How is Samasource different from traditional outsourcing?
Outsourcing refers to the business practice of subcontracting a process to a third-party supplier, often to take advantage of a lower price. The traditional outsourcing industry, valued at $160 billion, is currently concentrated in the hands of a few, very large multinational outsourcing firms and the majority of the jobs it has created are located in big cities in China, India and the Philippines. This leaves out small, locally-owned businesses and skilled workers in the lowest-income regions, specifically in Africa and rural Asia. Those regions are facing a serious talent surplus; many families there spend more than twice their income on sending their children to school, only to have them face a 70% unemployment rate once they complete their education. Samasource collaborates specifically with those populations, and we devote our entire model to social impact — a concept many traditional outsourcing firms are still only beginning to acknowledge. We handle small projects, with contra
