Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SUBMITTE TO:
SUBMITTED FROM:
DATE:
ASSIGNMENT ON ECOMMERCE
History of Elance:
The Dawn of the Elance Economy:
In May 1998, Professor Thomas W. Malone and Robert J. Laubacher published an article in the Harvard Business Review titled, "The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy." This landmark article spurred much discussion in the academic and business press. Its core proposition was that "the devolution of large, permanent corporations into flexible, temporary networks of individuals" was already underway. This trend was being driven by Internet-related technologies that lower business-tobusiness transaction costs. The lower transaction costs enabled by personal computing and electronic networks change the "economic equation." This change reduces the value of centralized decision making, diminishes the economics of conglomeration and encourages companies to outsource a wider variety of business functionsespecially specialized functions that are peripheral to a company's core competencies. The authors went on to say that while "no one can yet say exactly how important or widespread this new form of business organization will become, but judging from the current signs, it is not inconceivable that it could define work in the twenty-first century."
ASSIGNMENT ON ECOMMERCE
Elance for Enterprises.
In 2002, Elance brought its services vision to enterprise customers with the industry's first comprehensive solution for Services and Contractor Management. Elance's solution, designed to streamline and automate the process of finding, buying and managing services, was quickly adopted by forward-thinking companies including American Express, BP, FedEx, GE, Motorola and other leading companies. Today, Elance is the most widely used application for Services and Contractor Management. More than 200,000 employees are using Elance to find, buy, manage and pay external services and contractors from more than 2,000 suppliers across 50+ services categories, including information technology, consulting, contract and temporary labor, marketing, print, human resources, engineering, maintenance and facilities. In 2006, after significant accomplishments including the milestone of over $7 billion in services spend actively managed by Elance customers across multiple service categories from suppliers including Accenture, BearingPoint, Cognizant, Deloitte, Infosys, IBM, Keane, Oracle, Tata, Wipro and others, Elance sold its Enterprise business unit to Click Commerce (NASDAQ: CKCM).
2) Advertise for a ghost writer. This lets your prospective writer know you want
them to imitate someone else's style and will help you narrow the field quickly to those who can do it. Attach a couple of sample articles and ask them to provide an example of their own writing in a similar style.
3) If you can, hire 3 writers. You do this for the same reason that you get 3 quotes
for a plumber. Without a comparison, you'll accept much lower standards (and possibly higher prices). And if you're lucky, you'll end up with 3 great writers. Spend some good time on this phase - 'hire in haste, repent at leisure'. One thing I always do is chat with writers I like the look of in the Workroom. If they can't communicate well, they aren't going to write well.
4) Once you have chosen your winner(s), feed back and ask for a specific
improvement to the article. This lets you check how they respond to feedback and lets them know you're serious about quality. Plus, forcing yourself to work out what would improve an article helps you improve your game. Compliment your writer on what you like about their article - they'll do more of it.
ASSIGNMENT ON ECOMMERCE
5) Get them on a schedule - for example, one article per week. This gives you an
external deadline to stick to that will keep your content creation process ticking along.
7) Do it again. If you can create content that will pay for itself, why not get 10
writers all creating one article per week? Unless of course you just don't want to grow that fast ;-) Although it can feel like a big step, outsourcing your content creation to skilled writers is one of the most important things you can do to help your web business grow. Put the time in now and it will free you up to focus on other areas of your online business.
ASSIGNMENT ON ECOMMERCE
Collecting payment can be time-consuming and stressful. When you use Elance to deliver great work, your payment is on-time and guaranteed. With our licensed Escrow system for fixed price work and our Work View system for hourly work, Elance has got you covered.
Worker classification:
With Elance's self-serve tools, you can appropriately classify contractors and ensure compliance with tax and labor laws. Set alerts for duration of service, and easily convert contractors to W2 status with Elance Payroll Services.
ASSIGNMENT ON ECOMMERCE
Tax filing:
1099: U.S. based clients hiring U.S. contractors may be required to submit a 1099 tax form to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). For clients with multiple jobs and contractors, this can involve a great deal of paperwork. Elance eliminates this manual process, and will file required 1099s on your behalf for free. W2: For longer-term contractor relationships, Elance offers an integrated W2 solution that helps you minimize risk, save money, and easily manage your contractors. With Elance Payroll Services, you can use the same Elance interface to manage your contractors whether they are classified as 1099 or W2.
ASSIGNMENT ON ECOMMERCE
Insurance:
Making sure that your contractors carry the proper insurance is important for risk mitigation. Elance includes two levels of insurance protection for contractors you hire through Elance. E&O insurance All providers on Elance are covered with Errors and Omissions Insurance (E&O). General and Professional Liability Contractors working through Elance Payroll Services have the added protection of complete general and professional liability protection.
Spend analytics:
Sophisticated reporting tools provide clear visibility into your contractor spend. Analytics include:
Spend by purchase order (PO) Spend by contractor Spend by project type Project timeline tracking Spend by provider location
ASSIGNMENT ON ECOMMERCE
Elance has the world's simplest and most powerful RFP engine: you can publish your job to thousands of qualified contractors and start reviewing proposals within hours.
Statement of Work: milestones, escrow, and weekly status reports keep fixed price projects on track.
ASSIGNMENT ON ECOMMERCE
Hourly: automated time-tracking and Work View let you see hourly work in real-time. Screenshots streamed to the workroom let you see how things are progressing or verify each hour billed.
ASSIGNMENT ON ECOMMERCE
Guaranteed work:
Elance offers a new level of visibility to remote work. So much so that we guarantee you will only pay for approved results or hours.
ASSIGNMENT ON ECOMMERCE
Financial controls:
Work Authorization - Set approval thresholds for weekly hours worked Users and Permissions - Limit access to sensitive financial information by user role Contract Management - Maintain an auditable record of contract changes
Legal protection:
Every contractor on Elance agrees to a contract that protects both parties with default provisions including:
Intellectual property protection for the client Ownership rights assigned to the client upon payment Worker relationship classified as "Work-for-Hire"
CONCLUSION: Elance is an effective way to outsource the employees and resultantly it increase the productivity of the company and reduces unemployment from the economy.