Europe’s biggest online marketplace for businesses - PeoplePerHour.com – has come to India. It has set up an India operation in Hyderabad – after London and Athens, Greece.
The site enables businesses to connect free-lance, that is, independent, service providers (freelancers) based in over 150 countries worldwide, and available to work at the click of a button. India comes third on the list following UK and the US.
PeoplePerHour.com gives SMEs access to virtual, on-demand, global workforce that enables companies to scale up or down as required. Since launching in 2007, over 60,000 SMEs have successfully used PeoplePerHour.com to get jobs done – whatever their size – in an environment of accountability and trust. PeoplePerHour.com now has more than 125,000 registered users and has seen more than $40 million worth of work posted on the site in the last 18 months.

Indian SMEs which rank 3rd in usage on the site already will benefit from being able to outsource work on an ad hoc basis to cost-effective, flexible freelancers whilst gaining expertise from global talent pool and best practice across the globe.
This site is also a boon to India’s unemployed workforce in smaller cities who have exceptional talent. It will also help people who would prefer to work from home, such as housewives, for example.

Says Xenios Thrasyvoulou, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, said, “India is an exciting new market for PeoplePerHour.com. Traditionally, online business marketplaces are characterized by Western businesses outsourcing to low-cost freelancers on the sub-continent. However, we’re seeing growing evidence of the reverse happening: Indian businesses are outsourcing certain functions to freelancers based in Europe and the US. Perhaps this isn’t surprising given the growing status of India in the global economy.”
PeoplePerHour’s key features include the ability to leave “feedback” on each service provider, which helps other users evaluate each freelance professional. The site facilitates collaboration and discussion between users and freelance professionals based on their areas of interest opening up avenues for generation of new ideas and business leads.

PeoplePerHour.com (http://www.peopleperhour.com ) launched in 2007, with the simple idea of connecting small businesses with talented, independent service providers, in an environment that fosters accountability and trust.The site initially began with one sector – administrative services – and following its success and popularity quickly expanded within three months alone to 10 service categories covering thousands of individual skills.
The website now has in excess of 93,000 service providers, across 150 countries, and serves over 32,000 small businesses clients.  Feb 26 2011