Businesses around the world are looking to use virtual assistant services to make sure that they hire the right virtual assistant to meet their company’s needs.

When hiring virtual assistants, it is important to find out which country the worker is from, as workers from different countries may display different skills when it comes to dealing with data entry and social media accounts.

By using a virtual assistant service, they will help source the best virtual assistants from a global talent pool. Offshore workers such as a general virtual assistant are normally best found in The Philippines, India, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Brazil, and even in countries like Australia, America, and the United Kingdom.

When you hire a virtual assistant, it is important to do a cost-benefit analysis that will help your business grow but always make sure that you hire skilled professionals who will take care of time-consuming tasks and seek out prospective buyers.

History Of Virtual Assistants

The Virtual Assistant profession can trace its humble and unpretentious beginnings as a source of livelihood for unemployed workers and stay-at-home mothers.

Back then, the Internet was limited to government agencies, and the personal computer was only found in offices. Home-based workers were providing secretarial and personal assistant services for offices and nearby construction sites.

By 1995, the Internet became available via dial-up service. It was crude, but it made information readily available and made work more efficient. By 1996, the term Virtual Assistant was officially coined by Anastacia Brice, who was running a business that managed the administrative work of many law offices.

Dawn Of The Internet

When the Internet became more accessible with the introduction of broadband technology in the year 2000, it opened more opportunities for people who wanted to work remotely from home.

But the explosive growth of the virtual assistance industry can be linked with the volatile and turbulent first decade of the new millennium.

Events such as 9/11, the 2003 collapse of global equities markets, the war on Iraq, the worldwide recession, the 2009 Eurozone Crisis, and the near bankruptcy of several powerful economies like the United States and Spain put global business conditions on a tailspin.

Companies all over the world were looking for opportunities to streamline costs in order to remain profitable. Outsourcing became the go-to solution, and this can be seen by its growth trajectory from 2000 to 2015.

Outsourcing not only provided businesses with an immediate solution to address sluggish output while also keeping up with customer demand. It also provided opportunities for people who were laid off or could not find available work.

From an option for laid-off workers through online classes, virtual assistance grew to become a profession that offered a stable career. The industry opened its doors to accommodate diverse skill sets that were increasing in demand from various businesses.

The Virtual Assistant was no longer just a Personal Assistant or a Secretary. You could find a Virtual Assistant for any job, such as web development, software development, competitor analysis, and so on. Eventually, new terminologies such as freelancer, telecommuter, remote worker, and home-based worker were created for appropriateness.

Growing Demand For VAs

The United States continues to lead the world in virtual assistance. More US companies are hiring remote workers in order to streamline costs, improve productivity and lower the attrition rate. A survey by Gallup showed that in 2016, 37% of the US workforce were telecommuters.

It is estimated that by 2020, more than 50% of the US workforce will be composed of telecommuters.

The growth of the Virtual Assistant was foretold as early as 2012, one year after Marissa Meyer, CEO of Yahoo!, integrated remote workers into the organization.

Around the world, home-based work was already part of the workforce set up, particularly in China (85%), India (77%), France (72%), the United Kingdom (71%), and Brazil (61%).

By 2014, 24% of Americans were already doing part-time online work. This number figures to go up because of two factors:

  • Growing uncertainty and volatility in global business conditions;
  • Increasing demand for outsourced services in order to keep costs manageable.

 

While the United States has led the way, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia are not far behind. It is estimated the virtual assistance industry is worth at least $US5 Billion.

Global VA Opportunities

For businesses with tighter budgets, a viable option would be to contract the services of virtual assistants from remote locations such as the Philippines and India.

This should not be a stretch because the Philippines and India have been the consensus top two destinations for global outsourcing.

The Philippines’ outsourcing industry has been growing at roughly the same pace as the global outsourcing market. It has grown by 46% since 2006 and is expected to experience an annual growth rate of 20% until the year 2020 in the short term.

Meanwhile, the Indian outsourcing industry continues to be a favorite destination for IT and back-office work. Its outsourcing sector has been growing at an annual rate of 50%.

As its opportunities for outsourced work grew, so did the market for Virtual Assistants.

According to online job platform giant Elance-Upwork, of the 8 million virtual assistants and freelancers in its community, one million are Filipinos.

What Makes The Philippines A Rich Source Of Talent For A Virtual Assistant?

High Level of English Proficiency

Tagalog is the national language, but English is the primary medium of instruction in schools and of communication in business. A 2012 survey by Global English ranked the Philippines number one in the world for Business English.

This means that when it comes to hiring a data entry VA to deal with administrative tasks, small business owners are only too happy to offer employee contracts to remote employees in the Philippines.

When hiring a team member for your company, it is important that they have an excellent command of the English language. The Philippines is well known for being one of the best countries to hire a fluent English speaking VA from.

High Literacy Rate

The Philippines has one of the highest literacy rates in the world at 96.2%, and most workers will have an excellent command of the English language.

Most business owners want to reduce costs and save money by hiring a remote worker from a developing country from within the VA industry in an effort to save on office space taken up by a full-time employee.

Hiring a virtual assistant worker from the Philippines at affordable prices allows many businesses to consider cutting back on in-office staff, which further reduces costs.

And that won’t come at the cost of having to train them for the most basic literacy skills.

Global Melting Pot of Cultures

Foreign companies will have an easy time working with Filipinos. Philippine culture has been influenced by traditions and practices from years of colonization by the Spanish, Americans, and Japanese. Filipinos can work well with different nationalities.

As discussed earlier, India has welcomed virtual assistance work as early as 2012. You can find a Virtual Assistant in India who is immensely talented and capable of managing your business’ IT requirements.

India has been the world standard for IT services. In fact, the jump-off point of global outsourcing could be traced to its working relationships with US companies in Silicon Valley in the mid-1990s.

Aside from the Philippines, other countries in Asia, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and China, have been making inroads in the virtual assistance industry by following emerging trends.

The latest advances in technology have made it easier to bridge oceans and connect with a Virtual Assistant in the Philippines, India, Singapore, and other developing countries. While some concerns about communication and cultural barriers remain, these have become largely inconsequential in such a popular outsourcing destination.

A more proactive approach to managing virtual teams, frequent communication, and preliminary research on history and culture have greatly mitigated these concerns.

Perhaps a remaining barrier to greater engagement with the Virtual Assistant from a remote location is the ongoing problem with infrastructure. The Philippines and India, while having great success in outsourcing, have curiously poor Internet facilities compared to European countries.

Those problems are mostly rooted in government policy which is highly protectionist and has created barriers to entry in key industries such as telecommunications and public utilities.

Contracting the services of a Virtual Assistant is a smart move to improve efficiency in your business. There are many talented virtual assistants around the world, but the best countries are always the ones with a high command of English when it is not their official language.

Do not let pricing be an issue; it is not indicative of the quality of work. A Virtual Assistant from the Philippines can be as good, if not better, than one from the United States or another first-world country.

Contact Us Today

Hiring a Filipino virtual assistant to deal with any of the following services such as data entry, social media management, inventory management, event management, cold calling, web design, or your editorial calendar, will help you concentrate on other areas of your company.

When using any outsourced services to help your company hire any type of remote workers, such as a research VA or an E-Commerce VA, it is important that you hire the perfect one.

With that in mind, why not contact us today by calling us on 1300 727 147 to get started.

We have a team of trained VAs ready to take up some of the most time consuming and mundane tasks allowing you to get on with the important and dollar-productive things in your business.