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Wouldn’t it be great if we can finish all the tasks at work without any help? Many business owners and managers have tried this, only to realize that it’s impossible to achieve this goal. This is especially true for businesses that are expanding and growing.
One of the biggest obstacles in cases like this is lack of time. The good news is that there’s a solution that guarantees that the business process will continue as planned even if you are not involved in all the activities directly. This solution comes in the form of crowdsourcing.
What’s crowdsourcing all about?
As the name suggests, crowdsourcing is a process where the work that a person (or organization) can’t finish themselves is outsourced to a crowd of people willing to finish that work for certain financial compensation.
Crowdsourcing is part of the innovation revolution that we are witnessing in the last decade. This revolution was triggered by the rapid advance of technology (hint: the Internet). The concept of crowdsourcing was present before the digital age, but it was the Internet that made it popular.
With the help of this sourcing model, you can expect to get diversity, scalability, flexibility, and speed while cutting the cost of your projects in general. This is a new approach that allows businesses to focus on more important things while leaving ordinary tasks to the hands of external professionals.
An introduction to crowdsourcing platforms
The number of crowd (crowdsourcing) platforms on the Internet is growing. Some of these platforms are focusing on specific business activities. While others are offering access to experienced professionals that work in different fields.
For instance, you can use a platform like Ponoko if you need product design and manufacturing ideas. On the other hand, if you need help with data entry and cleansing, you can use platforms like Mechanical Turk by Amazon. RedesignMe, Quri, Designhill, and MicroWorkers.
As previously mentioned, the list of crowdsourcing platforms is increasing. From logo design and write-ups to data entry and coding – both small business and medium business can benefit from websites like this. This is a cost-affordable solution that can speed up things in your company.
Crowdsourcing and innovation
There are times when even the best companies with teams that consist of people who know each other for a long time and work together as a precise mechanism, need fresh ideas. If the company becomes a closed entity which doesn’t accept new ideas, the business will slow down after a while. According to many experts, crowdsourcing is one of the best things that you can do in situations like this.
It turns out that crowdsourcing can become a powerful tool for supporting innovation. With this concept, you can get fresh ideas from a crowd of people that are not part of the company. This crowd of professionals can help you find solutions for the problems that your business is facing. Or, they can provide ideas that can help you expand your business activities.
One of the main reasons why crowdsourcing is so effective is the fact that the people that will help you are not biased. And they are focused only on a specific task that you are giving them. They have the time to finish these tasks, but they also have ideas and expertise.
Nowadays, businesses use crowdsourcing for different purposes. Some of them are trying to reshape their business models in order to match the needs and requirements of modern markets. There are also situations when they are using crowdsourcing platforms to redesign financial models or simply to boost efficiency.
Another area where crowdsourcing can help is co-creation. Co-creation is an activity where businesses are working with end users of their products/services. With crowdsourcing, you will be hiring professionals that will test your products/services before they hit the market. Of course, it’s possible to use these professionals to improve products and services too.
Final thoughts about crowdsourcing platforms
The world is changing all the time, but it seems that nowadays our world is changing faster than ever. If you want to stay competitive on the market (be it global or local), you have to embrace innovation. In other words, you have to be open to the process of accepting new ideas. Fortunately, there are many different things that you can do to encourage and support this process and crowdsourcing is one of them.
Co-creation support, unleashing new ideas, finding new business opportunities, maximizing productivity – there’s no limit when it comes to utilizing crowdsourcing for business purposes. Don’t let your business fail behind the competition – use crowdsourcing in the right way and be part of the innovation revolution.