct a large proportion of their business through the internet - think how estate agents have been transformed into web-based businesses in just a few years. Surveyors and inventory clerks are also waking up to the benefits of using off-site resources, accessible through the internet. But it is not just in the area of sales that the internet has benefits for business.

The web has created a level playing field where company size no longer matters. Quality of service and competitive pricing are now the most important drivers in this Brave New World, rather than a physical high-street presence and large staff numbers. It is quite practical to use other companies to assist you. To answer the phones, make sales calls, send out invoices, chase unpaid bills and file tax returns. Indeed, this is nothing new and has been used by firms large and small for many years. However the internet has taken this to a whole new level, thanks to its ease of access and instant response times.

There is now an almost seamless integration with existing office systems which become invisible to the end-user/customer/client. A common area for successful outsourcing has typically been the secretary and typist. Digital recorders and mobile phones now enable work to be sent instantly to remote internet workers, where before tapes could take days through the post. Online outsourcing of typing has been around for at least 8 years since the rollout of Broadband in the UK. Various companies have sprung up to meet demand for this, one such being OutSec (www.outsec.co.uk), a UK-based company with a long history in the property sector.

"Companies now look to outsource dictation for transcription as a matter of course" says OutSec Operations Director Richard Phillips. "We are seeing new firms setting up with no conventional infrastructure at all - no receptionists, no typists and, in some cases, no offices. A mobile phone is all you need nowadays for most business functions".