Outsource Your Web Development.... to an American Company

Outsourcing doesn't necessarily mean foreign countries

When choosing an approach for your web development needs, certainly one of the major issues to evaluate is outsourcing. If you are looking to outsource because of a lack of in-house talent or because you are looking to save money or for other reasons, there's a lot to consider. Here we explore some of these issues with some specific recommendations on how to keep the money right here in America.

Reasons to Outsource: There are many reasons to outsource, the top 5 that I've heard are below:

1. You do not have the web development talent in-house to accomplish your needs. This is the traditional reason most companies rely on consultants to perform projects that require a higher level of skill than they might have in-house.

2. You are looking to cut costs. Sure consultants may be expensive, but they are usually only used for short periods of time which makes them cheaper than hiring employees.

3. You are looking to cut staff. Maintaining staff can be very costly. Hiring a web developer to work for you full time will cost more than just his/her salary. You have to factor in the cost of the payroll taxes, healthcare, training, plus the cost of managing this person and making sure they grow and are happy and so forth.

4. You are looking for more stability. If you have someone in-house, what happens if they quit? How do you transfer their knowledge to someone else, especially if you don't hire someone new right away.

5. You don't have enough work to keep someone occupied for 40 hours per week.

Whatever the reason, in a lot of cases outsourcing can make a lot of sense. Now comes the enlightening part, you don't have to outsource to a company in a foreign country. There's plenty of talent here in the USA and more often than not, its better than what you would get from a foreign country.

If you are looking at foreign companies for outsourcing, consider the following points:

1. Distance DOES matter.

When the people you are dealing with are far away, they might not be working at the same time zone as your own business hours. This might mean that if you have a problem, you have to wait until the next day to get it resolved if you are communicating via email. This can become increasingly frustrating when they don't get it right the first time, because now you have to wait even longer for something to be changed or fixed.



2. Language barriers can hurt your project.

It is important for the technical people who are working on your website to speak your language fluently. If they don't, miscommunications can occur fairly easily and impact your project's budget and timeline. The other reason language is important is because the developer will most likely be the person typing in the content for your website. One of the most overlooked pieces of content is your site's error messages. If your user mistypes their password, you want them to get a friendly, readable error message, not something like "User input not password" (actual example). These are often overlooked as clients are proofreading their website.



3. Price is cheaper, but...

Don't forget the old saying that you get what you pay for. Also, you are usually going to be paying an hourly rate, so if it takes them 4 times as long as someone who is in your same timezone and speaks your language and has your same cultural background and will do it right the first time, then you're really not saving much if anything at all.



4. Contingency? What contingency?

You need to be prepared for the possibility that the project won't go the way you intended and that you will now have to turn to another company to finish the work. So now the money you saved is now completely obliterated and you have now lost money.



Fortunately, outsourcing doesn't necessarily mean that you have to deal with these issues. You could outsource your web development to an American company and avoid just about all of the issues associated with working with people overseas. Outsourcing allows you to expand and contract based on your needs, without having to hire or lay off people. If you do choose to outsource your web development to an American company, make sure to ask if they use developers from overseas. Also, make sure they have been in business for a while (over 10 years is recommended), and make sure they fully understand your business and guarantee their work.

If you're looking for a recommendation, Business Edge Services & Technologies is a New Jersey based corporation specializing in Microsoft centric web development and has been in business for over 12 years. Check them out at http://www.busedge.com.

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