Outsourcing: to tell or not to tell

Whether to reveal the customer that you are outsourcing offhore

[zorick]

First intuitive answer to it is bold NO.
Why should I tell my customer about it?
The reasons for negative answer may are
-- It will be hard to bill around fifty per hour
-- The customer is relying on you, not on somebody you know. It can hinder his confidence in placing the project.

But by definite NO you loose some opportunities.

But, after I have been on both sides of the outsourcing business ( first coordinating outsourcing projects for German and Israel company and then establishing my own Ukrainian company) I can say the answer is not straightforward.

Number of reasons to tell you are outsourcing are:
-- When you want to seriously cut the price and still look professional.
-- When you want to bid for project in which you have neither exerience no references. For example if you are small web design company and want to bid for quite large e-commerce portal. Then you can use experience and references of your outsourcing companyin addition to your own.

The best thing then is to show the customer that you already have successful relations with the outsourcer and, if possible, references to the work you already done with him.

What do you think about the topic? I have another bulk of pro reasons, but what are your ideas on how to do it right?

[Essex_boy]

I wouldnt tell them your outsourcing, I mean if you can show them a decent portfolio what does it matter to them where the work is completed?

[watercrazed]

Only disclose if there is a chance they would have to interact with the offshore subcontractor, or there is a realisitic expectation you personally are providing the service. Otherwise who you hire to help you is your business as long as the expected quality is delivered.

[nbozic]

I personally would not make my clients aware that I outsource... because they might think that they don't even need me - that I'm some sort of middleman who ends up costing them more money. They could also view me as an employee of an agency, again, some sort of middleman.
The main problem, however, is that clients usually want to deal with the company directly, because they want to be sure that their needs are being fully met, and they don't want to hear that their project is being "passed" to people in another country who may not know what they're doing.
Some clients simply insist that work should stay home, and they don't want to deal with companies who outsource offshore.

NB

[Morocco]

I outsource certain technology components but never customer service