August 9th, 2007
Outsourcing our blog design: Suresh searches
Our first idea was to have Suresh locate wordpress designers in India. We figured that he would have local knowledge that would enable him to quickly find some quality designers.
On August 20, Toby sent and email as follows:
We are looking for an offshore designer, probably in India, for a small project. They need to have a good aesthetic sense and to know how to build a Wordpress theme. Please find some potential candidates and their portfolios.
On August 23, Suresh sent his response:
Please find attached excel sheet for task results. Let me know for any clarifications.
There were 9 companies on the spreadsheet, though three of the companies did not have portfolios available online (which immediately raised a red flag). Suresh spent 2 hours finding this information.
Toby decided to reach out to Dreamsoft Infotech, the first company on Suresh’s list. As a side note, the company name sounds like a combination of Dreamworks, Infosys (which has HUGE brand recognition in India and garners lots of respect), and of course technology1. In response to Toby’s email requesting information, he received a rapid response
Thanks for your email. Yes we can design wordpress theme for you for $200.
Let me know. We need 50% upfront & 50% on compeltion.
we can accept paypal. send me $100 upfront to paypal xxx@xxxxxx.com
Give em all details your current url etc & we will proceed.
Keep in mind, this company had minimal information about what we wanted (we only said we wanted to a wordpress theme for our personal blog) - for all this company knew, we could have wanted something incredibly complicated that should cost more than $200!
This experience raised some red flags - and then we asked ourself - why are WE contacted these companies? Why can’t Suresh do that himself? After all, Suresh knows the culture, language, and probably a good sense of what things should cost - not only should he have a comparative advantage at this, he should also have a competitive advantage!
Well, Suresh received the same response from Dreamsoft Infotech - but this time, the quote was for $300, and it asked for 59% upfront! It was hard to believe that Suresh got a worse deal than we did. But then we remembered…perhaps the fact that Suresh is our personal assistant signaled to Dreamsoft Infotech that we were “rich” and could afford to spend. A more generous interpretation is that Dreamsoft Infotech expects Suresh to bargain (it’s part of Indian culture) but doesn’t expect the same level of bargaining from us2
While we were still puzzling over the Dreamsoft Infotech quote, another quote came in. This time from Niyati Technologies. This was much more professional - we received a detailed spreadsheet showing how an estimated 7 workdays would be spent. But wait a minute - 7 workdays? That seemed like overkill. And the price of $750 was over the top. That would work out to $13.40 per hour.
- how can a company in India NOT have technology in it’s name? [↩]
- little does Dreamsoft Infotech know that Brooke can drive a hard bargain [↩]
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I’m very keen to know who you ended up choosing if any from the guys. South African Wordpress blog designers are just a little out of my pocket right now so I’m considering India as quality alternative.
Well .. iam reading this post. Iam outsourcing all my web projects to India. Iam also dealing with Dream soft infotech [ globalwebseller.com ] from last one year for php & joomla related projects iam very much satisfied with work so far . I strongly beliewe now that outsourcing is good to save my time & money $ .
Good Luck !
Best Regards
John
Creative director
Live Media INC
Thanks for the informative inputs. Have you considered outsourcing to the Philippines?
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Another source I have had good luck for programming and article writing is GAF - Get a Freelancer dot com.
I wouldn’t be willing to trust them with a web design becaue the communication barrier is formadable. Never been ripped off.
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Wow great info.This info will come in handy.Thanks
This blog Is very informative , I am really pleased to post my comment on this blog . It helped me with ocean of knowledge so I really belive you will do much better in the future . Good job web master .
In the coming months when we usually see a number of call centers ramping in the past years, things are definitely going to be different. Don’t expect the same conditions primarily because most companies in the U.S. are expecting low sales during the holidays. Majority of people in the U.S. will be spending less due to economic and money worries. But naturally , the companies who wish to outsource must identify the best service providers.The globalization of the business requires strategy to satisfy the exceeding customer expectations. The upcoming companies are those who have higher satisfaction level with low cost.Adopting Outsourcing can help you to achieve this goal. There are companies, which undertake outsourced jobs. We can recommend you the stable and experienced companies for outsourcing the jobs.
Not that I’m impressed a lot, but this is more than I expected for when I stumpled upon a link on Digg telling that the info is quite decent. Thanks.
Philippine outsourcing is a trend that is becoming more common in information technology and other industries for services that have usually been regarded as intrinsic to managing a business.For more information try visit www.outsourcingphilippines.com.ph or www.outsourcingphilippines.ph
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just make sure to use energy saving garden lights to help the environment…*
for garden lights, we used Light Emitting Diodes to save some electrical energy.:’.