Monday, March 22, 2010

Only a fool would write off GOOGLE

I could not help but notice this sentence when I read an article about Google v/s Facebook.

My personal comments would be Google and Facebook both have their respective client base and a true comparison is not possible. Without both most of us would be clueless in this chaos of the internet. Google is here to stay for a long time and we cannot forget the order it has brought in our lives.

However, this could be my personal bias and my love for a company like Google. Please read this article to find out more about the so called "WAR" and post your opnions.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

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.

Monday, February 8, 2010

BIM - The future

Jennifer had been approached by IIDA to comment on BIM as she has been marketing aggressively about BIM through OBELISK. The comments were published in the article on their blog with the link given below,

THE FUTURE IS HERE, AND IT'S BIM

Good work Jennifer.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

China's first Indian-style temple


China is opening up to different cultures and the proof of this is shown in the Indian style - The White Horse Temple in Luoyang, Henan which is one of the oldest sites of Buddhism in China. It is an icon of India’s traditional cultural links with China.


The details are given in this interesting news article below,

Recently constructed Indian-style Buddhist Temple celebrates the shared cultural heritage between India and China

(Source: The source of this information is the www.worldarchitecturenews.com)

This blog, including any attachment(s) hereto, is intended only for the visitors of this blog. Any comments or statements made in this are not necessarily those of Obelisk or any other Obelisk entity.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

AAL IZZ WELL (All is well)

Recently I had a chance of watching the movie "3 Idiots" which has gone on to become one of the top grossing movies in the Indian film industry - Rs. 375 crore (3.75 billion) in 4 weeks.
A simple movie with a very effective message. The movie deals with the current "rat race" we are inflicted to ever since we start our lives, to the time we are in our professions and which goes on till the end of our lives.
The movie conveys a lot of messages through its plot but revolves around the fact to get out of the "rat race" and think out of the box.
Pursue excellence and success will follow, it is a by product. This we can very well see with this movie as an example. The makers made an excellent movie which connected with the present generation's heart and both fame and financial success has followed.
I would like to list a few lessons learnt from the movie,
Pursue Excellence & Success will follow.
All is well - Even when you are in dire straits and most difficult times of your life, if you keep telling your heart "All is well" it will give you the strength to face those difficult times
Passion leads to Excellence - If you make your passion or your hobby your profession, you are bound to be successful.
Learning is a constant process
Necessity is the mother of Invention - Learn to think "out of the box".
Mediocrity is penalized - Most of us are born average with limited resources, but each one of us has a genius which we should bring out and not die Mediocre.

I would suggest all to see this movie and those who have seen it, please watch it again.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010

Obelisk wishes all its friends and associates and reader of this blog a very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Judges Honourable Mention for Team OBELISK

Team Obelisk gets a Judges Honourable Mention at the Build London Live 2009 competition.

Team 8: Obelisk

Well done to everyone associated with the competition.

Build London Live 2009 - Winnners

Build London Live 2009 winners posted at the link given below

BLL2009 Winners

Congratulations to all the winners

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Build London Live 2009

OBELISK participates in the 48 hour BIM competition - Build London Live 2009.

Please click on the link below to check out our and other teams entries.


It was a great experience for everyone. Will post the entries on the blog soon.