Does anyone have advice regarding outsourcing to India?

[Communicator]

Hello all;

I have been given the task of procuring a low-cost web services provider. We will be working for a non-profit organization building many websites for small, local business on a government grant. The business will provide writing for their websites.

Several leads have been provided to me for web businesses located in India. Major corporations such as Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard have recently moved operations there. With labour costs at or below $20 USD per hour, it is certainly attractive for our company.

a) Have any of you outsourced your work to Indian companies?
b) What should we look for in a company as such, given our requirements? What do we need from them?
c) If you outsourced work to an Indian company, did you have any problems with language or cultural barriers?
d) Would you recommend any firms in particular?

[shaadi]

I am based in India, prior to working for a DotCom company; I was for 3 years with an offshore firm, which use to provide web services to companies in US and other English speaking nations. Maybe I can try and answer your questions...

a) Have any of you outsourced your work to Indian companies?

Well, most of the business process outsourcing is done in India, its not the cheapest but because of the quality of the work and speed. Its normal to have a six days a week in India, some of the call centers in India (outsourced by LG mostly) have employees working on a contract, which has seven days week and not a single holiday in a year.

b) What should we look for in a company as such, given our requirements? What do we need from them?

1) Manpower (Prefer more than 30 People Company)
2) Experience (3+ years in that industry)
3) Qualification of employees (We follow British education system, 10 +2 +3/4 - Mostly prefer a B.E. Comp. for software and MBA for marketing work.
4) Location - Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Banglore, Chennai, Hydrabad, Kolkata

c) If you outsourced work to an Indian company, did you have any problems with language or cultural barriers?

Well English is not at all a problem, and NO cultural barriers. B.E. Comp. and MBA guys don't have these!

Cost: - 15$ to 30$ per hour

It’s just the low economy of the country that makes this possible nothing else. If dollar goes strong as it is going for last 3-4 decades nothing will change much :)

d) Would you recommend any firms in particular?

You can sticky me for that :)

[DavidL]

Hi,

Interesting question. I have now experience of India, but I do know a couple of people that have used services in eastern europe, Egypt and Jordan, ever considered any of those locations for the services you are interested in?

[gangstah]

I've only had one issue with outsourcing to offshore companies and that's freaking time zones. I hate sending an email with a request for support knowing that I won't get an answer until the next morning when I open Outlook. That was an issue with one company I was dealing with but that's not to say it's an issue with EVERY company out there.

[Undead Hunter]

I've been contacted by people in Eastern Europe - one company looks pretty good, although I haven't used them yet. Send me a sticky if you're interested...