Workleaf

Well… well… what do you know!? We’ve hit 1500 views as of today! Not that it is a big number, but it is still worthy of bragging. And just like New Year resolutions, hitting this number reminded me to re-iterate the goals for this blog

The Alef Solutions blog aims to discuss the pain points of outsourcing, celebrate its success and debate on its utility with a focus on small & medium sized business that look forward to engaging in outsourcing contracts in the future. The purpose is to become a vital source of information for best practices and industry trends related to outsourcing.

Dian of SourcingMag made a suggestion how to take this blog forward. Apart from profiling directories of ousourcing service providers that are out there, she suggested posting an analysis of outsourcing strategies adopted by the Fortune 500 companies. Hmm… great suggestion, I should say. Therefore, added to the overall purpose of this blog since it overlaps with Alef Solutions’ mission statement anyway (Don’t Google for the mission statement yet – It is not out there since I am still waiting for my own personal Marketing genius to get back to me on this one).

BusinessWeek published an article in its latest edition titled “Outsourcing Heads To Outskirts”  providing a great example of how exactly outsourcing is resulting in the social/economical uplifting of rural India. It may not be the great turn-around story of the century but it is definitely  a start. If we start seeing more companies like GramIT using outsourcing as not just a mode of capitalizing on the current trends in outsourcing, but also to serve a social cause, then we may start seeing a whole new paradigm of outsourcing. Probably social entrepreneurship will see a renewed spurt when such success stories are given more exposure in the media.

I was thinking (a dangerous activity in itself!) – “What is so unique about my blog?” and “What is the value that I am adding to my readers?”

Unable to find an answer, I decided to take an extreme step. No… I am not closing the blog down. I have added a new section under my Blogroll called Directories. The intention here is to catalogue all the directories out there that provide a directory (of sorts) of outsourcing service providers.

Directories come and go. My intention is not only to chronicle and track the ones that are active, upcoming or defunct but also to provide a single source of reference for people/firms looking for a valid source of service provider listings. I don’t know how far I will be able to take this forward, but I will definitely try to keep it as updated and as structured as possible.

If you come across any such sites out there that needs to be added to this list, please drop me a comment.