Glossary · Hiring and outsourcing models

Outsourcing

Outsourcing is paying an outside company or person to do work your own employees would otherwise do. The work can be a single project, a recurring task, or an entire function. Outsourcing is about who does the work; offshoring is about where it is done, and the two often overlap.

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What it means in practice

Most businesses already outsource something: payroll, IT support, legal work, or design. The question is usually not whether to outsource, but which model fits each kind of work: a freelancer for a one-off project, an agency for a campaign, a BPO for a high-volume process, or a dedicated hire for ongoing work that needs context.

Ongoing work that touches your customers, your inbox, or your books benefits from the same person doing it every day. That is where a dedicated, full-time hire beats task-based outsourcing: the person builds context, follows your SOPs, and improves over time.

Use the should I hire offshore quiz to check whether your work is ready to hand off, and the salary calculator to compare costs.

  • Offshoring

    Offshoring is moving work to people in another country, usually one with lower labor costs, a large skilled workforce, or useful time-zone coverage.

  • Business process outsourcing (BPO)

    Business process outsourcing (BPO) is contracting a whole business function, such as customer support, claims processing, or back-office data work, to an outside provider.

  • Staff augmentation

    Staff augmentation is adding outside professionals to your existing team to fill a skills gap or add capacity.

  • Freelance marketplace

    A freelance marketplace is a website where businesses post work and hire independent freelancers, usually per project or per hour, with the platform handling payments and taking a fee.

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