The truth about outsourcing and offshore software development to India.

There has been a big move in recent years towards web design and software development in the Indian sub continent. Offshore software development in India has grown exponentially into a 60 billion dollar business. India has a massive well skilled workforce, coupled with a large english speaking population. Having worked with Indian consultants during my time at Anderson consulting I always found them extremely friendly, knowledgeable and well skilled.

Some of the biggest multinational companies in the UK and US have outsourced their call centres, web design and software development to the Indian sub continent. Companies such as British Gas, British Telecome, HSBC and Norwich Union all have Indian call centres but recently the Indian IT sector has come under some criticism.

Data Security

6 months ago the Sun newspaper uncovered an Indian worker willing to sell a CD with over 1000 UK bank account details with the promise of thousands more a month. This is not to say that Indian workers are not trustworthy but that the systems and controls are not in place in India to monitor their activity. Some multi-nationals have now insisted on CCTV cameras be installed to monitor the activity of all Indian workers

Language Barriers

India has one of the highest number of english speakers in the world. However English is not their first language so communication can be difficult. Watching a couple of episodes of Eastenders is not going to convince anyone that they are based in the UK and a lot of companies have come under fire in recent months for having Indian call centres for the exact reason that none of their customers can understand what is being said to them ! When you call your IT services company you dont want to have repeat to yourself 3 times you want to explain the problem and for the person on the other line to understand your problem and fix it. Simple. But its not. I recently called HSBC's technical support line to integrate a clients website with their online payment gateway. The support centre was in India and not only did I get the most basic of answers to my integration queries but had to ring back over 10 times when the information I was given proved incorrect. In the end I abandoned HSBC e-payments and used PROTX instead.

We have all experienced offshore call centres and the problems with communication but do you really want to trust your IT services to them ?

Web Design Quality

Ok this is a web design article forum so lets get to the quality of their web designs. First of all have a look at the portfolio of an Indian outsourcing company. Had a look ? Notice anything ? Firstly they have no concept of UK design trends - web designs are templatey in their look and the kind of thing you can download for free from templatemonster.com. The UK web design industry has seen big moves to developing web sites entirely in CSS and we at Webphoria design exclusively in CSS - check the source of this page if you dont believe me - however Indian companies still use tables exclusively.

The benefits of CSS based web designs include faster page loading as CSS will show the users the text first before the images so you dont lose visitors because your sites has a lot of images to load. Additionally as pages contain less code the search engines can index them better which results in a higher ranking page.

Costs of development

So its cheaper to develop your website in India ? Forgetting the fact that they are on a different time zone and the cost of international calls, ignore the fact that your emails wont be answered till the next day, forget that you will be spending most of yout time correcting spelling mistakes (just ask the NHS) getting your website or e-commerce system developed offshore can be the cheapest option. But it needn't be. The UK has a glut of freelance web designers and design houses to choose from when looking for your next web developer. Many companies will negotiate with you over price just to get your business and even offer freebies such as hosting and stationary. I have seen recognised web design companies in Manchester develop e-commerce systems for £700 and in fact none of the sites developed by Webphoria listed in the portfolio and news page cost more than £1000.

Thats right a custom built e-commerce site designed around your business, optimized for the search engines, developed in CSS and in the UK, accessible during UK office hours by phone or email by people you understand for under £1000 ? Its possible in fact its more than possible, agencies around the country are offering these prices not just us so before you consider outsourcing your next web project to someone in India give the UK a try and not only will you get a better end product but a better service.