The infinit outsourcing
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- clearThoughts0
- "Hundreds of guys depended on Paulie and he got a piece from everything they made"clearThoughts
- clearThoughts0
"Tell me, what's stopping the end client from going to the freelancer directly?"
From my experience is more like a scene from Goodfellas... try and cutout the middle man and you might as well forget working in 'this industry' again.
Do you want to screw up a guy like Saatchi even though we all know he is probably a dirty sun of the bitch?
If you do, you better have a backup plan and some spare cash.
- TheBlueOne0
But the business isn't getting the entire difference between the 25 and the 75 an hour. They're picking up all the overhead costs. That's where alot of young cats who freelance screw themselves, charging what they were making hourly at their last job. Nothing will send you to the poor house faster. As freelance I bill myself out at about $70 an hour, but what's ending up in my pocket after taxes, expenses, etc is nowhere near that. Different if I was salaried somewhere at the same rate an hour.
I don't see anything massively egregious about paying someone $12 an hour and billing them at $65 to a client, depending on the industry - esp. if it's trades or construction for ex.
- albums0
Early on to add to the above story I remember getting paid $25/hour knowing my effort was getting billed out for $75/hour. seemed fair though, I had the artsy job, no real responsibility.
- pr20
Happens in every industry - there are HUGE contracting projects given away to companies that's nothing else but a guy with a cellphone. He takes his 20% then send the job down the line to an actual company that takes 20% and send it to a small company that takes 20% and hires an actual company which hires tons of day laborers.
I remember my step father sued a company for unpaid wages - he was getting paid $12/hour while the company was billing $65/h for his labor.
- fresnobob0
I think most big agencies probably outsource to get more specialized knowledge, not for whatever dubious means you may think they have... Legislation (of which there should be way less, not more!) like this would pretty much fuck over freelancers and keep smaller firms from doing work for bigger clients. A large client is not going to waste the time searching through thousands of individual designers or small firms when they can hire someone huge and well known to do this for them.
- zoozoo0
watch the movie 'outsourced'
- ukit20
There is nothing stopping the freelancer from outsourcing to an 20 year old in India...then to a 12 year old Chinese kid...etc
- monNom0
Outsourcing requires significant management expense. A large client with lots of work could easily contract all the small design firms and widget-makers directly, but at the cost of basically duplicating all the middle-management in the agency's food chain.
- raf0
This is how this works. Your car manufacturer doesn't make everything in-house. They sub-contract a lot to smaller companies that often sub-contract further. This is an industry. Many people have work this way and if there was a better way to do... it would work differently.
Tell me, what's stopping the end client from going to the freelancer directly? Lack of legislation?
- maikel0
I might say that in other industries isn't exactly like that. Where you deal with tangible products there are certain things you can and cannot do.
The quality of an idea is hard to evaluate. You can measure result but then again, having an army of creatives is no guarantee you will have effective campaign.
And I do not justify 'let the little guy grow' by screwing the industry as a whole; if you couldn't outsource infinitely, the little guy would have chances of (a) entering quicker to a large agency instead of working from the shadows or (b) getting in contact with larger clients.
When I mean regulations I am thinking some sort of transparency regulations: when a large companies outsource public contract it is mandatory to list any joint venture / external supplier.
- i've read this thru a number of times now... but still scratching my head a bit. feel free to elaboratebjladams
- randommail0
That's similar to just like in ANY company, the CEO makes the most money, but delegates down the food chain through several layers of middle managers, where finally the 26 year old kid in a cubicle "does the work".
- normally you 'do' first. then you manage and finally you direct. trust me, the guy in the cubicle will not ever be ablemaikel
- to do the job of the director. and it is nothing to do with technical skills but more to do with strategy and decision making.
maikel - making.maikel
- Works exactly like the original post's statement then.randommail
- Ehr... nope really. It should in theory, but it doesn't mostly.maikel
- bjladams0
i think it's the same in every industry and it's what gives the little guy the ability to grow.
- zenmasterfoo0
I think it's up to the client to manage that. You're either hands on or hands off.
- clearThoughts0
Don't think the client gives a damn as long as the work gets done for the budget agreed.
And the work better be good.
- clearThoughts0
Ha! Inspired by my comment!!!
- d_rek0
And disrupt a decades worth of corporate business practices? Hah!
- maikel
I was reading one of the post and thinking how familiar is to see a big agency outsource a project to a large production company that will hire a studio that will outsource the project into (sometimes) a single freelancer, or a small team let's say 4 - probably in a geographically remote location.
We all know that this usually (although not always) goes against the clients - who will pay more than what it should - and the industry (the quality decreases, etc.)
Do you think it should be a legislation regulating how many times (if any) a company can outsource a project or is it acceptable as far as the company delivers?