A recent survey by PeoplePerHour.com, the online marketplace where businesses buy and sell services, revealed that small businesses in Glasgow make best use of online technology to save costs in the downturn.
The survey • conducted amongst its 33,000 small business users across the country • revealed that businesses in Glasgow use online resources like PeoplePerHour.com more than any other UK city and on average 2.4 times higher than those in London.
Brighton was found to be the second highest, with a usage multiple of 2.3 times London’s followed by Birmingham with 1.8 and Leeds with 1.2. London came in at fifth place, just above Manchester.
PeoplePerHour.com allows businesses to save cost by hiring freelancers online on a per-hour or per-project basis for small or large jobs like copywriting, data entry, web design or commission-based telesales.
For instance Road Traffic Law • a local law firm in Glasgow • used the site recently to outsource urgent secretarial work while their fulltime secretary is on maternity leave. “In the last year, this saved us over £20k in getting a substitute and paying agency fees,” says the firm’s founder Graham Walker.
Similarly, Glasgow based Kerchoonz • the social networking site that allows free legal music that pays the artists • saved costs by finding freelancers for their PR, Marketing, IT and sales functions, for which they’d otherwise have to hire fulltime or agency staff. “We made an estimated saving of 32% in the last year by using freelancers through PeoplePerHour.com,” says Indiana Gregg the company’s founder.
“The findings suggest that small businesses further away from the country’s business centre are better at reinventing themselves, strapping their shoestrings and adopting new technology to beat the downturn,” says Xenios Thrasyvoulou, PeoplePerHour.com’s Founder & CEO. “Businesses in London seem to be more set in their ways.”
$
£ GBP
€ EUR