With many hi-tech jobs moving to India, should you bite the bullet and source some cheap web development yourself? Let me tell you about our experiences.
At CommOut, we’ve used two Indian development houses. One has been a great supplier and we now have an ongoing partnership. The second experience was a disaster.
In the first case, we listed a Flash animation job on getafreelancer.com. The freelancer we decided to use was in India. The project delivered a successful outcome – our client was very happy to have a great animation for about 10% of the price they would have paid in Australia. The downside was that it took about 3 times as long as it would have with a local developer. This was due to communication difficulties (English is not their first language) and cultural differences. For example, the animation featured western supermarket. As the developer was unfamilar with such supermarkets, he drew what he knew – which was a 3rd world store. I had to supply photos of what a supermarket here looks like so that he could understand what was needed. Luckily, we had plenty of time, so we made the deadline. We would have been in trouble if there was a tight deadline.
So, my first tip is: If you are going to trial an Indian supplier, do it with a project that isn’t time critical. It’s also a good idea to start with something simple.
We’ve since been working with this supplier for the past 12 months. Their turnaround time is now great – the familiarity of working together on numerous projects has certainly helped communication. Communication is mainly via Skype and email – sometimes we talk on the phone, but I really struggle with their accents, so it’s not my preferred method.
Second tip: Give it time & expect to have to explain stuff more than you would to a local supplier. If you try a project with an Indian supplier and they deliver basically what you want (don’t expect to be blown away by the first project) then it’s worth persisting. Develop the relationship and you’ll soon learn the pitfalls to avoid and what they can and can’t do well. Provide lots of examples of what you are after and what you like. Describe in detail what you want (which goes for a local supplier too – they aren’t mind readers either).
Now for the disaster… we placed another listing on getafreelancer.com for the development of some Sharepoint templates. We were doing a Sharepoint Intranet development for a client and needed to bring in the expertise to develop the templates. We selected an Indian supplier who had good references on getafreelancer.com and claimed to have the expertise. Let’s just say that they didn’t… We paid A$3K for a set of templates that took a lot of testing and work on our behalf and that didn’t extend to all the Sharepoint webparts. Yes, it was much cheaper than the $20K we were quoted by a local supplier, but we basically got what we paid for. The Indian supplier was also aggressive and not pleasant to deal with.
Tip 3: If you are looking for very specific technical skills then make sure you get references and call them. Also ask to see examples (if possible). If possible, talk to the developer on the telephone before you engage them to get a feel for their manner.
Finally, it may be difficult to do business with an Indian developer if you working for a large company. Typically, you may them via Paypal or another Internet based payment system. They don’t issue official tax invoices – which will make you unpopular with your Accounts Payable department. In this situation, you may be better off to ask one of your small suppliers to pay them on your behalf and then bill you.
Also, if you are not allowed to have an instant messaging/desktop sharing program like Skype installed on your work computer then communication is going to be difficult. If you are not prepared to communicate outside of your working hours then the time difference will also be a problem. I typically spend 2-3 hours per night on Skype, chatting with our Indian developer. We clarify details, share testing results etc. It’s an efficient way to communicate.
The bottom line is: if you find a good Indian developer you can work with then it’s worth investing the time and energy to build the relationship. The return on investment is high due to their extremely low cost.