Walk into an urban high school and look around at the kids. Roughly half of them will drop out of school. If you knew which ones, you might be able to steer them toward a different path. But you can’t solve a problem until you can spot it, and how do you spot a future dropout?

Some Johns Hopkins University researchers, frustrated by the high-school-dropout rate, went looking for early-warning signs among students in Philadelphia. What were the telltale markers of a student who wouldn’t graduate? Their analysis came back with astonishing clarity. Poring over eighth-grade attendance records, they found hundreds of students who had missed more than one out of every five class days. Of those frequent absentees, 78% eventually quit high school. Similarly, of the eighth graders who had failed either English or math, three out of four dropped out. No other factor — gender, race, age, or standardized-test scores — had the predictive power of those two patterns.

The researchers concluded that the school district could identify more than half of the students who would be likely to drop out before they even set foot in high school.

The early-warning flags didn’t solve the dropout problem, of course, any more than a smoke alarm can put out a fire. But policy analysts at the National High School Center, armed with this information, were then able to review almost a dozen dropout-prevention programs with documented success that could be targeted toward the most at-risk kids.

What if you could identify the early-warning signs of a business problem? What if, in fact, the red flags are there right now, waving at you unheeded from information you’ve already collected?

Credit-card companies, for instance, have learned that by charting the “normal” spending habits of their cardholders, they can quickly spot fraudulent use. (Though sometimes the warnings of fraud can feel uncomfortably like character judgments, as when Dan bought flowers for his wife and AmEx, incredulous, immediately blocked his account.)

Google executives realized in November 2008 that flu outbreaks could be detected early by monitoring the number of times people searched for terms such as “flu” and “influenza.” Because the searches are logged instantly, epidemiologists can spot flu outbreaks a full one to two weeks faster than they could have before. Perhaps someday Google might reconfigure this technology to spot and quash boy bands before they can infect your daughters.

Sometimes, though, there’s simply no data available. Think about infrastructure problems, such as when a bridge collapses. The bridge will go down with nary a word of forewarning. To predict the collapse, you’d need a useful data stream. That’s why engineers are designing sensors that would allow bridges to notify authorities of problems such as cracks, corrosion, or the loosening of bolts. You read that right: Bridges will soon be tweeting their every activity. (One suspects the Golden Gate will be insufferable.)

Your source of data doesn’t need to be high tech. In fact, it doesn’t even need to be numerical. Consider Van Halen. (We have been waiting years for a chance to write that sentence.) In its 1980s heyday, the band became notorious for a clause in its touring contract that demanded a bowl of M&Ms backstage, but with all the brown ones removed. The story is true — confirmed by former lead singer David Lee Roth himself — and it became the perfect, appalling symbol of rock-star-diva behavior.

Get ready to reverse your perception. Van Halen did dozens of shows every year, and at each venue, the band would show up with nine 18-wheelers full of gear. Because of the technical complexity, the band’s standard contract with venues was thick and convoluted — Roth, in his inimitable way, said in his autobiography that it read “like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages.” A typical “article” in the contract might say, “There will be 15 amperage voltage sockets at 20-foot spaces, evenly, providing 19 amperes.”

Van Halen buried a special clause in the middle of the contract. It was called Article 126. It read, “There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.” So when Roth would arrive at a new venue, he’d walk backstage and glance at the M&M bowl. If he saw a brown M&M, he’d demand a line check of the entire production. “Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error,” he wrote. “They didn’t read the contract…. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show.”

In other words, Roth was no diva. He was an operations expert. He couldn’t spend hours every night checking the amperage of each socket. He needed a way to assess quickly whether the stagehands at each venue were paying attention — whether they had read every word of the contract and taken it seriously. In Roth’s world, a brown M&M was the canary in the coal mine.

Like Roth, none of us has the time and energy to dig into every aspect of our businesses. But, if we’re smart, we won’t need to. What if we could rig up a system where problems would announce themselves before they arrived? That may sound like wishful thinking, but notice that it’s exactly what Roth achieved. Surely, you won’t be outwitted by the guy who sang “Hot for Teacher.”

Where’s the brown M&M in your business?

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The expanding reach of the Internet and growth of online collaboration tools have all changed small business outsourcing dramatically in the past 3-4 years.

Let us take a look at 10 key trends for using independent contractors for projects and even ongoing staffing needs, and how they shape up in 2009:

1.  The “Outsourcing Life” is hip

Popularized by the best seller The 4-Hour Workweek, more people are realizing that they can get their work done by someone else even if they are a solo entrepreneur.  According to statistics published by US Small Business Administration, 56% of US small businesses with 100 employees or less, have fewer than 5 employees. If your business is one with no employees or a very small number of employees, you may find yourself over-stretched for time, and in need of outsourcing in both your personal and professional life.  Driven by the economy and the need to watch expenses, more businesses will opt for contracting relationships and hold off hiring new employees as long as possible.

Small businesses are also continuing to push the envelope on what can be outsourced.  They are discovering elements that can be outsourced even in previously “core” activities. For example, an Australian small business we work with specializes in online marketing, but also uses multiple telemarketing providers to cross sell their product range to customers.

How to benefit from this trend:

• Re-examine what you consider to be activities only you or your employees can do.
• If not the entire activity, can some parts of this at least be outsourced?
• Be prepared to invest some time up front in training your outsourcing partner.

2. Have we met? Not likely!

Trusting people you never meet face to face is gaining acceptance.  Use of Skype conversations and social networks like Facebook and Twitter exemplify how people who have never met strike up relationships with each other.  These media are increasingly becoming the means for small businesses to reach out and establish trust based relationships with their outsourcing partners.

A decade ago you may never have thought of outsourcing to someone outside of your local city or region.  Now it is commonplace to find vendors and independent contractors across the country or even across the world.

How to benefit from this trend:

• If you are a vendor, establish a presence on the networking sites of your choice – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc. to create an online brand presence.  Make it easy to be found and for customers to get to know you.
• Evaluate which mode of communication gives you the best results. Also take into consideration where your customers are located and how they prefer to be contacted. Sign up with Skype, or other email and Internet marketing tools.

3. More power for the hour – new ways to price services

Payment schedules structured to incentivize success are gaining popularity.  Two common types of payment methods are “Fixed Price” (where the vendor takes much of the risk – this is often highly conflict prone) and “Time and Materials” (this gives the vendor flexibility in defining scope but is expensive and asks the buyer to micro-manage).

We’re seeing pricing structures that combine the best of both.  For example, web page design will be fixed at a price per page.  Subsequent changes requested by the buyer are paid for using an hourly rate for the effort.  The combination pricing can save the buyer as much as 30% of the total cost and avoid conflicts. It also aligns interests of the buyer and the vendor.

How to benefit from this trend:

• Split your project into 2 parts:  the part that is well defined and unlikely to change, and the part that needs to change as you see results of each phase.
• “Fix Price” the well defined part, while agreeing upon an hourly rate for the rest.

4.   ”We need to talk”

In real estate the mantra is “Location. Location. Location.”  In outsourcing the mantra is “Communication. Communication. Communication.”

Operational structures that clearly define responsibilities and establishing ways of communicating play an ever more important role in successful outsourcing.  Small businesses are realizing the importance of such rigor in defining operational structures.

For instance, you might establish a regular review schedule to effectively manage a project and stay on top of progress.  This is preferred over putting a project out for hire and then going weeks without any status update.  Email, instant messaging and collaboration technologies make it easier to conduct frequent reviews.

How to benefit from this trend:

• When you outsource a project, establish a routine of daily or weekly status review calls based on project size.
• The duration of the calls again depends on the nature of your project, but typically 1 hour or less works best.
• This is important especially when you are working with a new provider.

5. Taking the relationship to the next level – outsourcing ongoing processes

Small businesses are opening up to outsourcing ongoing processes, in addition to projects.  Task (or project) outsourcing (e.g., file my taxes) is primarily a one-off activity while process outsourcing (e.g.,  manage my accounting) requires a relationship approach.  Process outsourcing also places greater responsibility on the vendor to become closely familiar with the client’s business and the client’s customers.

How to benefit from this trend:

• For the projects you are outsourcing, see if some of the activities you do before and after the project can also be done by your outsourcing partner.
• When outsourcing processes, evaluate providers for a strong understanding of the legal and regulatory issues associated with the process they would manage.

6.  Jigsaw Puzzle Outsourcing

Both clients and service providers are building the skills needed to successfully execute geographically distributed projects.  Small businesses are getting more comfortable with working remotely with the most skilled professionals, irrespective of where they are located.

The ability to break a process into components that can be done by different individuals, but designed to all fit together for the end result, is a complex skill that is increasingly valued.

How to benefit from this trend:

• When outsourcing a project focus more on who can get the job done best.
• If other factors like location, cultural affinity, time difference etc. are concerns for you, share them with your outsourcing partner.
• Discuss how the risks that come with these factors can be mitigated and find a solution that both parties feel is fair to them.

7. Let’s collaborate!

Tools like Basecamp, Zoho and Google Docs enable collaboration across continents cheaply.  You no longer have to worry as much about whether the client or the service provider have the same software applications installed, and in what form you are going to deliver work.  Online apps that are universally available make exchanges of information, project updates and deliverables easy and seamless.

PayPal has changed the face of payment.  PayPal is available in 190 markets and 18 currencies around the world.  Small businesses are using PayPal to invoice, make and receive payments.

Skype, an Internet based telecommunications and messaging system, likewise has made telephone conversations and quick message exchanges easy and inexpensive to do.

How to benefit from this trend:

• Decide what collaboration tools you need, and pick the one that best fits your needs, and does not confuse you with too many bells and whistles.
• Coach your outsourcing partner on how to use the tool most effectively, if required.

8. Pushing the frontiers of complexity

Services that are critical and complex like legal services, management accounting, and employment training are being increasingly outsourced globally.  In part this is due to point #2 above, where we are increasingly becoming more comfortable dealing across the web with people we have never met.

This trend will require providers, too, to become more skilled and efficient in handling greater complexity.

How to benefit from this trend:

• Take a second look at specialized services that are the most expensive in your business — these are areas you might consider outsourcing.
• Start small, and send out chunks of it to lower cost providers who can do the simpler components of the task for less.
• Expand the relationship as both sides become more confident in handling the additional complexity.

9. Offshore or Homeshore? The choice is yours!

Small businesses are maturing to look at a variety of factors before making the outsourcing decision.  Tasks that require presence in the same time zone and a cultural awareness are being Homeshored.  Tasks that are not time sensitive or heavily influenced by culture are being Offshored.  

How to benefit from this trend:

• Evaluate if your outsourcing partners can train themselves on some of the cultural aspects if they belong to a different geography.
• Offshore only those tasks that are well defined. For tasks that need your input several times a day, choose a provider who can work in your own time zone.

10. Just tell me when it is done!

Small businesses appreciate vendors who can support them through the project execution process.  Small businesses are increasingly realizing that bringing clarity to tasks, defining milestones and timelines, tracking progress etc. play a pivotal role in project success.

We’re seeing the emergence of more agencies and firms that place outsourced talent and handle all the overhead for the client.  These services are increasingly sought and valued by small businesses.  Almost every client we have tells us that the service we provide in managing their outsourcing is what they value most.

How to benefit from this trend:

• Evaluate how much time you and your employees are ending up spending on finding providers and on assigning and tracking their tasks. This could be another service you could outsource to an outside agency.
• Look for strong communication skills and experience in setting up processes that produce results.

What are the trends you are seeing in your own business and in businesses around you when it comes to outsourcing?

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Traditionally outsourcing vendors place coordinators on the customer site to facilitate communication with the offshore team.   This article discusses a different approach to coordinating offshore outsourcing projects where the client places a coordinator on the outsourcing vendor site to manage the offshore project.

I recently read a good blog post on Pragmatic Outsourcing titled The Myth of the Onsite Coordinator. Often offshore software outsourcing vendors place employees on the client site as part of the offshore engagement.  As Nick Krym mentions in his blog post, there are disadvantages to having an onsite offshore coordinator, the main being cost to the client.  An alternative approach that can be more effective is for the client to place an employee on the outsourcing supplier site.

Although an offshore coordinator could be employed by the outsourcing vendor or client, for the purpose of this post when I refer to “offshore onsite coordinator”, I mean a client employee or contractor managing the outsourcing initiative offshore.  This offshore onsite coordinator is responsible for managing the communication and coordination between the client and the vendor and may also be responsible for managing the vendor.

Advantages for the offshore outsourcing client

Improved communications – Their are two main reasons communication is difficult with a offshore team, mode of communication (phone, chat and email vs face to face), and cultural differences.  Without the offshore coordination role these factors compound resulting in communication issues.  An offshore onsite coordinator, who is a native English speaker and understands western business culture is communicating with the American office, so there are few communication issues between these two groups.  The onsite offshore coordinator then communicates directly with the offshore team face to face, which will decrease communication issues.

Improved offshore efficiency – The most efficient offshore teams I have worked with in China have had offshore onsite coordinators.  I believe the reason for this is motivation of the offshore employees.  When the client is onsite working with the offshore team, the teams have direct contact their customer and are more motivated to perform up to the clients productivity expectations.

Offshore team ramp up time – The offshore onsite coordinator brings much needed domain experience to the offshore team.  Having a domain expert in the office to answer domain related questions substantially decreases the amount of time to ramp up the offshore team on the clients domain.

Clarity into offshore operations – Because an offshore onsite coordinator is a client employee, they will accurately report issues and challenges back to America.  This creates a higher level of trust between client and vendor which is essential for a successful outsourcing initiative.

Improved vendor-client relationship – While onsite, the coordinator will learn the difficulties offshore outsourcing companies face and transfer this knowledge back to home office.  This will improve understanding between the client and vendor, thus improving the relationship.

Risks of using an offshore onsite coordinator

Vendor backlash – For the most part, I find that the offshore employees welcome the offshore onsite coordinator however, the vendors management team may not be as welcoming.  This is not always the case, and needs to be dealt with carefully.  If the vendor is resisting an offshore onsite coordinator, there is probably an underlining issue between the client and vendor that needs to be addressed.

Turnover – Living in a second world country like China or India is not for everyone.  All expatriates experience culture shock when moving to a new country, how well the offshore onsite coordinator will deals with culture shock is the question.  Sometimes employees initially excited at the opportunity to gain experience overseas will get homesick after a couple of months and request, if not demand to be transferred back home.

Choosing the wrong offshore onsite coordinator – A significant amount of patience and cultural sensitivity is need to work side by side with an offshore team.  An offshore onsite coordinator who becomes impatient with the offshore team, or fails to respect the culture will decrease the productivity of the offshore team rather than increasing it.

Many offshore outsourcing destinations like China have developed substantially in recent years.  There are more facilities and services geared towards foreigners than a couple of years ago.  Having a native to the clients country acting as an onsite coordinator has several advantages and should be considered as an alternative to having the vendor send a coordinator to the client site.

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Listed below are a dozen “uncut” reasons why providers believe clients should hire a sourcing advisor:

A Dozen Good Reasons
1.    Ensures objectivity – brings in impartiality to the provider selection process
2.    Acts as a catalyst – a good sourcing advisor spurs the sourcing discussion within the client environment
3.    Provides a financially sound approach and rigor – develops a sound data-centric business case for sourcing options leveraging a data-driven approach
4.    Saves time as it’s a qualified deal – sourcing advisors are only brought in if there is a real opportunity vs. “kicking tires”
5.    Reduces bias –  the advisor provides a level-set playing field
6.    Creates a win-win scenario – advisors help in making it a win-win for the client and the provider
7.    Brings in focused approach – from the client toward all aspects of the deal, e.g., selection, process, pricing, SLAs, governance model, etc.
8.    Enhances client-provider relationships – disciplined approach and methodology from the right sourcing advisor fosters better client-provider relationships very early in the relationship.  It would literally take years to get to know all of the key IT executives in a large company.  A good sourcing process can cut this down to a few months.  Priceless.
9.    Better communications – clear, consistent and frequent communications from an advisor on client RFP requirements and selection criteria helps to ensure no stone is left unturned and providers put their best foot forward.
10.    Faster and informed decision-making – a good advisor can help facilitate faster fact-based decision-making with key senior client executives and provide access to key business and IT stakeholders to resolve issues.
11.    Stay on track – sourcing advisors help facilitate the decision to outsource across the enterprise and help clients “stay the course” from the operational to board level once the decision to outsource has been made.
12.    Leverages significant outsourcing industry best practices – advisors can help negotiate better contract terms for both parties, client and provider. In addition, common ground can usually be reached on any business or legal issue while negotiating a complex contract as the sourcing advisor brings the “market” perspective.

Capability and Capacity
I expect that if I polled more providers I might pick up a few new reasons, but overall I believe these would stand the test of time.  For clients and potential clients, you will need to determine whether you have the capability (How experienced is your staff in outsourcing?  How many outsourcing transactions have they led and concluded?  Are they experts in RFP creation, provider selection, contract negotiations, transition management, change management, retained organization design, communications, vendor management?) and the capacity (Does your team have the long-term bandwidth to take the project from the inception stage through to contract?  Do you have enough people to manage all the aspects the sourcing process?) to do an outsourcing project.  Good sourcing advisors can do more or less of the work required depending on how equipped you are and the bandwidth your team has available.  Asking yourself these questions is critical to the success of your sourcing initiative.

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Often times, when selecting an outsourcing provider, the list of candidate firms can look almost identical in terms of capability and ability to handle the scope of services clients seek. This can lead to a sub-optimal subjective decision based on the “marketing speak” of the provider versus a more comprehensive and objective analysis that will lead to a successful relationship.

What factors can you use to differentiate among providers beyond the classic request for proposal response and the “marketing and sales speak” typically relied on during the outsource selection process?

The ability to clearly understand the current situation of the prospective provider is a critical, objective element that can help one provider stand out from the rest in the decision-making process. You need to understand if the time is right for the provider in order to select a vendor for a potential three to10 year relationship.

After all, if timing is a critical factor for your decision to outsource, shouldn’t you think about if the timing is right for the provider to take on your work?

Here are a few criteria you should look at closely to help in this regard:

1. Current financial condition of the provider – Is the provider investing in their processes, people and technology – or are they running with little to no investment, or even worse, are they reducing the investments being made to support clients?
2. Current management situation – Is there high turnover in the management team that will support the sales process and ultimately the service delivery process, or are the teams that will support you in the process stable, and established, in the company?
3. References – Every provider will give a few references. The question is which of their clients look most like you, and are they referable. If not, why not?
4. Account/Sales Team – Is the collective experience, influence and competence of the team working through both the contracting process and the ultimate transition and account management process acceptable?

These criteria are not fixed, and change regularly depending on the situation the provider is in when you engage them in a selection process. The key is to understand your selection timing relative to the provider’s current situation.

If these criteria are equally as important as the details of the solution, pricing and other components of an outsourcing process, how can it be evaluated during a selection process?

Classically, providers will respond to an RFP, there will be a “yellow pad” where the solution is closely evaluated, a down-select process ensues with negotiations and finally a deal is made. Usually, the issue of price trumps everything else, and a partner is selected with varying results.

When the four situational components above are lightly looked at, or even overlooked, a tremendous amount of unnecessary risk is added to your deal.

To aid our clients relative to these key criteria for selecting the right vendor at the right time, Alsbridge has perfected a Sourcing Alignment System, a series of organized face-to-face interactions with the potential providers, that tend to ferret out these issues.

The result is always a clear understanding of not only the capabilities of the provider, but more importantly, a clear understanding of the current situation of the provider and what kind of service team we can expect going forward.

Whatever the stage you are at in a selection process for a potential outsourcing vendor, we strongly recommend you build in the opportunity to have an open and honest dialogue about the health and current situation of your potential vendors. Without it, you may find that the vendor you picked isn’t the one who shows up on the first day of work.

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Originally Uploaded by daryljames

by Bill Huber

The most effective procurement organizations are able to attract, stimulate and retain top talent; and retain the energy and momentum to continuously drive change to their companies. Less effective organizations can succumb to bureaucracy, marginalization and the loss of talent.

How your procurement organization approaches staffing can make all the difference. Here is an overview of the

TPI Top 5 considerations for building and staffing your procurement team:
1. Focus on the 21st Century procurement leader. The traditional procurement focus on cost savings, negotiations and contract terms are all critical, but they have become non-differentiating table stakes for procurement leaders.

2. Don’t overstaff. Every procurement organization is resource constrained and has more work than it can possibly complete. However the strategy of bulking up with bodies results in more overhead and the perception of an organization peppered with administrators, compliance cops and transactional buyers, all of whom will be accused of slowing down business. Find ways to make other organizations accountable for lower value activities, and reposition a smaller procurement staff as managers of spending strategy, governance and relationship performance.

3. Build in flexibility. Create an environment that will ensure that the procurement staff is able to move across commodities and business areas. This means cross-training and balancing subject matter depth with adaptability and flexibility.

4. Manage customer intimacy. To the extent possible, co-locate your key personnel with their most important internal clients. Your clients should see procurement leaders as members of their teams. Build formal partnership agreements with key clients, and involve them in the evaluation process of your leaders.

5. Compensate well. A smaller team is easier to make a well-compensated team. If the core procurement organization is able to focus on the activities that will bring the largest bottom-line impact to the organization, and if budget is freed up through the strategies identified in consideration #2, it will be easier to attract top talent.

Read Bill’s entire TPI Top 5 here . . .

TPI’s seasoned sourcing experts can help you achieve your global sourcing goals through objective advice, robust market data, knowledge of your industry and extensive experience with sourcing negotiations.

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The list below covers a variety of tasks that could be reasonably easy outsourced to a Virtual Assistant.

1. Industry / Market / Vendor / Product Research. Even though you can ask your VA to check library you are better off keeping the research to Web though. Research could be of a broad nature, for example top 5 firewall vendors, or very focused such as Nick Krym cell phone number.

2. Subject Matter Briefs – If you’ve ever been scheduled for a meeting on a topic about which you know very little, a virtual assistant can be a great help. Have them find or write a short, five-page summary of the topic, major concerns and implications for you, and recent news.

3. Calendar Management – setting appointments, making calls, rescheduling meetings, reminders, etc.

4. Contact management – cleaning up your outlook contact database, verifying / finding facts, addresses, emails, etc.

5. Email Management – email removing unnecessary (spam, useless elements of chain email, etc.), sorting, categorizing, follow up, response on your behalf, etc. – possibilities and time savings here are pretty amazing.

6. Call Answering and Forwarding. That’s particular important for small businesses that want to appear larger than life.

7. Voice Mail Management. For large VM boxes and high volume of calls managing VM similar to email could be quite helpful.

8. Gate Keeper. If you are popular person you can use VA to filter access to you and make yourself hard to reach via all channels.

9. Blogging support – VA can assist you with generating lists, linkbate posts, rearranging items in your blog, comment managing, comment response, etc. If you are thinking about full outsourcing of your blog – you need a ghost writer / firm.

10. News Digests – VA can act as a human filter on a top of RSS feeds / etc. Categorize, remove duplicate and irrelevant content, and enrich relevant materials.

11. Basic recruiting tasks such as sourcing and screening candidates.

12. Social networking – VA can help you with a lot of SN activities, from building and managing your LinkedIn profile, creating networks to finding correct groups and events to participate in.

13. Keep In Touch – KIT emails, groups, reminders – are incredibly important elements of your presence in society / social networking; VA can offer a great value in managing those activities.

14. Preparation to a Social Event. VA can work with the list of expected guests and create a brief info for each of the guests (e.g. last time you met, common interests, etc.) so you can be a black belt social networker when meeting with people at the event.

15. Job search – VA can be incredibly helpful with job search campaign, from on-line search and distributing your resume to setting up appointments and follow up emails.

16. Managing your business travel – booking tickets and hotels, finding best places for dinning as well as arranging social networking meetings, and other activities in the place of travel.

17. Basic project management / project coordination tasks, for example status review, following up, or “nagging” stakeholders.

18. Data Entry – tasks of all types from transferring printed docs (fax them to VA email) into electronic docs, to large volume data entry, record management, data analysis and basic data manipulation.

19. Language support – if you have to operate in a language that you are not 100% comfortable with VA can help you with grammar and vocabulary – editing your email, reviewing articles and power points, etc.

20. Personal brand management. From variety of social networking a activities to finding speaking engagement, and watching on-line references VA could be quite helpful.

21. Basic accounting support – matching invoices to PO, verifying T&M invoices against calendar and timesheets, etc. Finding a few errors in invoices (for some reason errors are always in favor of the vendor) can probably cover cost of VA for a substantial time span.

22. Purchasing – VA can research products / service offering, find suppliers, reach out to multiple vendors to get product / service quotes, and finalize the agreement.

23. Basic outbound telemarketing activities and lead generation. While better off left to professional some test / small volume activities can be performed by VA.

24. Document processing. When working with patent firms, legal, etc. organizations you will find a lot of document processing task can be delegated to a VA, for example submitting documents for contingency patent.

25. Sounding board – if you are lucky enough to find a very smart VA and establish a good relationship, he or she could be a great sounding board to bounce of some ideas, etc.

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