Outsourcing can be a means to reduce costs, improve service and gain a new perspective on best business practice. Outsourcing business functions and operations really is a cost effective way to bring fresh new ideas to problems and to compliment a company’s existing commercial know-how. It frees up valuable time and resources. Along the way, companies are able to reduce their fixed and variable costs while improving their bottom line. The best companies endorse a practice of working alongside their outsourcing partner to amalgamate each party’s best attributes. Outsourcing firms are then able to concentrate on bringing value, improving service and offering a counterbalance to ideas and approaches. Given the benefits of outsourcing, how can companies improve and build upon their long-term relationship?

Identify core competencies of the outsourcing firm Companies that decide to use an outsourcing firm must make sure to transfer ownership and responsibilities of the business function they choose to outsource. If the company chooses to use a marketing outsourcing firm, then it must be determined which functions the marketing firm will be responsible for. Will it be lead generation, sales, growing market share or something else? Identifying the core competencies of the outsourcing firm is the first step.

Don’t duplicate efforts and time The second important step is to ensure that the company never duplicates work. This involves the complete transfer of ownership of a given function. Again, outsourcing saves companies a tremendous amount of time and resources. This is only possible if the company ensures there is no duplicated work. Otherwise the savings will never be realized.

Measure results and build on progress Essential to improving the long-term relationship with the outsourcing firm is ensuring that both parties are made fully aware of how progress, or the lack thereof, will be measured. A good rule of thumb is to schedule performance appraisals and review periods where both parties can assess the results of given approaches and action plans.

Getting the most out of an outsourcing firm involves ensuring both parties are aware of their respective roles and responsibilities. Complimenting each party’s core competencies will further improve the long-term relationship. Finally, measuring results and building on progress allows both to have clearly defined goals.

Image: bradleyparbs

For most professionals, optimizing one’s time is one of the most important aspects of the day. Anything that can be done to help use time more efficiently is more than appreciated in the corporate world, and most people try to get into a groove that will help them to produce as much quality work as possible in a given time frame. It’s no secret that smart phones have been instrumental in helping to move this process along. Awesome Note Lite is one of the best organization-assisting iPhone apps available in Apple’s App Store, and for good reason.

Taking notes is something that just about everyone finds themselves having to do at one point or another throughout the day, and Awesome Note Lite is one of the best ways to streamline the process right on your phone. Whether you want to just jot down notes about observations or appointments, or slowly wish to chip away at that short story you’ve been working on, Awesome Note Lite allows you to do so from anywhere. No longer do you need to be near a laptop in order to reach your well-organized documents. You can add images and maps to notes, you can create lists and even set passcodes and alarms. Those who need to add notes to their portfolio in a hurry will enjoy the “quick note” function of Awesome Note Lite, where one needs only to press one button to bring up the quick note writing tablet. This is perfect for anyone who is constantly on the move, yet needs to get their notes jotted down somewhere while on the job.

With Awesome Note Lite for iPhone, organization no longer needs to take a back seat.

Image: BRID

The art of using software effectively is to know precisely how it works – and moving and clicking the mouse costs you valuable time when composing a document in Word. However, you can speed up your document processing and editing with keyboard shortcuts. With a little practice, you will become much more efficient and productive. Here is a short list of common tasks and their keyboard shortcut commands. A complete list is available on Microsoft’s website, but this is enough to shave hours off your day!

Editing: It is not uncommon to need to remove words while editing. Use Ctrl+Delete or Ctrl+Backspace to speed up this process. Ctrl+Delete will delete the word to the right of your cursor and Ctrl+Backspace will remove the words to the left of your cursor. If you need to delete three words to the right of your cursor, press Ctrl+Delete three times. The same can be applied to Ctrl+Backspace.

Moving Paragraphs: When you want to move a paragraph from its current position to below the following paragraph, insert your cursor into the paragraph that you want to move and, while pressing Alt+Shift, press Down Arrow. Use Alt+Shift and Up Arrow to move the paragraph up.

Repeating Your Most Recent Action: F4 will repeat nearly every action you’ve taken on a document. It will duplicate formatting, deleting and typing.

Find and Replace: Ctrl+H will open the Find and Replace dialog box. If you only need to locate something in the document, Ctrl+F opens the Find tab.

Toggling Between Two Documents: When working on two separate documents, you can to switch to the document not displayed by simply pressing Alt+Tab. This feature will also switch to any other program you have open. Hold the Alt key and press Tab until the program you want is selected.

Image: david.eisner

Hiring lawyers can be expensive, but getting legal work done is essential to business. Small companies often don’t have in-house legal advisers, though that doesn’t mean that their need for legal documents is any less significant than that of larger businesses. To resolve this issue, many of these companies are turning to outsourcers to get the work done.

An outsourcing firm can produce the specific legal documents a company needs, despite not serving the company’s office directly or perhaps not even being located in the same country. These documents can be precisely created according to the company’s specific needs. Additionally, because many such documents are relatively uniform, their production can be quite quick. To minimize costs an outsourcing firm can provide you with a template to change as required, based on your needs. Therefore, the legal documents can be produced time and again, and specialized each time.

Whether you need documents to establish leases, trademarks or patents, or need incorporation products, establishing limited liability companies or partnerships, outsourcing firms can quickly and affordably provide you with suitable documentation.

Legal outsourcing firms permit small companies to create the legal documents they need to operate without the cost of retaining an attorney. The ease and affordability of these firms permits clients to operate legally and efficiently.

Image: nerdcoregirl

If you’re as mobile as your phone then Siri Assistant can help manage your on-the-go, mobile life with optimal efficiency and mobility.

One of the most critical aspects of a successful, on-the-go lifestyle, be it for work or your personal life, is knowing where to be and when, at all times. That’s where Siri Assistant comes in, helping you find all the details for any event you seek, including travel times, in an instant. If you prefer to plan ahead, you can set alerts and have Siri Assistant notify you when an obligation is coming up. In this way Siri Assistant is like your own private travel agent creating your itinerary on the fly. More, it’s almost like having your own personal planner.

What do you do when there’s a sudden change of plans and you’re out of the office? Just getting the message that you need to be somewhere else and fast is not helpful enough to get you there. That’s where Siri Assistant comes in again. With Siri Assistant you can figure out where you need to be next and get there. In this way, Siri Assistant is like your own GPS and driver, speech capabilities and all. You can both speak commands and have responses spoken back to you.

Many of the places you have to go, certainly, will require reservations, bookings or calling ahead. Siri Assistant can also help here, by making those dining reservations, booking that hotel room, and calling ahead for a limo to pick you up from wherever you are and take you to and fro. In this way, Siri Assistant is like your own private secretary. Siri Assistant is like having your own personal assistant with you at all times, literally at your fingertips.

Image: Siri Inc

Your memory is one of the greatest tools you could possibly have. Indeed, what could be more important than processing and retaining the huge amount of information that you receive every day of your life? It’s good to know then that you can improve your memory, and by doing so you can make those minutes count. If a book, article or report really matters, then being able to hold onto that information is vital. If you can’t remember it, then you wasted your time absorbing it the first time. Here are 20 tricks to help you improve your memory.

20. Pay Attention

Image: mike.wilson

Easy ones first. If you’re not paying attention, you’re not going to remember a thing, because you were never aware of it in the first place. To start improving your memory, all you have to do is focus and make an effort to concentrate. Whether working alone or with others, filter out distractions and analyze what you’re doing. If you put something down, whether it’s a task or a notepad, consider why you’re doing it and how you’re going to take it up later; otherwise it’ll be forgotten.

19. Put It In Words

Image: Horia Varlan

If you can’t remember something it might be because you’re thinking about it in the wrong way. Instead, inserting the item that you want to remember into a particularly vivid or memorable device can greatly improve your ability to recall it. You might do this by creating a rhyme (adding “Noisy” to “Nora”, for example) or creating a humorous phrase. Whether you need to remember a name or fact, the rules of spellings are an ordered series, like the colors of the rainbow or the planets of the solar system. Giving the item additional associations in a new phrase can ensure that you effectively hold onto it.

18. Visualize It

Image: Serge Arsenie

This is where things go beyond facts and rhymes. It’s long been debated whether people think in words or pictures, but the truth is that our memories actually use a combination of the two. If you have placed the item you want to remember in a sentence, imagine the scene as a picture, adding features and details, and let it really come to life. When you’re imagining Noisy Nora, you can add a picture of her walking around and banging a drum, for example, or if you want to remember Chris Ladder’s name, then imagine him climbing up a wall. By creating a full, vivid scene you can moor the item in your memory for easier recollection.

17. Focus More Effectively

Image: Andrew Mason

You remember you had to concentrate? Well put it in action! If you want to remember a fact or the context in which it arose, focus on it and briefly repeat it to help it stick in your memory.

16. Place It

Image: Annie Mole

One way of adding detail to the item you are trying to remember is to place it in a real world context. By combining your appreciation of a real location with a vivid scene, bringing to life what you are trying to remember, a whole series of cues will help you find what you are looking for. The so-called Method of Loci was known to the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and originally saw the subject literally walking through a location in order to recall the series of objects that it contained. To emphasize this device you can put the items you want to remember in a geographic sequence you are familiar with, such as on a train line or walking through the rooms of your home.

15. Repeat It

Image: julipan

Can you remember what you just read? Repeating what you’ve learned can assist your ability to recollect, and even saying it out loud can help. For example, if someone introduces themselves to you, you can reply: “Nice to meet you,” before repeating their name. By repeating the verbal cue you’re connecting a name to a face – and reinforcing what might otherwise be an elusive detail. But…

14. Rehearse It

Image: mckaysavage

Repeating a fact until you’re hoarse isn’t the best way to latch onto it. Instead stagger out drills so that you’re exercising your short-term and long-term memory, and building up a familiarity with your subject.

13. Put Yourself In The Picture

Image: moriza

This one is so effective you might be doing it already! The secret is to put yourself in the middle of what you’re trying to remember, relating it to yourself and to your experiences. If you want to remember things, keep in mind why they matter to you. This process, called the self-reference technique, is at the heart of all associative memory techniques and is a guaranteed time saver. If you meet someone called David, think of another David you know and your relationship with them. Then you can worry about getting to know the new David!

12. Chunk

Image: Uwe Hermann

Most people can only remember seven things, give or take two items. That means you might struggle to remember things like your Social Security Number or cell phones numbers. One way to deal with this is through chunking – breaking down the pile into a manageable, meaningful series of items. If you’ve got a string of numbers, break them down into meaningful digits that have a particular association for you. For example, if you were trying to remember the phone number (212) 995-1960, you might recall the dates 1995 and 1960 and imagine strong visual cues relating to those two years.

11. Pair Up And Visualize

Image: dierk schaefer

A more arcane way of chunking, combining several different techniques, is through the Dominic System. In order to remember a sequence of numbers, assign a letter to each of the numbers from 0 to 9, then pair up the letters and connect them to easy-to-remember people or celebrities. Hence 11 might be AA, or 39 might be CN – so on reading 1139 you might imagine Chuck Norris going to Alcoholics Anonymous. By creating a stream of vivid images it quickly becomes possible to memorize a surprising amount of information.

10. Get It Right

Image: rossjl

If when doing something for the first time you get it wrong, there is every possibility that you will memorize the wrong method. This means that it is essential to get things right the first time around and to build from there. So when learning something new, remove distractions and really focus!

9. Create Cues

Image: healthserviceglasses

If you’re trying to remember to do something regularly, build it into a routine, so that one task starts another. If you need to check your emails at the start of a day before writing a report, ensure that your process moves fluidly from one step to the next, so it becomes an automatic response. Alternatively, if you need to do something at a specific time you could set up a cue beforehand – for example, finishing a cup of coffee will remind you that you must perform a particular task at a particular time.

8. Make It Easy

Image: baxterclaus

Organize your life so that you can fit into a routine, finding things where you left them, and in that way run smoothly. This will save time immediately, but will also free up your concentration to focus on the things that are harder to remember.

7. Eat Right

Image: spisharam

You’ve now got a ton of tips to help you think better; now we want you to live better. Your brain isn’t (at all) immune to what’s going on in the world around it, so it’s time for some mental TLC: a happy brain is a brain with a long memory, and believe it or not, changing your diet really can boost your memory. Specifically you want to be looking out for antioxidants and Omega-3 fatty acids, both of which appear to assist memory.

6. Drink In Moderation

Image: TheBusyBrain

Right, so you’re paying attention? Quit drinking so much. If you can’t remember what you did the other night, that’s because drinking too much alcohol damaged your brain, impairing the cells relating to memory. However, that doesn’t mean you need to go teetotal. People who drink in moderation are thought to perform better in cognitive and memory tests and to be at a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

5. Sleep Right

Image: vintagedept

If you’re tired you’re not going to be focused or concentrating. Get the rest that you need otherwise you’ll struggle to hold onto anything.

4. Get Fit

Image: mikebaird

As it turns out, mind and body really do go hand in hand: it has been clinically proven that physical fitness has a direct (and positive) relationship with cognitive performance. Without regular exercise, plaque will build up in your blood vessels; that’s what causes heart attacks. Before that happens, though, the plaque flows through your body and gets stuck in your brain, cutting off the flow of blood. If you want to feed your brain, get moving!

3. Don’t Worry So Much

Image: Aidan O’Sullivan

At an everyday level, stress distracts you from concentrating and getting things done. If you can’t focus, you won’t remember what you should be doing – so clear a space and relax, and things will become clearer.

2. Use Aids

Image: Evil Erin

If you want to make a record of something without writing it down, you can leave yourself a visual cue that you need to do something. For example, putting your watch on the wrong hand, tying a piece of string around your finger or putting your phone on the wrong side of the desk when you need to make a call will all remind you that you have something to do. Just make sure that you connect the out of place object with a strong visualization of what it is you have to do.

1. Practice

Image: The U.S. Army

Just as your memory can get better with practice it can also deteriorate if you don’t focus. Make sure to stay in shape by regularly exercising your brain, rather than falling into lazy habits and letting things slide. By exercising your memory you can save yourself huge amounts of time as well as make yourself a more productive and more efficient individual.

Reducing expenditures, freeing up valuable time and improving operations are often seen as the three most important benefits of outsourcing. One outsourced business function that can nearly always hit all three of these targets is the handling of customer service responsibilities.

Managing customer expectations is perhaps the single most important factor of business success. Understanding your customers’ business approach will ultimately improve your company’s customer relationships and drive sales. Ensuring your company is properly addressing your customers’ concerns is also essential to improving customer retention.

Outsourced customer service firms are experts in addressing issues, coming up with solutions and following them through to their successful conclusion. These firms will handle time intensive tasks such as answering calls, writing emails, documenting customer issues and providing written reports of the most pressing issues your business faces. If there is one prerequisite of a successful business, it’s to have a solid customer service team dedicated to communicating with customers.

Unfortunately, a large number of companies struggle with this most essential aspect of business management. Either they don’t have the internal resources to properly manage customer service, or lack the ability to properly track performance. Either way, outsourcing customer service to an outside firm can improve your company’s ability to retain customers and help to grow your company’s market share.

Image: andy.simmons

As a business person, you constantly need information, and you need it quickly. When you need a phone number or directions for a restaurant to meet with a client, you can’t labor through a time-consuming search. Your time is valuable. The YPMobile iPhone app is the app for the Yellow Pages, and it was made for people like you. It presents a simple yet powerful reference tool that saves you time and effort, allowing you to be as productive as you can be.

No matter what you’re looking for, the YPMobile app is intuitive and helpful, minimizing the time it takes to find any location. If you’re looking for a place to get coffee with a co-worker, you can use the categories section and quickly find many nearby coffee shops. Or if you know the name of where you want to go, you can just search for that term. There’s even an option to add a business to your contacts list if you want it for easy reference later.

The app also makes it easy for you to get where you’re going quickly. It has a map built in so you can find the best route. If you allow it to interact with your phone’s GPS, it will find locations that are close to where you are. If you want specific map directions, it can also draw those out for you.

Whether you’re meeting a client, finding new office space, or making a business purchase, the YPMobile app will save you time. It’s a great choice for those in the fast-paced world of business where every minute matters. YPMobile is a time saver and a great aid for any business person.

Image: AT&T Intellectual Property

With the advance of technology, we are getting better and better tools with which to work – but they can always be made better! Here are some iPhone accessories that really can help you to save time, allowing you to use your iPhone more effectively and more efficiently.

Apple Remote: This sleek aluminum remote can be used to control your Mac, iPod, or iPhone from a distance. You can use it to adjust volume, forward, rewind and access menus. During presentations or when collaborating via videophone conference you could use it to save time by operating and coordinating all three Apple products with one remote. It also comes standard with the Apple Universal Dock.

Apple World Travel Adapter Kit: This is an obvious time saver. It has a USB power adapter, cable and six interchangeable plugs which give you a wide variety of components. When traveling, save the time spent looking for a compatible power outlet to recharge your iPhone by carrying this handy iPhone accessory everywhere you travel.

Apple Component AV Cable: An excellent accessory to integrate your iPhone with a TV and view media files. It contains component input jacks as well as USB connectors and a power adapter. Save the time it would take to transfer video to USB or DVD format for playback on TV.

Apple Bluetooth Travel Cable: Charge your Bluetooth and iPhone at the same time with this handy accessory. Plug it into a power source and then plug in your iPhone and Bluetooth set at the same time to charge. This allows you to save the time you would have spent charging these components independently or looking for that Bluetooth charger you forgot at home or in the office.

Griffin PowerJolt Car Charger for iPad, iPhone and iPod: The charger comes with a cigarette-lighter adapter with a powerful 2AMP charging circuit. This innovative product comes equipped to charge your iPhone, iPad or iPod, all from the convenience of your car. Easily save time by merging commuting time with charging your gadgets.

Image: gadgetdude

Freelance workers are available in many businesses and industries around the world – and modern business owners should understand the benefits of using remote freelancers, rather than standard company employees. Domestic manufacturing, software and telecommunications companies have outsourced freelance workers for decades. Now the power of modern technology is increasing the demand for freelance workers in the place of traditional employees. Here are some of the key benefits that are making that happen.

1. Freelance Workers Have Knowledge

Freelancers perform independent research and gather knowledge to provide a better service, before completing complex assignments. Whereas full time employees work in a corporate monoculture, freelancers bring new ideas and approaches to the enterprise. Furthermore this knowledge base comes with no need for additional costs.

2. Freelancers Work More Cheaply

The freelancer makes personal investments in education and training, so there is no need to pay for expensive tutorials or industry certifications. Additionally, companies can save money by not paying company insurance, taxes, paid time off or salary increases to freelance workers.

3. Freelancers Work Remotely

Freelancers can work remotely for one or for many companies. Many freelancers use the power of modern technology using digital video or telecommunications software to communicate and deliver completed company projects. Unlike traditional office employees, freelancers do not have to commute to perform necessary work or research. All of this lowers overheads, smooths communication and cuts down on in-office time wasting.

4. Freelance Management Groups

Multiple projects may be overwhelming for a traditional employee. However, instead of this, knowledgeable freelancers can be grouped together to perform small portions of the project. This focused approach guarantees total commitment and decreases the chances of errors due to the smaller workload. A company can hire multiple freelancers to complete a series of complex projects, where it would be impossible to hire multiple in-house staff members to work on the same task.

Image: Niklas Bildhauer