Comments on: MYTH: Keeping Outsourcing Costs Down Increases Profits http://www.internetmarketingsweetie.com/blog/outsourcing-myths Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:58:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: TIm King http://www.internetmarketingsweetie.com/blog/outsourcing-myths/comment-page-1#comment-10686 TIm King Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:00:26 +0000 http://www.internetmarketingsweetie.com/?p=2670#comment-10686 This is so true, Alice. As a web-development consultant, I'm usually on the other side of that relationship. But I hear the horror stories of low-cost contractors. A friend was telling me how his company contracts work on a certain project to a Mexican consulting house, at a fraction the hourly rate we charge. When my friend gets a new software release from the Mexican developers, it <strong>never</strong> works right. He always has to hack with it, suggest fixes, and then wait while they get it straightened out. He spends enough time fixing their mistakes that he feels very secure in his job, even though he works for a financial services company, in the current economy. When I heard the story, I told him that we almost never let that happen. There are exceptions to the rule, yes. But every single exception is met with decisive action to make it less likely to happen again, because we have a team of experienced engineers using a mature process. In fact, one of our clients, when one of our releases didn't work correctly due to circumstances beyond our control, the CTO got involved. It was that big of a deal. At my friend's company, it's just par for the course. I know I'm rambling a little here, and this is probably starting to sound like a sales pitch, and I don't mean it to. My point is that you frequently do get what you pay for. If you go with cut-rate prices, you will often get cut-rate service. And if you want effective service, you usually have to pay a little bit more. So determine where in your business the service you get counts, and then don't scrimp on it. -TimK This is so true, Alice. As a web-development consultant, I’m usually on the other side of that relationship. But I hear the horror stories of low-cost contractors.

A friend was telling me how his company contracts work on a certain project to a Mexican consulting house, at a fraction the hourly rate we charge. When my friend gets a new software release from the Mexican developers, it never works right. He always has to hack with it, suggest fixes, and then wait while they get it straightened out. He spends enough time fixing their mistakes that he feels very secure in his job, even though he works for a financial services company, in the current economy.

When I heard the story, I told him that we almost never let that happen. There are exceptions to the rule, yes. But every single exception is met with decisive action to make it less likely to happen again, because we have a team of experienced engineers using a mature process. In fact, one of our clients, when one of our releases didn’t work correctly due to circumstances beyond our control, the CTO got involved. It was that big of a deal. At my friend’s company, it’s just par for the course.

I know I’m rambling a little here, and this is probably starting to sound like a sales pitch, and I don’t mean it to. My point is that you frequently do get what you pay for. If you go with cut-rate prices, you will often get cut-rate service. And if you want effective service, you usually have to pay a little bit more. So determine where in your business the service you get counts, and then don’t scrimp on it.

-TimK

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