Outsourcing IT and Web Design to other countries.

[greeneagle]

Outsourcing IT and Web Design to other countries.

This is a hot topic right now!

Several Prominent articles have appeared recently, such as:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040330/D81KONLO0.html

We subscribe to several Web Development/Design notification websites. We have never received an inquiry through these channels, even though we bid under market value in the US. When viewing bids by companies around the world it becomes obvious that price-wise there is just no sense in bidding!, unless you take quality and specific technology, communication issues and the cost therein into consideration.

When engaged in competitive bidding with certain countries that repeatedly underbid projects offered, by as much as 80-90% we have found that there are serious gaps in Technology, Reliability and Basic Good Design Practice .

Browsing the offerings by specific companies in these “Web Development Request” Sites, we have found atrocious violations of good design principles --- Things we have never seen before including pop down navigation that happens anywhere on the page etc….

In fact, we must confess, in the current melee we have even tried to find a good reliable outsource in India, Romania and Russia to no avail. We are frequently e-mailed by companies requesting us look at them ------ Most of the time we cannot get past their own site without serious quality issues, and their portfolios are even worse! - A plethoria of design sins! Obvious "front" designs for McDonalds with secondary page links that go nowhere in the portfolio! What????

What is all the hype about?

Someone, somewhere, show us something different than what we have experienced!

Maybe we will engage your services!

Ken

[Lee Dev of PSC e-c for m2]

I use a eastern Europe Partner and have done multiple projects with them. I can sell you there services for $35/hr. One key factor is to have the project defined in writting and do not depend on verbal instructions.

[ammonetbenson]

Good design work is difficult to find anywhere but especially so in Asia. On the other hand, Eastern Europe and Russia are full of good designers. Have a look at www.readerprivacy.com - simple and effective. If you want some design work done, talk to us.

[cooper]

One of the major hurdles to design is its subjective nature. Design is mostly cultural. Sure, pure functionality plays a part in good design but your initial reaction to design comes from your culture. In the US we have certain standards (which many people violate every day, lol) and they are mostly inspired by european design standards. Just look at our architecture to understand what I mean. Something as intrinsic as the direction in which you read your language can be taken for granted. Our language is european and we expect to see things designed a certain way.

I would recommend looking for partners in that region of the world if you are looking for an avenue for outsourcing design.

It's much easier to nail down a technical specification for outsourcing programming work. Whereas trying to explain web design by written or verbal communication is one of the most difficult things to do in our line of work.

I have to add to this that I am not a big fan of outsourcing jobs to foreign countries from the US. I know it is inevitable and for some job functions it is preferred, but I think some jobs suffer as a result and it almost always comes down to communication, or the lack thereof.

Good luck with your future bids Ken!

[laetis]

We are a web agency in La Paz Bolivia. The executive director is french and we work mostly with french web agency and in south america.
More information : bolivia@laetis.com

[G[dot]com]

Hi everyone!

I am argentinian and surprisingly I have to say that I agree with you when you say you can´t find good designers...in which i don´t agree is in that you mark a difference between US and non US workers.

I think that US has so many bad designers as any other part of the world. And I dare say that the best designs I ever saw were european and australian. What I mean to say is that good or bad workers you will find them everywhere, no matter the place.

Here in my country many of the people that come to me had a previous terrible experience with a designer. Thanks to these bad performers, we designers as a whole won the concept of being a fake. Up to a point this is true. I couldn´t find another designer with my same responsability and worries while working and therefore I am still a one-woman company ;o)

If you wanna read something more about my point of view, please visit me website. If there´s anything i can do for you, let me know.

[ncraig]

ok, so where do you draw the line... I mean, its cyberspace. everyones a citizen here. I for one am also a US citizen, though that might change. Ive been a Web designer for a long time now, from when only nerds were doing it. I remember the days when people were beatting down my door to hire me. Now ive been freelancing for 2 years, cant find a job any other way. We in the US have lost to outsourceing in forign countries and its costing alot of americans there jobs, the good and bad designers. Ive done a nationwide search for a job as a web designer on a prominet site. the result, 147 jobs(in the ENTIRE USA), now tell me thats not sad. I am being forced to relocate just to find a job, or find a new job. those are my options, and its because of outsourcing, nothing to do with good or bad designers.

[bmnobbs]

It is possible to find good designers outside the US, but we find many designers who are amatures just don't realise that they are, and look to charge "big company" going rates.
The hardest thing to get, we find, is a web designer or firm that can take a good domain name and make a simple, revenue generating, site from it:- that they are confident will make more in revenue than their development fee.
{ We constantly seek potential web-development partners for our domains, on a revenue share basis, but can't find anyone confident in their own ability }
I honestly believe that if you offered 80% of the so-called developers out there a "business.com" on a 50/50 profit share, they would prefer to take their hourly rate instead.
I'm open to be proved wrong.

[G[dot]com]

I honestly believe that if you offered 80% of the so-called developers out there a "business.com" on a 50/50 profit share, they would prefer to take their hourly rate instead.
I'm open to be proved wrong.

As a web designer I make my living working and not like a merchant, taking out profit from my customer´s business. I want my customers to get the best out of the site I build for them. That´s what keeps me working. My efficiency and responsability wouldn´t be neither more nor less because I share profit.

[ncraig]

com]As a web designer I make my living working and not like a merchant, taking out profit from my customer´s business. I want my customers to get the best out of the site I build for them.

I agree, and to support this, I offer 2 months (sometimes more) to my customers of free changes(anything minor not including major overhauls) if they are not happy with the site they have.

[Curious George]

When it comes to issue of outsourcing, it depends on whose point of view you are looking it.

Personally, I oppose big corporations outsourcing their development projects to foreign countries. Some of these companies can afford to pay domestic developers but they choose to do it for trend and competitive reasons. They do it because their competition is doing to save cost and improve their bottomline. Take telecom industry and call center outsourcing for example. If Sprint is doing and AT&T does not follow suit, then Ma Bell will have higher labor costs than Sprint which will be reflected in the Ma Bell's bottomline numbers.

I have no problem with little people like most of us who use this forum outsourcing our development projects. Outsourcing gives us access to affordable technologies that ordinarily would have been inaccessible for cost reasons few years ago. For instance if I were to have an outsourced site developed in JSP today, it will probably cost me less than $5,000 to have a well designed site optimized for search engines. That is a drop in the bucket when compared to a site like http://citibank.com that was develed in JSP as well. I am sure Citibank did not pay $5K to develop that site.

When it comes to working with foreign shops you as the user must be able to articulate what you are looking for. There are good and bad designers everywhere including the U.S. It is up to you as the buyer to know what you want and don't settle for anything less. I have had bad development and now I am educated enough to know that my designer is not allowed to start coding unless I approve the overall design layout. Otherwise the individual won't get paid.

I have found good desingers in places like Australia, Italy and the Philipinnes. I spent at least 50 hours researching these guys and visiting the sites that they developed. I found good designers in New York as well but I do not have the budget to pay their asking prices.

That is just my 2¢ :-)

Curious George

[freddieb]

I recently read an article that took 6 of Australia's largest companies and totalled their IT staff in Australia: 2000 The article then totalled their outsourced IT staff : 81,000 all in India

Unbelievable!

The Autralian government last year outsourced a Web site (to the USA) the cost of which blew out to AU$4.26 million! I looed at the site and e-mailed the goverment saying that I'd looked at the site and would have happily (ecstatically!) done it for the odd .26 million.

[freddieb]

The link for the above $4.26 million Web site

http://www.dcita.gov.au/

Don't all laugh at once, the Australian government might hear you.

[matauri]

The Autralian government last year outsourced a Web site (to the USA) the cost of which blew out to AU$4.26 million!
Was this the Arts & Culture govt website? I thought that was Japan. Either way, it was unbelievable. I checked out the Arts & Culture one & could have done it for a LOT less, and I found it ironic that the one industry meant to promote design in Australia outsourced & for such a high amount. I too wrote & voiced my embaressment that it even happened.

While I dont hold that you have to outsource locally, I beleive that govt departments should be. We are, after all, being taxed locally to pay for them.

For private sector though, I maintain best man for the job, no matter what their geographical location is.

[matauri]

Beat me to it....LOL..yup...thats the one!

[Curious George]

The Autralian government last year outsourced a Web site (to the USA) the cost of which blew out to AU$4.26 million!
Was this the Arts & Culture govt website? I thought that was Japan. Either way, it was unbelievable. I checked out the Arts & Culture one & could have done it for a LOT less, and I found it ironic that the one industry meant to promote design in Australia outsourced & for such a high amount. I too wrote & voiced my embaressment that it even happened.

While I dont hold that you have to outsource locally, I beleive that govt departments should be. We are, after all, being taxed locally to pay for them.

For private sector though, I maintain best man for the job, no matter what their geographical location is.

Dear Matauri,

I hope your government is not suffering from a disease afflicting some third world countries. That disease is know as "colonial mentality." It is a general terminology applied to those third world countries who prefer foreign imports to their own products and services.

Your government could have leveraged the combined brain power of small developers like yourself to come up with a killer website but they blew that chance when they it to us the state side.

To be candid, I wouldn't pay $50K for that site.

I wish them well.

Curious George

[Russ101]

I for one am what in my world would be considered a newbie at web design, I have designed a couple of sites these were for none profit organisations, both waiting on final confirmation before being displayed, and it is true that in all things there are good and bad. As someone new to the web design industry, it is always a struggle to break into something that you have no qualifications in and that is why I believe so many unqualified people try to do things. It is also true what I have read in a few of the replies to this post, but there is also a thing called integrity in what you design. If you are not one that has the integrity to put your name to something you should not do it, as an Australian I am proud that I although only new to web design would be proud to put my name to anything that I might design.

R J Brown

[G[dot]com]

The Autralian government last year outsourced a Web site (to the USA) the cost of which blew out to AU$4.26 million!


To be candid, I wouldn't pay $50K for that site.

Curious George...you have been really kind with the number...50 grands it too much for that site!!! It is a pitty that the australian govermment doesn´t rely on its own people to do that job.

May I say something?...with the experience of being a citizen of a real third world country (Australia is not a third world country!!!)...It seems to me that behind that website was something else. I don´t mean to offend anyone, but if this was not a masked negotiation to benefit someone, it is UNBELIEVABLE.

Or make me believe it, please!

[greeneagle]

I disagree with the $50k - $100k and less judgements. There are many pages to that Site. But even if not so, maybe it is time for a discussion on Site value and ROI calculations. Even though the metrics are obscure when intangible, real tangible value has to be applied, or we are selling ourselves short. It is important to not only provide value, but to know what the value is, so that we can educate the public and our clients, and set our prices accordingly in a very administrative, equipment and software expense heavy industry!

Many companies in our industry see very little billable time vrs cost, so I would exercise some caution when casting unsubstantiated value judgements.

Ken

[freddieb]

I for one am what in my world would be considered a newbie at web design,

We were all Web newbies at some time. I started really late in life and discovered Web development was what I should have been doing all my life, well since the 'Net started, anyway.

I don't see anything REALLY difficult about Web development, I've taught myself ASP, PHP, MYSQL, CSS, etc, etc and have now published my first CMS sites for people, and I'm not overly bright, having left school at 15 and have had no formal training in anything. In the past 5 years I've built a nice business with lots of perpetual income.

Yes, I believe that Integrity is one of the most important factors in any business, along with honesty, reliability and the ability to bend over backwards to service your clients.

Stick with it, you'll get known if you have the right qualities and you'll suceed. Read everything you can about Web development and you'll get on the right track

[D]

Very interesting topic, personally I work with and know many highly talented individuals here in South Africa.
From design to the backend and seo.
I personally admit that my design skills are not of the best so I code and code, but know some really excellent designers.

Anyway, I really think that to outsource coding would really save without compromising on quality, look at the exchange rates vs cost for living and skill levels between the various countries.

Talk to me if you serious - even if it's just HTML.

[celox]

speak from experience

[bmnobbs]

com]As a web designer I make my living working and not like a merchant, taking out profit from my customer´s business. I want my customers to get the best out of the site I build for them.

ncraig "I agree, and to support this, I offer 2 months (sometimes more) to my customers of free changes(anything minor not including major overhauls) if they are not happy with the site they have."

ncraig and G[dot]com have proven my point by their replies. They want their [self assessed] rate for web development,- regardless of whether or not their E-Commerce design work is good enough to actually generate income ! Why would you not profit share or partner ? G[dot]com's idea that size of remuneration should not affect web site design or "integrity" verges on naive. Would be web designers need to realise that if their work doesn't generate actual profit for the customer, no matter how artistic/creative/beautiful it is, such design work, without hard-nosed commerciality, is worthless.

[greeneagle]

There are several possible reasons that some designers/developers may not want or be able to take on a commissioned co-development:

1) They may feel that if a company doesn't have the capital backing for a start-up there is a pretty good chance they won't make it.
2) Many Business Relationships are built on trust - Without having that foundation and no access to the books - The developer may feel like meat hanging in a smokehouse.
3) Most outsourcing happens overseas making it very difficult to find appropriate recource in a court of law.
4) Through this recession, it has been difficult for designers and developers to eek out a living and many are hanging on from client check to client check and don't have the liberty to take on "pie-in-the-sky" projects. During this global recession approximately two thirds of all Marketing and Ad Agency companies have folded in many geographical regions.
5) A designer/developer may feel that they have a better chance of at least a 20% payback by delivering a website to a tax free or charitable organization and deducting the cost of the Site from their taxes.

There is really a lot more to it than, "Can't find a developer that trusts their own work enough to take on commissioned projects"!

My thoughts only,
Ken

[bmnobbs]

[quote="greeneagle"]There are several possible reasons that some designers/developers may not want or be able to take on a commissioned co-development:

1) They may feel that if a company doesn't have the capital backing for a start-up there is a pretty good chance they won't make it.

We offered free hosting and the domain as part of our end. All the developer has/had to do was make an E-com site from a good domain that generated income - even if it was only Google Ad Words.
But that wouldn't have let them play with DHTML or Flash, so they couldn't ''show off'' enough.

2) Many Business Relationships are built on trust - Without having that foundation and no access to the books - The developer may feel like meat hanging in a smokehouse.

We had a legal agreement drawn up that insisted all site income went to the bank account of the DEVELOPER first - then the developer paid us 20%.

3) Most outsourcing happens overseas making it very difficult to find appropriate recource in a court of law.

We made our agreement subject to International and EU law

4) Through this recession, it has been difficult for designers and developers to eek out a living and many are hanging on from client check to client check and don't have the liberty to take on "pie-in-the-sky" projects.

But if you can't deliver E-com sites that actually work you won't eek out a living for long either. The potential was/is there for a really good developer to make many times their normal design fee, and for several years instead of just a once off.

5) A designer/developer may feel that they have a better chance of at least a 20% payback by delivering a website to a tax free or charitable organization and deducting the cost of the Site from their taxes.

Possibly. Tax laws vary.

There is really a lot more to it than, "Can't find a developer that trusts their own work enough to take on commissioned projects"!

Not commissioned ---- site revenue shared projects on good domains. We offer[ed] 75% of website sale too, if it were sold. We put no restrictions on website content either except moral/legal. But, as I said, we didn't find any "first world" developers prepared to make money from the fact that they could make good E-commerce sites that generated revenues.
[ We have deals with 3 Indian Co's ]

[greeneagle]

bmnobbs,

It certainly looks like you are making good and well thought out offers. I would be real suprised if you do not get offers from this thread.

How is it working out with the 3 Indian companies?

Ken

[chiff]

Not commissioned ---- site revenue shared projects on good domains. We offer[ed] 75% of website sale too, if it were sold. We put no restrictions on website content either except moral/legal. But, as I said, we didn't find any "first world" developers prepared to make money from the fact that they could make good E-commerce sites that generated revenues.
[ We have deals with 3 Indian Co's ]

Did it ever occur to you that what you're asking is sort of the same as asking a building contractor to take a portion of the rent from the building instead of receiving payment when the job is done.

The fact that the contractor wants to be paid up front may not have anything to do with faith in the building - I budget for the revenue from a job to pay my rent and buy groceries. When my landlord agrees to a deal that allows for payment as it comes in and the shop owners allow me to pay in future earnings, I'll be glad to contract to do a site that will pay me over time.

If I wanted to do an ecommerce site to make money from google ads - why in the world would I want to split the revenue with another party?

You may be misreading the web designers who do not want to take you up on your offer... it may just not be a very good offer.

[Blackicicle]

Very interesting thread... A good read. I just cant believe that 4.26 Million was paid for that site.

[freddieb]

Very interesting thread... A good read. I just cant believe that 4.26 Million was paid for that site.

Well, it's not as bad as it looks, 4.26 million is Australian Dollars, but that doesn't sweeten it for us poor taxpayers and struggling Web developers. The original quote was AU$600,000!! The Content Management System alone was $800,000! I can get better Open Source CMS for FREE! There was never an explanation for the blowout from $600,000 to $4.26 million. Webbies in Australia are still reeling. Of course, the Minister has never replied to any protests. I don't like American politics much, but I bet this deal would never have gotten through the US system. I would have gladly worked as part of a team to develop the site for the odd $.26 million.

[bmnobbs]

Chiff wrote
>> Did it ever occur to you that what you're asking is sort of the same as asking a building contractor to take a portion of the rent from the building instead of receiving payment when the job is done.

Yes, but if that builder is advertising himself as "we can make the most rentable buildings in town" all I'm saying with our offer is "Prove it - put your money where your mouth is and you can get much more in rent that you would ever get for building"

>> When my landlord agrees to a deal that allows for payment as it comes in <-> I'll be glad to contract to do a site that will pay me over time.

Building buyers are already doing the equivalent of what we are suggesting - Buy-to-Let.

>> If I wanted to do an ecommerce site to make money from google ads - why in the world would I want to split the revenue with another party?

If that party had the high quality, generic, search engine term, domain initially to work with ? [ You might rival Amazon's sales from a Books.com or a DVD.com, but hardly from a WeSellBooksandDVDs.com unless you really are a design genius ]

>>You may be misreading the web designers who do not want to take you up on your offer... it may just not be a very good offer.

Possibly. We are thinking of re-making it again, so that all can see the exact terms we are talking about.
ps We are VERY satisfied with our Indian partners so far, but are under 1 year into the partnerships.

[nedlud]

I'm new to this forum and this thread so excuse me for jumping right in, but I'm interested in a couple of things being discussed here.

I am currently working on a site where a "designer" has come up with the layout, sent me a bunch of jpg screen shots and expects me to simply cut them to bits and post them as a web site.

When I suggested that perhaps there was a bit more to it than that, he basicly told me he knew what he was doing and that he would dicuss it no more. He also said he would charge client AU$8000+ for a static web site composed purely of image files (text only embeded in iamges).

Now my questions are:

What is teh definition of a web developer vrs a web designer? (I consider myself to be a developer since I work with the code and have marginal skills as a graphic designer).

How do you educate clients that something that looks pretty is in fact reletivly trivial to produce compared to the coding that goes behind the scenes of a functional, dynamic site, and therefore not worth paying so much money for?

[freddieb]

Firstly, I would kiss that "designer" GOODBYE!

Sites that are all graphics are a "no-no", I call them "cornflake packet" sites. They are not successful with the search engines and how do you change content? Pay the designer another huge amount to come up with new graphics? No way!

I define a Web designer as someone who builds a static Web site and a developer as someone who builds a dynamic Web site, i.e. a site that is either built on a programming language or contains segments that are server-side scripts. I'm not sure how correct this is, but that's sorta my interpretation. I feel that a developer concentrates on the "whole", e.g. optimization for S/Es, scripting, marketing, etc.

It's hard sometimes to convince clients, 'cos they all know someone who's "done a Web site", or their daughter's "done a Web course" and when you look at what they've done it's usually full of irrelevant graphics or the graphics take an age to download, it's not search engine optimized, etc.

I'd show them some of the big corporate sites that are fairly plain and tell them that this is what the big boys are doing and they probably paid an absolute fortune for it and you use similar technology but won't charge them a fortune for it. Show them a dynamic site or two and show them the difference.

[Andilinks]

I define a Web designer as someone who builds a static Web site and a developer as someone who builds a dynamic Web site, i.e. a site that is either built on a programming language or contains segments that are server-side scripts. I'm not sure how correct this is, but that's sorta my interpretation.

There certainly can be exceptions on both sides and a sticky semantic argument could be launched because technically a developer does design the development.

But that aside, I'd agree--most people make this distinction between "designer" and "developer," and this is how it is usually understood. So, a wise developer would employ a designer for aesthetic advice and a designer would employ a developer to add functionality to the pretty site... Each has their place.


Firstly, I would kiss that "designer" GOODBYE!


Probably a good idea, I would do this by pricing myself out of that market. But this sounds like a collaboration, and if the "designer" is related to the client I would take the client aside and graphically explain just how costly this will be. That may go against existing contracts, employment, etc., so if I had to educate the client I would begin by saying exactly this:


How do you educate clients that something that looks pretty is in fact reletivly trivial to produce compared to the coding that goes behind the scenes of a functional, dynamic site, and therefore not worth paying so much money for?

And then figure out as many different ways to say it until the client finally "gets it." Or I'd explain it until I got fired, because a job like that cannot end well if the client never faces reality...

Andi

[nedlud]

I definatly appreciate those tips.

In fact before I read these replys, I had alread "fired" myself from the job. But not before having a lengthy conversation with the client about why his site wouldn't rate well with search engines.

But I continue to be cheesed off about how this "designer" is big noting himself and telling the client how much a favour he has done.

Not my problem anymore ;)

But now I think I'm going to have to go on the hunt for a freelance web designer to collaborate with.

[freddieb]

I have an Australian customer who gets me to ftp & host and make small changes to sites that she gets designed in Indonesia. Graphically they are good, but they are just not search engine friendly and the designer obviously doesn't know much about S/E optimization. I've never said anything to her because I felt that she might think it was some sort of professional jealousy 'cos I didn't get to design the sites. She has now asked to to suggest how she can get a better result in the search engines!

I'm not sure how far I should go in my criticisms of these sites. Anyone have any suggestions how I can go about it without sounding off about not getting to design the sites in the first place?

Thanks

[greeneagle]

freddieb,

I would recommend posting a querie with the site URL in the "Submit a Site for Review" Forum. Make sure and present it in palatable way where you both might use the replies in concourse.

I believe you will get responses that may help bridge the gap.

Ken

[ammonetbenson]

nedlud,

We split up the work of building a site in way which probably helps with your definitions. Our designer is a very good art tech who also knows about being search engine friendly etc. He designs at least the top page (on a simple site that will repeat the banner and "look and feel" right through) or every page including the backend admin zone on a complex site. Once the project manager and client are happy, our coder turns that into clean html, including any images that the designer has produced. He's also responsible for seeing that it looks good on a reasonable range of browsers. The developer programs the databases etc and, if it's a java site for example, writes the java that will generate the html pages. Usually a systems specialist attends to whatever has to be done on the server to make all this work properly. We find this "division of labour" works quite well.

[pmhb]

... that is not the question.

Three points.

Other countries have huge differences in salaries & living costs so their overheads can be substantially cheaper than the US. This will translate into cheaper web sites not neccessarily less well designed.

Time zone differences can make for awkward communication.

Clients still like face-to-face meetings even if everything including the final presentation can be handled electronically, we are human beings, well most of us anyway, and value the personal touch.

I use a Eastern European programmer that I met in my country of residence. He now knows exactly my requirement, he is not inexpensive but he is very good. I cannot find someone locally to match his fee level or expertise. So it's horses for courses. The client still likes me me to be on hand.

pmhb :)

[greeneagle]

pmhb,

QUOTE:
"Clients still like face-to-face meetings even if everything including the final presentation can be handled electronically, we are human beings, well most of us anyway, and value the personal touch."
_____

I think this is one of the most important issues here. Many of our sites also require digital photography, making it impractical to hire web development companies outside the local area.

Ken

[ADAM Web Design]

Outsourcing IT and Web Design to other countries.

This is a hot topic right now!

Several Prominent articles have appeared recently, such as:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040330/D81KONLO0.html

We subscribe to several Web Development/Design notification websites. We have never received an inquiry through these channels, even though we bid under market value in the US. When viewing bids by companies around the world it becomes obvious that price-wise there is just no sense in bidding!, unless you take quality and specific technology, communication issues and the cost therein into consideration.

When engaged in competitive bidding with certain countries that repeatedly underbid projects offered, by as much as 80-90% we have found that there are serious gaps in Technology, Reliability and Basic Good Design Practice .

Browsing the offerings by specific companies in these “Web Development Request” Sites, we have found atrocious violations of good design principles --- Things we have never seen before including pop down navigation that happens anywhere on the page etc….

In fact, we must confess, in the current melee we have even tried to find a good reliable outsource in India, Romania and Russia to no avail. We are frequently e-mailed by companies requesting us look at them ------ Most of the time we cannot get past their own site without serious quality issues, and their portfolios are even worse! - A plethoria of design sins! Obvious "front" designs for McDonalds with secondary page links that go nowhere in the portfolio! What????

What is all the hype about?

Someone, somewhere, show us something different than what we have experienced!

Maybe we will engage your services!

Ken

Money. Pure and simple. It's a holla holla for da dolla dolla bill, to quote Theodore R. Long...ya feel me, playa? (By the way, has anyone seen that guy lately?)

Anyway, I don't often agree with the things that you say, but I will agree with this. I do have a few international clients, but of them all, I've gotten exactly one as a result of an international RFQ-style process, and since I was new to development at the time, I took a major buttkicking in terms of the price just to get it. I don't regret doing it, since the guy's been pretty loyal ever since, but I certainly don't go after it anymore for that reason.

The only client I've ever acquired and lost to another firm was a case where they went offshort to Russia for the development. Now I will confess that there were issues in the beginning, primarily because I hired a developer who turned out to be an idiot (thus making me an idiot for hiring him), but the client knew what was going on and knew that I had fired the guy.

At the time the client decided to go with the offshore firm, the search engine marketing campaign (including a custom 404) was really starting to kick over. They were getting traffic and interest and starting to see results. Then the Russian team got into it, made the site a brutally slow load, put a Flash intro on the opening page, removed all text from the opening page, went with 200 KB or higher Javascripts everywhere, destroyed any and all search engine ranking, and documented the whole process in very poor English.

The stupid thing is that the client is much happier with this than they were with my company's work. But on the other hand, I'm not especially upset about the whole process because the amount I made on the project was pretty well eaten up by the time I had to try and convince the client why the offshore idea was a huge mistake.

For those of you who think that's the only reason I'm not big on offshore development, it's not. There are many other reasons. Much like greeneagle, I get contacted by offshore developers and companies at least 3-4 times per week. They usually use the freelance employment form on my site to do it (which is going to get changed), and indicate that they do wonderful gorgeous work for about $5 an hour. Then I go look and I get some site done in Flash, usually in a dark orange or brown motif, with all sorts of bizarre sound effects and a mystery meat navigation.

For example, these chumpstains have spammed me at least six timess:

http://www.a4media.net

For those of you who want a real good laugh, go to "The Team" (top right button) then to "Anis" (the silhouette on the left). You'll have to scroll down the writeup (those two hard-to-see arrows just beside it on the left) but it's a wonderful read.

I see things like this all the time, and it's why I refuse to hire any offshore developers or firms: they just don't get it.

[Andilinks]

...it's why I refuse to hire any offshore developers or firms: they just don't get it.

Like most sweeping generalizations there is some truth here and there are some notable exceptions. It is the exceptions that will survive and flourish. There will also always be transparent frauds who make us laugh with their blatant attempts to deceive.

Outsourcing IT is still in its infancy and there will be many false starts and mistakes. But in the end quality work will prevail no matter where it resides and the quality that can be delivered at the lowest cost will eventually dominate.

When aggressively shopping for price you must expect to sort through a lot of poor quality offerings, that is the nature of markets. Highly competitive markets are treacherous by definition, step carefully.

Andi

[ADAM Web Design]

If there are, Andilinks, and I'm not saying there aren't, I'd be willing to use them, and I'd fire my own mother to make it happen. The problem is that all I have seen (and I have seen at least 500 of them now) have all been of the quality of A4 Media or lower.

[tedfull]

Great post Adam.

Quality work will not prevail where the objective is simply money.

It's the greatest service that will eventually succeed...not the lowest cost!

[apply75]

I agree there are good and bad designers and dev people everywhere but what I have noticed with foreign (non-us work) that companies claiming to be professional just are not. I can point out a million small time or bad designers in the US but you can see that most of them are bad designers from the sites. IF you go to a real dev company in the US you will get what you pay for but you will pay through the nose. With my experience with outsourced work they tend not to care as much, dont put as much thought into the project as an american worker. Foreign low bidding jobs tend to learn as they go and do the bare minimun needed to get the job done....with often lots of errors and no quality assurance...I think what the original poster is saying is that there is no in btwn there are no good quality foreign dev companies that are reasonably priced and there are no reasonably priced american dev...but in the end you get what you pay for and if your ok with communicating over a word document then at 1 or 2am talking over IM and hopefully getting what you want then go for the $6 an hour guy in india...I gave up on this long ago...now I just pay the $50 in the US and get exactly what I want. You just need to find someone who is effient not someone who is learning on your dime.

[Curious George]

Like most sweeping generalizations there is some truth here and there are some notable exceptions. It is the exceptions that will survive and flourish.

I agree with Andilinks. Sometimes it takes time and patience to find good offshore developers. The few developments I did (except for cheapgadget.com) were done offshore. So far I have had a very good experience and I intend to stick with it.

I wouldn't mind using domestic help but I can't afford to pay as much as $35/hour when I can do the same work for half the price.

Bottom line is we just have to find a balance between domestic and offshore and stick to what works for each one of us.

Curious George

[ryno267]

For example, these chumpstains have spammed me at least six timess:

http://www.a4media.net

For those of you who want a real good laugh, go to "The Team" (top right button) then to "Anis" (the silhouette on the left). You'll have to scroll down the writeup (those two hard-to-see arrows just beside it on the left) but it's a wonderful read.


LMAO - that's just too funny.

What i'm so interested in this thread is that I've seen the 'push' persay to the offshore web developers/designers and I'm quite interested in finding a good deal like i'm sure the next guy is... However I'm hesitant to put my reputation on the line when it's very possible that i'll get something like A4media in return. I do not want to be associated with work like that...

I'm interested in researching this outsourcing more but have hit as many dead ends as many of you have. I'd like to know from those of you who said that you've had good experiences what companies / guys you're going with or if that information is strickly forbidden to speak of... Not sure how highly guarded that information is with everybody... lol... Just looking for alternatives too...

[edhan]

From my personal experience, outsourcing can turn out good or bad depending on the contact. I have been outsourcing for quite awhile so far I am happy with the results I am getting to serve my clients. But there is still one or two that is unhappy with the result. Overall, I should say that there are always good & bad ones when doing outsourcing but I just rely on my judgement before committing the project.

Edward

[ADAM Web Design]

Quality work will not prevail where the objective is simply money.

It's the greatest service that will eventually succeed...not the lowest cost!

Amen, mah brutha.


Foreign low bidding jobs tend to learn as they go and do the bare minimun needed to get the job done....with often lots of errors and no quality assurance...I think what the original poster is saying is that there is no in btwn there are no good quality foreign dev companies that are reasonably priced and there are no reasonably priced american dev

To a certain extent, I can see this as well. But by the same token, should the efficient American company lower their costs at $50 an hour if they can do the job in 1/10 of the time the %6 per hour Indian guy can do it? No, because for every $50 spent on the American company, $60 would be spent on the Indian company.

So even though there is a wide discrepancy in per-hour price, in the end the American (or in my case Canadian) company usually turns out cheaper.

[Curious George]

ADAMWebDesign,

The tone of your post sounds like you've had a not so good experience with outsourcing. I guess I will watch my back :-).

Personally I tending to use the same shops. I would rather pay a little bit more than go through the "getting to know you" all over again with a new person.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~

Ryno267,

This is a very useful resource in locating web design shops around the world - http://www.findmyhosting.com/web-resources/Develop-web-site/web-designer-list.htm . Although none of my designers came from the pool but I used it when I was doing my research. Good luck.

You will be surprised what you will find when you're curious :-)

Curious George

[outsourcingtechnologies]

I represent an Indian company which helps you outsource your Internet Marketing and SEO work at a fraction of the normal cost. I daresay we do have some very satisfied customers across USA and Europe. However, if Design is what you are looking at, I would suggest www.netsolutionsindia.com. They will deliver quality work at most competitive rates. Try them out and maybe you'll change your views about Outsourcing. Happy Outsourcing!

Sunil
www.outsourcingtechnologies.com
sunil@outsourcingtechnologies.com

[matauri]

I'd like to know from those of you who said that you've had good experiences
I have had good experiences with both sides of outsourcing. I get outsourced to, and I outsource out. I know it can be hard finding a good working relationship & product both ways, but I must admit to being fairly lucky in that respect so far.

I'm a little fussy in some respects though. If the initial communications proove to be difficult, I use this as an indicator that the rest of the relationship could be so too. So I would rather loose the client or issue the contract to someone else, rather than have stressful relations with them.

I enjoy being outsoruced to, because they are easy jobs, where the project is finished once it's completed. Because the only contracts I outsource out, so far, are flash & printing, I have a preferred couple of businesses that I will use because I know their work.

Though, I must admit that it gets rather frustrating to continually see jobs in Aust being outsourced to India/Pakistan/Japan because of cost factors. But then I look at the quality of these sites & see Kmart special written all over them, so it makes me feel better ;-)

Dont get me wrong, I have seen some very talented designers, etc, come out of these countries. But most who charge these bargain basement prices are just a new variation of sweatshops IMO.


...what companies / guys you're going with or if that information is strickly forbidden to speak of.
I dont like to show favouritism, but if you want to know some good contactors in various fields, PM me & will pass on my select few.

[ExtraB]

Hello,

I was wondering what you think of sites like elance.com and if an American or Canadian web designer / freelancer can compete and bid on jobs listed on that site.

I have been considering trying out elance for a while but this whole issue of designers from Europe and Asia working for peanuts has me worried.

Do you think businesses would select bids based on price or do they really consider things like quality, expreience, etc.

Thanks and I look forward to your opinions.

Sincerely
Eric B