What country would you recommend to outsource an IT project to?

An interesting discussion on our group CAD Outsourcing on Linkedin. I am posting the discussion here for people who are not members.

Question
Nowadays outsourcing IT projects to a remote company is a very popular tendency. You can find a lot of companies from all over the world providing programming services for a much lower cost, than in the US market. Developing countries offer the lowest rates. But will it be a quality and bug-free work at last?

What is the best country for outsourcing IT projects in a ratio of price to quality? Do you have such experience?


Trey Werner
CAD Designer / Technician

From what I have read, there will be a BIG tax on outsourcing any work from the USA. With the way the economy currently is, let’s keep the work here and get America back to work.
Posted 8 days ago | Reply Privately | Delete comment

Jimmy Roa
CEO/Entrepreneur/Sr. Consultant at Staffingforce

The decision to outsource often is made with the goal of lowering the firm’s costs, redirecting or conserving energy on the competencies of your business, and to make more efficient use of labor, capital, technology and resources.

Financial reasons for outsourcing is to immediately generate cost savings. Cost efficiency is created from the savings in manpower costs, ownership costs of computer hardware and software, and other related overhead
expenses.

Although, a lot of times it’s a matter of economics, quality and timely delivery are just as important. When choosing an offshore provider , it’s best to check out track records, references, sample projects and staff resumes. Do not merely base your decision on costs.

My company does Cad outsourcing from the Philippines and we go by the One-team Concept. The idea is to develop a partnership between us and the client that will foster a true alliance. We are partners in achieving the overall goals of cost savings, process improvement, and greater time for your core business. To accomplish this, there should be commitment, constant communication and continuous alignment.
Posted 8 days ago | Reply Privately | Delete comment

Krishan Sharma
Independent GIS Professional

India off-course is the best choice, it is reliable and reasonable in price and have some of the best technicals experts in this line, please contact us. www. kksgroup.in
Posted 8 days ago | Reply Privately | Delete comment

Dale Price
Civil Engineering Professional

Well lets see. You get what you pay for. If you want it cheaply done then it will be. India is and will always undercut us as long as their wages stay so low. I think that if a U.S. company has to outsource to another nation just to keep its costs low then they just need to leave the U.S. It is this kind of business move that alot of companies here are going to and it makes me sick. We have people already laid off and have lost their homes. The cost of goods are on the rise due to our bad economy and all they (companies) want to do is protect their bottom line by going out of the U.S. There used to be a time when we kept all of it in our nation. It wouldn't be such a crime if they, other nations would bring their standards to ours and could create a true competition. We cannot compete with India or other poor countries like that. Their wages and ours are not the same. If there was some way to shore up that country so that their wages were equal to ours then they would have to compete with us on quality and the price issue would be gone. I am in not way saying that India cannot produce quality goods. I am just stating a fact of problems we are facing with already ongoing outsourcing.

Here is an example of what has been going on:

Dell computers started outsourcing their quality assurance and technical troubleshooting to India around 5 or more years ago. For us in the U.S. it is hard to talk to people from India because of their dialect. I know they try to get English tutors to help them sound English but their language and ours do not mix well and when you have been on the phone with technical support for almost 1 hour because you have to repeat everything you say 3 times and you have to have them repeat what they say because you dont really understand the broken up english they are speaking when it should have only taken about 20 minutes to finish up the trouble call. Another thing is I have been on the phone with numerous Indian technical professionals and they repeatedly read from a script and reading straight out of a technical manual. I could teach my six year old son to do the same thing. Just because they can read english out of a technical book does not mean they know what they are talking about. To me that is not quality of work that I used to get from Dell technical support. It is this kind of low standard that makes me cringe at calling any technical support for any company because they have outsourced their stuff to India.

Their are plenty of laid off people in the U.S. to do the same thing that India can do and do it alot better. Like I said before it is the wage thing and we know that that technical person on the other end of the phone line is probably working a 12 hour shift and only getting paid 7 dollars a day that would cost Dell. Hey India get a back bone and start charging more for your services because the U.S. companies are making huge fortunes on your backs.

I am exhausted with all of this but I am saying what is on every Americans mind because I am not alone on this one. U.S.A. all the way Baby. Yeah I am an American and I am proud of it.
Posted 8 days ago | Reply Privately | Delete comment

Vitaliy Larkin
SEO Specialist at Conkurent LLC

Thanks to all.
Outsourcing part of IT work to an offshore team is quite normal IMHO. Information technologies require great knowledge and resources, so it can be reasonable if you assign something to the people with a better knowledge and experience in it. Let us think globally.
Posted 7 days ago | Reply Privately | Delete comment

Vitaliy Larkin
SEO Specialist at Conkurent LLC

Actually we already have a team of developers on board, and now working on few big projects outsourced to us from Germany, Switzerland, and the US. We want to expand this branch of business. So I am trying to outline the situation on the world's IT market. We have started from selling own software products (see http://phpforms.net/ , http://needsecure.com/ ). They are a success, and now this is the main branch of the company's business.
Posted 6 days ago | Reply Privately | Delete comment

Maneck Khanna
CEO, Obelisk - Architecture Knowledge Partner

Interesting discussion, and congrats Vitaliy for starting such an intelligent discussion.

I have read most of the comments and have seen a lot of them based on individual experience or personal bias for one's own business or one's region.
I also read that a lot of people in the discussion think that a major reason to outsource is the Cost benefit.

However, I would like state that outsourcing or partnering for a specific service (the term we like to use) is not only cost dependent now but also depends on the expertise of the service provider.

So rather than asking which is the best country to outsource, we should be asking, who has better expertise and a good track record in context to the nature of job you looking to outsource?

So if both companies working involved in the deal look at a long term partnership, irrespective of the geographical locations of the outsourcer and the outsourcing company, it has always been a fruitful partnership.
Posted 1 day ago | Delete comment

Kabir Luthra
Owner at a Construction Documentation Company - K-Pro

india has the best price/ quality trade-off amongst the outsourced economies. though this largely depends on what it is you are looking to outsource. i've heard that its better to go to the guys in the philippines or even the Caribbean for construction design otsourcing.
India is positioned very well when it comes to the more mundane tasks like quantity take-off - the criteria is well defined and you dot want/ need a lot of creativity.
We are based out of the UAE with an office in India that does all our quantity take-off. the Dubai offce is focused on the design/drawing detail aspect and is staffed with Philipinos.
have a look at www.kpro.ae for more information
Posted 6 hours ago | Reply Privately | Delete comment

Jimmy Roa
CEO/Entrepreneur/Sr. Consultant at Staffingforce

Kabir, I do not consider quantity take-offs and cost estimation as being mundane tasks. In fact, it takes a lot of attention to detail and engineering knowledge to do. Aside from Cad, we have been doing a lot of quantity take-offs for a general contractor in the US that focuses on water systems. it's not easy at all to determine all the fittings that are required for piping systems. Our process requires two estimates are done and are later compared. Any discrepancies will have to be addressed accordingly.

Source: Linkedin discussion on the group CAD Outsourcing. The views expressed here in the discussion are the views of the authors resepctively.