Any big deal with a firm comes with certain risks. Risks that can be eliminated if the development stages are followed according to a well- designed process model.
The risk that reflects immediately is the misunderstanding of the customer’s product requirement. In case of Offshore Software Development also, no risk can be avoided if there is lack of proper interaction between the client and the service provider. A proper understanding can be built by analyzing the requirements with the client.
From your knowledge of Offshore Outsourcing, what are the risks involved? Feel free to post your suggestions on the topic.

business process outsourcing company

I think it is most risky outsourcing projects in India, as I had plenty of problems already.

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You may have bad experience with some but I think there isnt any risk involved in outsourcing to cpmpanies that are having good proessional approach o the clients.

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They had a very professional approach to us, but nothing was real after all.
Just my experience.

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I have had problems with offshore outsourcing (delays mostly) but then I have had problems when I hired an employee locally. I still use an Indian design team for some projects and would do it again ... and I am looking for a local employee, as well. That reminds me, I must go and post an ad on craigslist for a new assistant. I need more time for the forum!

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M.-J. Taylor
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Be very careful with outsourcing link building though.

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Absolutely! I would never!

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M.-J. Taylor
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Hmmmm - Outsourcing link building - well you guys have never used My Green Corner Web Directory have you?

Well let me tell you something - it's the best $30.00 you will ever spend. Stunning results in Google. Damn - I've just given out my prize secret in SEM

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Thanks! And I think we should delete this thread now.

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I've had good and bad experiences.

The good - we are in an ongoing relationsthip with a company who runs some client interaction software on our website. They host it and provide costumer service. Overall, we're happy.

The bad - we hired a web developement company whose project managers are local, but developers are overseas. Quality was a huge issue. We would communicate very specific business requriements and deployment was always rough. Sometimes I had to ask if they even read the original requirements. Also, the coding logic was really messy. There are 800 ways to build one page, and they would choose the most complicated and messy. We're still cleaning up code they deployed for us.

I would get references and maybe do a trial relationship to see how it goes.

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I have one offshore person in Pakistan I outsource to, but got to know him quite well on IM prior to trying him on some smaller stuff, and we communicated very well from the beginning. He's great at what he knows, though a bit limited. But he gets all of that particular type of work from me. My experience has been a very good one with this individual. BTW, I'm the one who asked if he wanted to work for me, not the other way around. And he wasn't in a hurry to say yes, since he keeps pretty busy. That told me something right there. He asked me questions, then gave me a reasonable proposal on what I could expect from him, and followed through, beating the time he said to expect it to take.

I'd consider outsourcing more were I to need it.

Having said that, I think it depends on how you find the person. The freelancer sites are most likely the worst way. But if you "meet" the person through other means, such as a forum or newsgroup, and he or she seems knowledgeable, then further conversation may eventually lead to a good relationship.

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Hey! Look at the big picture. What "they" want you to do is think small and not think at all. Think about yourself and your gains.

Outsourcing means loss of jobs in your country. This leads to loss of consumer purchasing power. When you start losing that, your nation's economy slumps and eventually so will your business.

Yes, even your one outsourced job a year can have an effect. After all, 80% of businesses in the US are small businesses. If each one did this, that's a lot of jobs.

Just ask the Americans about the effects. The effects are starting and aren't over yet.

.

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They are probably 800 ways to develop a web application (site or software), but only one way is proper.

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The problem with this is that most contractors in the US don't want to do the small jobs, and when they will consider them they want as much or more than I'm charging the client.

Something else that is happening, that I've taken full advantage of-- the dollar is weak enough so that MY services are much more attractive elsewhere. I've been outsourced to other countries many times.

So . . . what were those effects you were talking about?

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I'm confused ... isn't paying for links supposed to be a no no?

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Very wise post ... not surprising considering the source. Rep points for BJ!

MJ

Your political view is not consistent with your statement of location as 'Earth.'

This is a thorny issue, and I don't know that I have thought it through completely, but I like to think we are all one.

Valid Point.

Those aren't paid links. There is a fee for a featured link which puts you higher on the page but you can also get a reciprocal link there. So, Google, for the moment looks at this sort of payment for a listing differently, just as it looks at sites where you pay a review fee differently.

Great thread!

MJ

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I sarted my carrer as Link building executive with a SEM company in India and did lots of link building projects (reciprocal and three way) all the project were through outsourcing adn clients were pretty satisfied with the results. I dont thik theres any risk in outsourcing your projects as long as you are gettin quality work meeting your time deadlines.

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Vinay SEO Times | Teddy Bear Factory

It is not easy to look for top notch people for outsourcing. India and most other developing nations produce millions of engineers. Unfortunately only a few have skills of international quality. As someone mentioned here, you would need to look for references.

Paying for a link from somebody advertising -I have a PR6 site etc etc is totally different to a high quality Directory - Google would have to declare War on Yahoo which is $299.00 to get listed.

Yahoo! Directory Submit

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Regarding this site there is a mismatch between on site information and whois information. The name of the Founder & CEO is identical, but no phone number match. In addition the physical address does not match. Impressing information about your personell though.

Do you not watch Cnn?

Companies in India have started to outsource projects to China and USA. Some of them can pay the relatively high wages in USA. This is WWW, the digital age.

Due dilligence, quality of job and payment are the outsourcers problem.

As usual bj is ahead of the game.

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Wow this is one I had to just chime in on..

I've spent over 22 years on both sides of the fence being a consultant designing and managing outsourcing efforts and actually running a company doing the outsourced systems design, analysis and development and also subcontracting. (check out VNSInc.com)

I can say that all the nightmares come down to simple mismanagment, on both sides.

If you have a large firm with a big IT department avaoid outsourcing whenever possible (even if it may require bringing on in house expertise).

Why you may ask?

Her are a few reasons:
1) Outsource efforts are controlled by middle managers who a majority of the time can't spec to the level of the need (thus incurring cost overruns and Bad QA)

2) Middle managers change positions with the greatest frequency leaving a mess behind because there is a vacum in the knowledge of what was going on. Thus incurring delays and cost of runs. I've actually worked on a project where they changed the in house managers of it 4 times in 6 months. They never had time to read functional specification and ultimately end up spending 4 times as much for the project then was needed.

If your a small firm I would not suggest outsourcing overseas for the following reasons:
1) communications issues (just the time of day can cause serious problems and delays)
2) when you need to do a spot check to see if the work is really getting
done you can just pop in, if it is local.
3) if things go wrong you have legal recource.

The nightmares from crimes of omission are just not worth it.

As a disclaimer, I do need to mention, I maintain my own web and mail servers, do all our programming in house and perform pro-bono outsourcing management for a few client/business partners as a value for working with us in the Pet Industry, Home Decor and Architectural Accents Business.

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Just one more caveat to my last post, I am talking about systems design.

Not simple repetative and quantifiable clerical tasks.
Such as :
1) cropping images,
2) Translation & Dictation
3) Web Graphic work
4) Cold calling

In those cases it comes down to what BJ pointed out... How you meet them and vetted them out....

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My team was hired along with a team in India for one particular project. The US company that hired both teams will usually talk to us first and tell us to talk to them. I suppose being in the same time zone as the US has something to do with their preference for communicating with us rather than with India. Like our American boss, we are also not particularly fond of having to either stay late or come in extra early to catch the India team in their office.

Well All Mighty wants us all to be connected through competencies and not by the county of origin. Outsouring and online sourcing from outside, especially fron China; always creates wealth more than huerting jobs. Its just adding to revenue momentum that even competent foreigners are welcome. Want to source better and cheaper ...direct from China? visit China Wholesale: Buy Wholesale Products from China or simply drop a line: ricky@dhgate.com

The problem is never an outsourcing company. The real problem starts when you have wrong people/unexperienced people working on your project. This is more about attitude of people working on your project, and location of your outsourced partner has no relation with success of your project.

It is the attitude of people working on your project, which does matter. You just need to select people with right attitude ( locally/ or offshore based).

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