As the director of a small Internet and development consulting company, I have been an outsourcer and subcontractor in my career. Seeing both ends of the landscape certainly helps me make better decisions when it comes to outsourcing web development and marketing work. This article offers some key points for companies looking to outsource some or all of their IT requirements.

Low cost does not necessarily mean low quality.

Although this may often be the case, hiring a cheap worker from your domestic or international market can sometimes get you a higher caliber worker than your higher paid counterparts. The hardest part of finding the right cheap but quality worker is knowing what is needed in advance.

The blind hiring the blind

When hiring a web developer, for example, a company’s human resources department may not be able to tell the difference between someone who is fit for the role and someone who isn’t, simply by comparing resumes and/or doing an interview. While some specific skill sets may be a requirement for the position and weed out some candidates based on their resumes, the final interview should be conducted by the relevant IT leader in the company. If a company doesn’t have an IT department but is considering outsourcing some IT work, I recommend hiring an IT consultant to manage their projects for them. This can save them valuable time, and potentially a lot of wasted money, if they mistakenly hired the wrong person for the job.

Recruitment from abroad

In my career, I have outsourced various projects and tasks, from web application systems development and data entry to graphic design and voice acting. My subcontractors have been citizens of China, Argentina, the Philippines, Vietnam, Russia, and even first world countries like Japan and the United States. Again, there is no flat rate per country for certain professions abroad that will guarantee you find cheap, quality labor, but in general, the average salary in developing countries means you have a better chance of finding a suitable candidate for a lower cost than in a first world market.

How do you now cow Cafe?

When you have tasks that require minimal English proficiency, workers from any of the non-English speaking countries listed above will generally be able to understand enough English to get the job done. that is, when hiring a programmer, you may be more interested in their math and problem-solving skills than whether they can write correct grammar in your email communications.

For content writing or projects that require a fluent command of English, the Philippines can be an excellent source of workers with a very high level of spoken and written English. Please note, however, that for English text content that will be used directly in marketing to the US or other English markets, you may need to hire a first world native English speaker. Where someone from the Philippines may have an excellent command of English grammar, without the cultural background of living in a first world country, some nuances may be difficult to produce in her language.

Holding Subcontractors Accountable

When hiring remote workers, especially from abroad and with different time zones, it becomes very difficult to control their working hours. For this reason, I suggest working on performance-based milestones to better control your project costs and eliminate the trust issues many IT outsourcers face now. If you must use an hourly accounting practice, I recommend that for programming, content, or other applicable work, you maintain the project through a version control system. Using a popular version control system like SVN allows workers to “commit” their code and files at certain intervals. The project manager can see exactly how much change has been made at each interval, with the added benefit of archived backups for each edited revision.

General Pros and Cons of Outsourcing IT Projects

In this article, I have covered some key points in outsourcing, specifically for IT project outsourcing. To summarize some of the mentioned pros and cons in point form, the following comparison is provided.

PROS

• Potential cost savings
• Reduction of general personnel expenses
• Temporarily increase capacity

CONS

• More difficult to monitor workers
• Language and/or cultural barriers