If you have good experience outsourcing to India

14 years ago

I have been outsourcing for several years. I have faced many problems but have found the best way of doing so is to have high level documentation created first. This should include a use case that basically says all of the expected behaviour.

Then once you have this documentation created you put this to the development company to give a fixed price quote. They always try to encourage you to take developers on a lease basis where you pay per month. Avoid this like the plague wherever possible. In the past I have tried to cut costs by moving to this type of setup but there is no motivation for the managers to push the employees to work unless it is a fixed price project.

If your interested PM me and I will give you the contact details of the company I use and am very happy with.

Thanks
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gentle 14 years ago

hello,

i am interested in using a out scouring could you please pm the details of which company you use ?

thanks alot
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samjesop

14 years ago

Often these guys offering services from India or Pakistan (or any other country) have little sense of reputation. Many are there to make a quick buck and be gone. Look at the reviews on sites like elance. Beware of people claiming to be able to do it all, they likely suck at everything.

Thanks
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garraye34

14 years ago

Be careful with these guys.They are amazing when it is developing software and other IT related stuffs. 96% of them are crap when it comes to article writing. They claim to be this and that but if you are clever enough you would be able to unmask their lies from the review they send you.

Majority of the article they write for you are not totally original. I will suggest you copy scape whatever article they write for you, if you will be outsourcing article to these guys.

Thanks
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ListBuildingForNewbies

14 years ago

Originally Posted by garraye34

Be careful with these guys.They are amazing when it is developing software and other IT related stuffs. 96% of them are crap when it comes to article writing. They claim to be this and that but if you are clever enough you would be able to unmask their lies from the review they send you.

Majority of the article they write for you are not totally original. I will suggest you copy scape whatever article they write for you, if you will be outsourcing article to these guys.

Thank you for the tip

Indeed this is an important question raised here. When dealing with contractors from the Far East, it becomes more difficult to know how reliable their services are. The feedback is an important indicator, but many contractor's can blackmail a client for positive feedback.

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GuerrillaIM

14 years ago

Originally Posted by garraye34

Be careful with these guys.They are amazing when it is developing software and other IT related stuffs. 96% of them are crap when it comes to article writing. They claim to be this and that but if you are clever enough you would be able to unmask their lies from the review they send you.

Majority of the article they write for you are not totally original. I will suggest you copy scape whatever article they write for you, if you will be outsourcing article to these guys.

I agree if you expect to pay a guy in india $5 to write a quality article then get ready to be dissapointed... BUT.. and this is a big but...

Go to your local book shop, go to the IT section, and look at the credits inside the IT training manuals. You will see more than a few very Indian sounding names.

For me to get a technical article written will cost me a minimum of $50 if I use a US based guy, and sometimes it can cost a lot more depending on the subject matter. I can have that same article written in india for $20.

A lot of people seem to think that when you go to the third world you should pay peanuts, but you can get amazing quality if you are prepared to pay a bit more.

In the past I have paid staff in India & Philippines close to what domestic workers would make, but for that money I get so much more dedication and attention to detail that it works out really well.

There is great pools of talent in the third world that you can tap into, but most people overlook this as they charge similar to what people in their own country are charging.

The skills gap between the top and bottom of the foreign outsourcing market is vast.

Thanks
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drmani

14 years ago

Originally Posted by GuerrillaIM

I agree if you expect to pay a guy in india $5 to write a quality article then get ready to be dissapointed...

Sorry, but that may not be very generally/broadly applicable.

Even assuming a TOP quality article of 500 words takes two hours for
a good writer to create, including the research, and the writer does ONLY ONE
article a day, then this would earn him/her $150 a month - which equates
to Rs.6,750.

For perspective, an engineer in the software/IT industry would start at
a salary of around Rs.35,000 a month - and work 6 days a week, 8 to 10
hours a day.

A college student, housewife, retiree (or, dare I say, a heart surgeon
who has an hour to spare now and then, and feels in a generous mood :lol: )
in India could EASILY do quality work for $5 an article.

Just amazed at how much misinformation can be there in this thread,
with people generalizing opinions on a population that's around 1,200
MILLION based on anecdotal experiences with a MINISCULE segment of it
- on one or few occasions!

All success
Dr.Mani

P.S. - I am *not* saying $5 is fair rate to pay, or for a quality
writer to charge (I'd recommend $25 or more for a good 500 word
article) - but there's quality, and there's 'minimum acceptable
price', and there's misinformation about the two on this thread.

Just saying

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Rikki_Fawkes 14 years ago

Well, it wasn't a big project, but I did have success outsourcing to a college student in the Philippines. The only snafu during the process was that he got really sick partway through and I needed to extend the deadline a little. But he did very good work and came through, so I didn't complain.

I also had success outsourcing a slightly bigger project to a guy in Indonesia. He was an American but had moved to Indonesia several years before I hired him. That was one of the best online hiring experiences I've ever had.
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GuerrillaIM

14 years ago

Originally Posted by drmani

Sorry, but that may not be very generally/broadly applicable.

Even assuming a TOP quality article of 500 words takes two hours for
a good writer to create, including the research, and the writer does ONLY ONE
article a day, then this would earn him/her $150 a month - which equates
to Rs.6,750.

For perspective, an engineer in the software/IT industry would start at
a salary of around Rs.35,000 a month - and work 6 days a week, 8 to 10
hours a day.

A college student, housewife, retiree (or, dare I say, a heart surgeon
who has an hour to spare now and then, and feels in a generous mood :lol: )
in India could EASILY do quality work for $5 an article.

Just amazed at how much misinformation can be there in this thread,
with people generalizing opinions on a population that's around 1,200
MILLION based on anecdotal experiences with a MINISCULE segment of it
- on one or few occasions!

All success
Dr.Mani

P.S. - I am *not* saying $5 is fair rate to pay, or for a quality
writer to charge (I'd recommend $25 or more for a good 500 word
article) - but there's quality, and there's 'minimum acceptable
price', and there's misinformation about the two on this thread.

Just saying

Sure everyones experiences are different, but that is my opinion and i am not changing it. My experience of getting articles from India is that when I go at the cheaper end of the market the language used, while readable, does not flow like that of a natural born english speaker. However, when I pay a bit more there is a massive jump in quality. There are great writers in India, but they charge a fair price and earn a good living as they are top of their game.

I don't see what I said as being misleading, but if it was I apologise. Feel free to question me on anything I was unclear about.

Thanks

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George Pitts 14 years ago

@ Guerilla IM I cannot PM but I would love some information on the company you use if you dont mind. You can email me at gmpbusiness @ gmail
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Vitaliy K

14 years ago

completely agree. Most of them want to earn cash without doing nothing, but there are some people which really make good job, but as I said not so many of them

Originally Posted by samjesop

Often these guys offering services from India or Pakistan (or any other country) have little sense of reputation. Many are there to make a quick buck and be gone. Look at the reviews on sites like elance. Beware of people claiming to be able to do it all, they likely suck at everything.

Thanks

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LarryWestner

14 years ago

I want to start outsourcing, but I'm worried the outsourcers won't provide quality work.

Thanks

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raylm123

14 years ago

Fleki, could you give a few more details about the project? Is it software, graphic design, writing?

That may help those who have used companies in India have a better idea of what you are looking for.

Thanks

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GuerrillaIM

14 years ago

I think a lot of good companies in India leave a lot of unhappy customers unintentionally. When you go to a UK or USA company it is very easy for them to understand the requirement and read between the lines. When going to India if you leave any blanks for them to fill in you can get some bizarre results.

You can save a lot of money by going offshore but you have to do extra preperation work and haggle terms that protect you. If you are new to software development, find a domestic systems analyst to help you with your business requirement and high level documentation. Get them to create milestones in the documentation and give use cases that must be completed before each payment is made.

Don't use freelancers, they typically have a fulltime job and try to fit your work in around it. Companies with more than one developer can be impersonal but they are less likely to dissapear over night.

Thanks

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NickP

14 years ago

I've used both offshore and US based. I definitely agree with GuerrillaIM that you must be meticulous in your project detail. What i've found is that offshore has taken twice as long to complete as an on-shore project because anytime you need to make a change, it is night time over there, so you get your change usually the next morning (our time). if they don't get it right, start the cycle again.

There are advantages to both, but I'm at a point now where I've teamed with a great US programmer (not for sale...we JV everything now). But I've had some good work done by offshore companies.

Good luck.

Thanks
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Fleki

14 years ago

The work that I need is strictly php coding.

Another concern is that how to patent the product and how to make sure that they don't sell the code to someone else once it's done.

That really worries me.

Thanks
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Naveed Peerzade

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Fleki

The work that I need is strictly php coding.

The best option is to post your project on freelance sites, I prefer scriptlance with premium upgrade... I also make sure that I cover as much possible in the project description and put a secret word somewhere in it... plus I post strict terms that they must agree before they bid..

Using secret word is not a new technique, but still helps a lot.. this way I can easily ignore canned responses... communicate with the rest of bidder/s that you find have good experience, reputation..

(hint: if they have a lot of positive reviews look at the pricing of those projects, people there do small and easy jobs to increase the rating, so make sure they have worked on bigger projects and have good rating for them)

Originally Posted by Fleki

Another concern is that how to patent the product and how to make sure that they don't sell the code to someone else once it's done. That really worries me.

Need to contact your local legal consultant for patent registration... but in your project description, make sure to mention that you own full rights and they cannot use the final script/part of it in any other project... and they must be ready to sign NDA

Confirm this with the bidder again

I hope that will help you to get started

.

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Digital Info Diva

14 years ago

Please don't get into thinking outsourcing to other countries is useless.
You just need to know how to get results!

Your results will depend on:

Your ability to write a project specification
The details you include in the specification
The type of person you want to do the work
Your ability to research the bids you receive

You have to first and foremost know what it is that you want. Believe me,
providers want to give it to you, but most of the time your expectations
are not included. For instance, there is nothing wrong with including
"Fluent English speaking and writing skills required - if you don't have these
skills, don't bid this job" on your spec. If this is part of your requirement,
you also must expect to pay more to get these skills.

If you set an expectation and pay accordingly, you will get what you
need. Example: I needed 20 unique articles for a site I was flipping. I
didn't want to pay top dollar, so I decided to contract on price and prior
history. I provided the keyword phrases for the articles written and how I
would verify the articles before I accepted them. I then selected the best
candidate from the bids I received. I knew I would have to rewrite the
articles for grammar, but I was willing to do that to get the content.

Your project specification should include:

Who
What
Where
Why
How
etc.

Pretty basic when you bring structure to your project requests.

I also contract with individuals instead of companies. In general, you will
find the company communicates with you to get the job, but is then
assigned to one of their workers. It's the workers who don't speak or
write very well and are working for even less than you are paying.

The individuals are usually trying to build a name for themselves and will
perform better on the project.

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Naveed Peerzade

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Digital Info Diva

Your results will depend on:

Your ability to write a project specification
The details you include in the specification
The type of person you want to do the work
Your ability to research the bids you receive

Yes, your ability to write down project specifications, aka technical specs would matter a lot. I have seen tons of projects on freelance sites like "Need xyz site clone".. and they are getting tons of bids.. but trust me what you or the programmer sees is just the front end.. you / bidder do not know the functionality (behind the scene) of the site, then how can you expect the programmer will be able to create a script similar to other site?

You need to spend time yourself and list down all the features you need including backend part.. be as much specific and you will get what you want.

For a simple CMS project I created a documentation of well over 30 pages, including form fields of each part of the admin area and explanation of how that field is going to be fetched on the front end.

eg. Show title [x]
-> if its not checked and if its a visitor (do not show title) else if its a member (logged in), show the title. if its checked then show title to everyone.

just an example.. but you get an idea. Do you see any reason why would any programmer in any country won't be able to do that? unless he is really dumb

Also very important: Make sure you put a term that selected programmer must provide you daily updates, and show you what they have done.. this is really crucial.

As I said, i have had a company work on my big budget project did not do anything for 3 months, they just kept telling me that its going on and finally when I asked them to give me a demo, they started asking me questions they should have asked me on the first day.

.

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Bryan O'Neil

14 years ago

First of all, don't put India and Philippines on the same level.

I've done A LOT of outsourcing and while my experiences with Indian freelancers have been 80% negative (see above posts for details), my experiences with Filipino freelancers have been 80% positive.

But which-ever country you choose, it's extremely important to:

a) Be extremely thorough in the interview phase and make sure that what your freelancer claims is actually true;

b) Even more importantly, make sure that the freelancer is absolutely fluent in your language as the VAST MAJORITY of problems with freelancers come down to poor communication.

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Fleki

14 years ago

Bryan, I posted several ads on craigslist for Phillipines (Manilla) and I would get 4-5 people responding with the exact same sentences in their emails. I asked them how it's possible and cracked down the operation. I don't feel comfortable sorting through responses now that I know someone's sitting there responding to all of the posts several different times with a different name and email address, claiming to be a different person.

I feel more secure with a company rather than a single programmer, since they can bail out anytime.

Any recommendations?

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Naveed Peerzade

14 years ago

I am from India too and my recent outsourcing experience was really bad, I have tried writers, programmers, ghostwrites from many countries.

All I can tell you is there are good and bad ones everywhere. My experience with Indian writers was bad as someone said above, most of them are not original and 2ndly the langauge.

I tried some Filipinos as well, and again they were not smart in writing the way I wanted.. it may be good for linkbait but the research was really poor.

I tried some writers from US and UK, Romania as well.. the Romania writer (who is a member here) took money and just disappeared.. couple of from US (from elance) accepted job and then just disappeared with no replies

finally got 2 from US and Canada.... but it took a great amount of time, money and efforts to find these gems... these are writers.

And about Indian programmers, as i said there are some good and bad ones.. some guys did exceptionally great and some just kept me on hold for almost 3 month and did not even complete 10% work and I had to find another guy from Nigeria LOL yeah i would not give him work if i knew he is from there.. but luckily he was a real deal and finished the project in just 10 days exceeding my expectations.

So bottom line, it takes time to find good ones let it be from anywhere in the world...

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Kalpana Iyer

14 years ago

I agree with Naveed.

You can't really judge the work of the entire Indian community based on a bunch of cheats. Like most Indians, my English is not perfect which is why I usually make others write my articles for me.

But I have had a bunch of people message me privately in forums in the pretense of offering a helping hand when I was a newbie. One of them actually messaged me with a 'tip' on how to cheat customers into buying something by advertising it as something else. He told me to actually try it out and that I'll be earning money in no time! No, he was not an Indian.

So I guess it's just up to you to find out who's making the real deal and who's not. You can never know unless you try. But I would suggest if it's for article writing, you get them done by someone whose native language is English.

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Banned 14 years ago

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jayman 14 years ago

I am not judging or anything but almost all my outsource work to India and Pakistan turned out to be very bad, especially the quality. So I try not to outsource there again, especially Pakistan. Been scammed more times than I can remember too. Articles written for me were so bad, it's not even funny (or maybe it's funny to read).

As for the Phillipines, I have a pretty successful experience. Less scam and articles written are ok grammatically and well researched but could be better.

Best experience is outsourcing to US and UK contractors. I try to outsource more to US to keep the money in the states and help Americans
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seasoned

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Fleki

The work that I need is strictly php coding.

Another concern is that how to patent the product and how to make sure that they don't sell the code to someone else once it's done.

That really worries me.

Dr Mani,

You are INDIAN, FROM INDIA, and may not even have had that much experience working with indians on IT projects, but you have had NO experience working with indians as a foreigner.

GuerrillaIM is certainly RIGHT!

And you said "Just amazed at how much misinformation can be there in this thread,
with people generalizing opinions on a population that's around 1,200
MILLION based on anecdotal experiences with a MINISCULE segment of it
- on one or few occasions!"

That is totally FALSE! According to the CIA fact book, there are only 1,156,897,766 in the entire COUNTRY of india. Only 64.3% are between 15 and 64 which is 743,885,263 only 61% is literate 453,770,010 48% is non agricultural 217,809,605.

So we are talking about LESS than 217million people. HEY, YOU're one of those 217 million, and I don't think YOU are offering outsourced IT services.

Still, we are talking about people's experiences, etc... I've had experiences with probably over 2000 indians. When you count interviews, people I have worked with, etc... I'm certainly not happy about it.

Fleki,

If it is STRICTLY PHP coding, which I doubt, there would likely not be any patentable feature. And MANY indians, and other foreigners, don't recognize patents, etc... anyway. HECK, you will have to be careful they haven't used encumbered code!

Steve

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Brian and Shannon

14 years ago

We haven't ever used outsourcing like that ourselves, but we have other IM affiliates that do use the India and Phillipines outsourcing for trafficing purposes and have had a great deal of success in using this method.

Like anywhere you can have a bad experience so keep in mind that they aren't all bad but researching and finding the right one is a key tool. Our suggestion would be to go to Elance.com and Guru.com where they have reviews over different freelancers and you get more peace of mind.

Don't be affraid to outsource, it will really improve your business giving you more time to focus in on other traffic tactics while someone else doing something else for you.

Best of Luck to you!

Thanks
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drmani 14 years ago

@GuerillaIM - Not misleading at all, sorry if I implied that.

I said "misinformation", and also, though I quoted a sentence
from your post to highlight, I also was referring to the commentary
that went before.

Understanding a general broad population and how they live and
dream is practically impossible without an immersive experience
for long years, and even though I've spent 34 years in the
country, I won't presume to know enough to make a sweeping
generalization about issues.

So I was trying to point out that $5 per article DOES NOT
automatically preclude the possibility of getting top quality,
simply because for MANY qualified and skilled writers, this
rate would not only be adequate, it would be generous!

That's hard to figure out looking at statistical data on a
CIA fact sheet - but drop-dead easy to understand when you
take a drive into the countryside and see how living standards
are and how (in)expensive things really are.

I'm NOT saying it's easy to locate or hire such writers (and
the premium prices charged by the top writers covers this cost
of 'finding' them easily/conveniently), just addressing the
broader issue of "pay for quality" and trying to highlight
the earlier point that Naveed Peerzade nicely makes:

"So bottom line, it takes time to find good ones let it be from
anywhere in the world... "

You pay for the time in minutes - or in dollars.

@seasoned

Steve, you're VASTLY experienced with outsourcing to India -
and yet, your *personal* experience is STILL anecdotal in the
larger scheme of things.

I could quote just as *personal* bad experiences from my equally
extensive experience in working with online marketers in the United
States over fourteen years - and it would be just as irrelevant.
(Truth is I've been scammed more than five TIMES as often by
marketers in the US as anywhere else in the world! So?)

Nothing is sillier than generalizing opinions/impressions about
a population so vast and diverse as "Indians" - or indeed any
other nation with a population over 5 people (if that!)

My opinion. Worth the proverbial 2 cents. (Or whatever it's
equivalent is in rupees!)

All success
Dr.Mani
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folkcare

14 years ago

I hired 4 writers and one only, came through well. I like Roumanian workers. Indian not so much, Fillipinos can be good. If you use copyscape and tell them that you're going to be checking for uniqueness with copyscape, that tends to bring out the better operators. But really many give you a good job for just pennies. You need to revise and edit a bit, but hey, its far quicker and better use of your time to do that.

A good tip it is to try to get certified workers, without any ranking, if you want a quality, cheaper job done - and they get a chance to progress themselves. win/win

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stumpy

14 years ago

I have had some good experience with outsourcing programming like PHP to an Indian company as well as some good design work. You have to be careful because that you do not get charged for many more hours than were actually worked. I had a full time programmer at one time and he started out great, but, it became obvious after a while that he was only putting in about 30 minutes a day for me. He probably was working full time for 10 different clients. So you really have to monitor how much is being accomplished or have a flat rate for a complete project.

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If you have good experience outsourcing to India

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