The agency is responsible for taking care of the contractors

Contracting with one individual at a time is simply not an option for many companies. There is too much time and paperwork involved in locating the right people and getting them approved as vendors. An approved agency can place workers without going through a lot of bureaucratic spaghetti. And a good agency will assure that the contractors are screened and qualified.? Insurance.

If you contract with an individual who doesn't work out, you must start over again. If you have outsourced through an agency, you can go to the agency and ask it to find someone else. A good agency also will make sure the work is performed according to specifications, on time and on budget? Reduced paperwork. In addition to the paperwork associated with finding and hiring contractors individually, there's a cost associated with financial administration (issuing purchase orders and processing/paying invoices). If you are outsourcing through an agency, your company issues one purchase order and pays one invoice.

The agency is responsible for taking care of the contractors? Staying on the right side of the IRS. A good agency will assure that there is no possible question about whether a contractor is being treated as an employee or a contractor.? Safety valve. When the work load surges, your outsource agency can rapidly pick up the extra work by placing contractors who are already up to speed. When the work load drops, the extra people go away and don't cost you a thing.? Adaptability. If your product line or technology shifts, an agency can shift with it, providing different personnel, if necessary. It's not that easy to shift permanent employees when they no longer have the right background for the job. And re-training is expensive, particularly in terms of lost productivity.The Final AnalysisWhether you should outsource or hire isn't necessarily a black-and-white decision. Your first attack should always be a cost analysis.

Run a sample scenario, as I have done here, and then examine the other factors. In my experience, beyond the start-up phase, the companies with the most successful technical publications projects have been those that deployed a judicious mix of employees and outsourced contractors; this prepared the company and its partner agency to adjust quickly as the technical publications work flow increased and decreased.The second step should be a careful analysis of work flow. This will be more difficult for a start-up company that has no internal technical publications experience. Try talking to a few technical publications outsource firms to get a feel for the scope of the job, duration and so on. If, as a start-up, you have work for one or more full-time staffers for the foreseeable future, start looking. Most start-ups don't have a very clear picture of what the future may bring, and they should consider outsourcing until projections are more reliable.Work flow projections are typically much easier to determine in a more mature company that already has technical publications staff.

The trick is to predict when projects will be initiated and the scope of each one. An experienced technical publications manager will have little problem with this, but there's always the surprise project??which is almost always an emergency. Factor this in: If your staff is in the middle of a new documentation set, how much of an additional burden can they absorb before things start to break down?Finally, if you do decide to outsource, your choice of contractors is going to make or break the project. Select an outsource firm that you can trust, with people who are experienced and field-tested. Cost is critical, so run the numbers first! But beyond the issue of price, the job must be completed on time, on budget, on spec and up to your standards of quality. Don't settle for less.About The AuthorVal Swisher is president of Oak Hill Publications, Inc., a 10-year-old technical documentation outsource agency based in Los Gatos, CA. Her clients include industry leaders such as Cisco Systems, Extreme Networks, Brocade Communications, Adobe Systems, Apple Computer, 3Com Corporation and a host of start-ups.