I ran across an article a couple of days ago in the February 2008 issue of Fast Company about Pfizer and its recent decision to outsource administrative support tasks that were being handled by executives to teams of virtual assistants in India.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/...scut-work.html

While a company the size of Pfizer needs large multi-VA teams, this should definitely introduce and hopefully enlighten smaller companies about the VA industry.

Ironically their keyboard "button" to send projects to a VA team is OOF - Office of the Future. Gotta love that!

Kim

This is really great for industry publicity and general public education - you're so right that when larger companies start to pick up on the trend so will the smaller companies.
The only downside, sadly, is that this also furthers the 'VA for $5 an hour' concept...I always have mixed feelings about this kind of outsourcing for that very reason.

Thanks very much for posting the link, this is a great article!

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I agree with Tess, as much as it is nice to see a company as Pfizer outsourcing their work, and using the services of a VA, I still have '"mixed" feelings when I read that the work was send overseas!


Elenora

I agree; it's great to see publicity about the VA industry but such a shame to see that these people are sending their work overseas! Especially when I read the part about how they're paying $15-$35 per hour; they could be supporting fellow Americans while paying the same (or similar) price. And, quite frankly, I believe they'd end up paying even less and benefiting more with an American VA, as there are no language or culture barriers to cause time-consuming confusion on projects.

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Tammi Metzler ~ The Write Associate
Free call: "How to Write Email Subject Lines That Grab Attention!"

Thanks, Kim, I find this fascinating. Do we really believe they're paying $15-$35 per hour? There's certainly a level of overseas service that works for a lot less. And if they are paying that much, somebody oughta write em a letter. I will, and offer my services!

But if they're paying less (like $10 or less per hour), I wonder what it would work out to if you counted in the months of education and systems development that the Pfizer fellow put in to make the communications smooth? Which is Tammi's point, of course.

Something's not right here, even tho I appreciate the general publicity for outsourcing and maybe should not expect more.

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Mary H. Ruth/Virtual Writing & Communications
http://www.writingVA.com

Thanks so much for sharing this article Kim. I've found it most interesting and it led me to jump over to Amazon.ca and place The World Is Flat on order. LOL

Cheers,
Pam Ivey
My Creative Assistant

I too had mixed feelings about the work having been sent overseas - especially with the rate of pay quote.

A couple of things in the article that stood out to me: (1) it seems that Cohen was not aware of the VA industry until he read The World Is Flat which identified India (so maybe the author should be enlightened some as well); and (2) Pfizer's need for a large pool of VA's.

While it is disheartening that the jobs were outsourced overseas, it still sheds light on the VA industry. Keep in mind that there are plenty of companies that prefer to keep work in-country, including outsourcing, due to problems that you all have mentioned (language, education, etc). A company the size of Pfizer showing the economical benefits should still be viewed as positive.

As for Pfizer's needs - - is there a multi-VA firm in the US or even in North American that has a VA staff to support 10,000 Pfizer employees? Reality is that solo VA's could not take on something this vast.

I'm still of the opinion that while it isn't the perfect publicity that all VA's would have wanted it still should have a waterfall effect and open up doors for VA's.

Kim