Take caution before you outsource your work
Dominic Bowkett, explains, if you are considering outsourcing your work to a third party, then it typically means that your workload is reached its maximum capacity. Congratulations! Outsourcing has been shown to be a means in which you can find cheap labor to cover the overflow. There have been arguments regarding the overall economic impact of outsourcing, and each party does have a point. This article will explain some of the key considerations you should take before outsourcing work to India and Other Countries.
Consideration One: You get what you pay for
If your company needs precision based work, then outsourcing may not be the best option for you, especially to places like India. While there are freelancing firms in India and Africa which do excellent work, I often find (as a freelancer) that I must correct the mistakes of outsourced work. The reason is that these companies rely upon automated software to regurgitate out your required work. A real example would be an outsourced job that a client did with a rendering farm. The file was sent exactly as it was required by the site, the company contacted the client saying that the file was too cluttered and that they removed the unnecessary models. The result was a render void of any detail, a 3D model which had to be reconstructed, and a loss of finances. Another issue that will arise when outsourcing to India or another country is that the original content will not be original. Clip art, snippets from other websites, non-royalty free images, stock images, and other useless junk tend to make their way into cheap labor. When outsourcing look for the quality worker not the cheapest solution explains Dominic Bowkett. Remember, it may be cheaper, but you get what you pay for.
Consideration Two: The language barrier
When outsourcing to India or another country, it is recommended that you choose a country which speaks your native language. The whole point of outsourcing is to find a freelancer or a professional company who can perform the work according to your instructions expediently. If you are spending your entire time trying to teach English to a German, Chinese to a Frenchmen, or Arabic to a Italian, you are wasting time and money. A tip which I have found in any application process overseas is to have a basic phone conversation or skype conversation with the client. If I cannot get more than 10 minutes into the conversation without having to repeat myself, I move on to the next contender.
Consideration Three: Copyright laws and infringements
Before you outsource to India or another outside country, ensure that you understand the copyright laws of that country to which you are sending your data. Just because you are protected here, does not mean that you are protected there. A real example of this would be an architect who thought he would outsource his blueprints of a dome house to Dubai. While his work was copyright protected in the US, the laws are different in Dubai. The company he outsourced his work to put a global copyright on the blueprints which restricted the original architect from using the work. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of investors and legal proceedings resulted from this. If you must send copyrighted material to India or another country for outsourcing purposes, have an NDA as well as a global copyright in place upon all materials that you send.
Consideration Four: If you must outsource use a valid source to do so Not all outsourcing is bad, as stated by Dominic Bowkett
. The easiest way to ensure that you have a valid freelancer or company to outsource to is to use a freelancing site or to find a site which has accreditation and validation. Freelance sites will have a ranking system of some sort and generally require identification validation, banking validation, and a skills test. Websites should have a valid email (not @gmail, @hotmail, or @yahoo but an @domain.com address), a phone number at the location where the business is established, and reliable validation/testimony.
The final consideration – Dominic Bowkett
stated that regardless of your standing point on freelancing, there is one consideration which should take precedent over everything else. This is the fact that the outsourced work will be associated with your name. If the quality is poor, it is not the outsourced worker who will suffer, but you. Should you have a large company and outsource your work to avoid taxation or paying fair wages to workers and the media get a hold of it and broadcasts it, it will not be the workers in India or another country who are seen as exploiting the market, but your business. Outsourcing should be conducted with the same level of ferocity and caution that you would conduct for any professional asking for employment at your physical location.