Outsourcing My Product Development to India

[quinnben]

I run a consulting business and recently thought of hiring an agency from India for development work.
Have you ever outsourced software from India, What are your challenges?

 

[mattk]

The biggest challenge in my opinion is that you have to have very clear, concise and unambiguous documentation for what you want delivered.

If you are highly experienced in software development then I think you could probably just about produce these artifacts to the right level of detail.

However, if you are inexperienced then a local team, who you can meet face-to-face, discuss ideas and have them provide guidance and advice is likely to offer benefits which outweigh the costs.

 

[quinnben]

The biggest challenge in my opinion is that you have to have very clear, concise and unambiguous documentation for what you want delivered.

If you are highly experienced in software development then I think you could probably just about produce these artifacts to the right level of detail.

However, if you are inexperienced then a local team, who you can meet face-to-face, discuss ideas and have them provide guidance and advice is likely to offer benefits which outweigh the costs.

Thanks Matt for your reply. I am non-tech and will be launching my services soon. Your points are valid. Have you ever outsourced software development to India or other Asian countries. How do I find right fit for my needs

 

[mattk]

Not outsourced myself, but I have worked extensively with offshore teams who are part of huge global consultancies.

As I said, for someone with no specific experience of software development I would be tempted to talk to some UK-based developers to at least sound out their approach and costs. Depending on the price difference, you may decide that it is cost effective to go with someone local who can hand-hold you though the process.

 

[quinnben]

Not outsourced myself, but I have worked extensively with offshore teams who are part of huge global consultancies.

As I said, for someone with no specific experience of software development I would be tempted to talk to some UK-based developers to at least sound out their approach and costs. Depending on the price difference, you may decide that it is cost effective to go with someone local who can hand-hold you though the process.

Yes. That sounds perfect. Was your experience with offshoring teams and processes worth it.

 

[mattk]

Umm... it is safe to say my experiences have been mixed. Some are excellent, have fantastic knowledge, great communication skilled and can offer genuine insight. Other will simply do whatever you tell them, no matter how unintuitive that may be.

Given the choice I would work with an onshore team, but I appreciate there are potential cost savings with going offshore.

 

[Chi Doan]

I have worked in 2 companies, all of them outsource to India and the other countries.
India's quality is low compare to the others.

The main reason that people prefer India more than the other counties is India has better English than the others, but now, it's difference, their English are almost the same.

Also India is more expensive.

 

[Peter Bowen]

I (re) learned to program because I was ready to gouge my eyes out in frustration at dealing with offshore developers.

You might be tempted to recruit a developer from a freelancing marketplace. Sites like upwork, fiverr etc make it look possible to hire a highly-skilled freelancer from a low-cost-of-living country for a handful of beans.

In practice, freelance marketplaces are markets for lemons.

Let me explain.

It is true that a competent developer might start her solo career on a freelancer site. Being a good developer doesn't automatically make you good at finding clients and these sites offer developers the promise of well-heeled clients from high-cost-of-living countries.

The client can't tell the difference between a competent developer and an idiot at the time of hiring so the risk of failure gets priced in to what the client will pay. That drives rates down.

Any developer who is capable of meeting your technical specs and communicating professionally eventually realises that they're working for peanuts.

So they leave, and the average skill level available on the freelancer goes down.

That leads to a worse experience for the clients who in turn lower what they’re prepared to pay or stop hiring on these sites.

So the site ends up full of inexperienced buyers hoping to get their project built for $27, and a bunch of desperate developers who promise the world, deliver junk and have the communication skills of a turnip.

 

[estwig]

Peter that sums up my experience of People Per Hour over the last few years. Five years ago decent subbies seemed to be ten-a-penny to find, now it's just full of idiots, to the point I stopped using it.

 

[fisicx]

Indian developers will always say yes. It’s a cultural thing - even when they know they can’t deliver.

For anything complex they are usually hopeless. If you want sausage factory development you might be ok.

 

[quinnben]

Indian developers will always say yes. It’s a cultural thing - even when they know they can’t deliver.

For anything complex they are usually hopeless. If you want sausage factory development you might be ok.

This is quite interesting post. It seems you have lot of experience working with vendors or offshore developers. What I understand that technical competency for breaking things is a challenge with them.

 

[fisicx]

If asked: 'I want a custom wordpress login page' they can do this.

If you asked for 'a custom wordpress login page that links to a database to display a unique menu for each user depending on their role and other XYZ features' they would say 'yes' and then fail to deliver because they don't know how to do it.

There are some very good developers in India but most will only follow instructions. I even get work from Indian companies because their in-house developers can't handle technically complex projects.

 

[Steven001]

Outsourcing technical work to another country can mean major problems. If your willing to sacrifice quality to save money I guess you can do it but personally if I am going to be working with someone they need to be under my wing to assure that the progression can be checked at all necessary intervals and should any errors arise we can work together to resolve them.

 

[NickGrogan]

Outsourcing can work well if you know exactly what you want, can express it clearly and don't change you mind too much during development.

If you can't do all of the above that it can cause issues.

fyi, I worked for 4 years as the UK business development manager for a large offshore company - 800 programmers in India, 150 in California, so I have a fair amount of knowledge of how they work.

I would avoid India unless you know exactly what you're looking for and can do technical skills test.

All developers (on and offshore) exaggerate their skills, but Indians will happily copy and paste entire CVs and share project references.

The biggest problem with offshoring to India is a lack of creativity - it's an educational issue. This makes them very good at some things, terrible at others.

East European programmers are cost effective and much more able, I can introduce you to the company I use if you like.

 

[Noah]

As a general note, the responses here that advise caution with offshore workers are correct - go against that advice at your peril. I speak from experience too - a career (now lapsed, thank god) in IT, and with continuing close connections to very large IT projects.

 

[Noah]

In practice, freelance marketplaces are markets for lemons.

Stap me vitals! This rung a bell with me so loud I'm virtually deafened. I'm well aware of "asymmetric information", but not that term, and it's good to know you can be awarded a Nobel prize in it!

The consequences of this mechanism drives me up the wall - maybe I can start to do something about it now...

 

[quinnben]

As a general note, the responses here that advise caution with offshore workers are correct - go against that advice at your peril. I speak from experience too - a career (now lapsed, thank god) in IT, and with continuing close connections to very large IT projects.

Well noted. Do you know companies in UK who do quality product development as well as outsource to other countries. Is the world heading towards remote organizations

 

[Blacklaw]

I used to know a british guy who ran an offshore dev company. This actually worked because he knew the true skills of his developers, and he was the main point of communication. So you did not have to deal with the developers directly and their "say yes to everything" attitude.

I have used quite a few Indian offshore devs over the years through PPH or upwork and my experience has generally not been good.

• No attention to detail
• No testing or proper debugging, they leave it to you to continually find things that do not work.
• Failure to read or understand the specs
• poor communication skills
• No version control or even backups process
• Often no development environment and will code directly on live systems.
• Generally shoppy work

Unfortunately non technical clients will be oblivious to these things and so will gladly give them high ratings thinking they have done a good job.
If you give them a low rating, they will often harrassing you and demand a good rating, giving sob stories how they will lose work and they cannot feed their children.
You will often end up having to pay again and again to get the code debugged and working properly.

I had more luck with eastern europeans.

 

[quinnben]

This is excellent information. I have seen many people telling about Eastern Europe. So the quality there outdoes that in UK or India. Is India, bit overhyped because of the cost factor.

I used to know a british guy who ran an offshore dev company. This actually worked because he knew the true skills of his developers, and he was the main point of communication. So you did not have to deal with the developers directly and their "say yes to everything" attitude.

I have used quite a few Indian offshore devs over the years through PPH or upwork and my experience has generally not been good.

• No attention to detail
• No testing or proper debugging, they leave it to you to continually find things that do not work.
• Failure to read or understand the specs
• poor communication skills
• No version control or even backups process
• Often no development environment and will code directly on live systems.
• Generally shoppy work

Unfortunately non technical clients will be oblivious to these things and so will gladly give them high ratings thinking they have done a good job.
If you give them a low rating, they will often harrassing you and demand a good rating, giving sob stories how they will lose work and they cannot feed their children.
You will often end up having to pay again and again to get the code debugged and working properly.

I had more luck with eastern europeans.

I used to know a british guy who ran an offshore dev company. This actually worked because he knew the true skills of his developers, and he was the main point of communication. So you did not have to deal with the developers directly and their "say yes to everything" attitude.

I have used quite a few Indian offshore devs over the years through PPH or upwork and my experience has generally not been good.

• No attention to detail
• No testing or proper debugging, they leave it to you to continually find things that do not work.
• Failure to read or understand the specs
• poor communication skills
• No version control or even backups process
• Often no development environment and will code directly on live systems.
• Generally shoppy work

Unfortunately non technical clients will be oblivious to these things and so will gladly give them high ratings thinking they have done a good job.
If you give them a low rating, they will often harrassing you and demand a good rating, giving sob stories how they will lose work and they cannot feed their children.
You will often end up having to pay again and again to get the code debugged and working properly.

I had more luck with eastern europeans.

 

[Noah]

Is India, bit overhyped because of the cost factor.

It's complicated... India has greater disadvantages than, e.g. European fringes for IT outsourcing - primarily cultural and time zone factors. On the other hand, there is an abundance of top-notch people in India; all you have to do is identify them, persuade them to work for you, and retain them.

Cost was always a specious justification; the cost of managing those factors above, plus management-at-a-distance, was never properly accounted for - certainly not by those who fattened their own wallets with their brilliant idea of outsourcing.

Inevitably, as Indian standards and costs of living (at least among the key-bashing classes) have risen, the cost justification is even weaker.

Here's an old but entertaining lesson from an outsourcing project to the Phillipines : My U.S. manager insisted he was taking personal charge of the project (I believe there are some fine golf courses out there, amid other... attractions); I had family living in the Phillipines at the time and had visited there myself extensively, so volunteered my services, but they were summarily dismissed. Manager decided that Phillipine team needed PCs so arranged to ship a bunch of Compaqs from U.S. - because those Asian heathens don't know how to built their own copies of this great American tech, y'see. Imagine my amusement when he found the shipment was tied up in Phillipines customs for weeks and interminable fees before he could actually get them into the offices. Who could have known?

 

[Inva]

My company has outsourced work to India (i believe this experience is reflective of all those countries in that area, including Pakistan, Bangladesh etc) in what was a bad experience. I believe they only seem to do very standard stuff, WordPress and almost nothing else. Also they do not seem to be that interested in the product, just to get over with it and get paid.

Of course there are competent devs from these parts, but one thing is true no matter where the dev is from. If they are any good, they will soon start earning higher rates no matter where they are from, because they will be in demand. So therefore, cheap labour in the development sector from undeveloped country is usually of low quality.

I would suggest to better pick Eastern Europe for outsourcing.

 

[Bob Morgan]

Here's an old but entertaining lesson from an outsourcing project to the Phillipines : My U.S. manager insisted he was taking personal charge of the project (I believe there are some fine golf courses out there, amid other... attractions); I had family living in the Phillipines at the time and had visited there myself extensively, so volunteered my services, but they were summarily dismissed. Manager decided that Phillipine team needed PCs so arranged to ship a bunch of Compaqs from U.S. - because those Asian heathens don't know how to built their own copies of this great American tech, y'see. Imagine my amusement when he found the shipment was tied up in Phillipines customs for weeks and interminable fees before he could actually get them into the offices. Who could have known?

I will bet a Pension that the PCs never arrived! - Welcome to 'The Feelippines!' I have a Production Office there, which works well. However, you do have to be aware of 'Cultural Matters!'

 

[Blacklaw]

This is excellent information. I have seen many people telling about Eastern Europe. So the quality there outdoes that in UK or India. Is India, bit overhyped because of the cost factor.

You have to bear in mind, it can be down to sheer luck. You get poorly skilled people passing themselves off as experts and producing shoddy work in every industry.
It also very much depends where you go to find the freelancers. If you use sites like PPH or Upwork and go for someone cheap, your chances of getting a poor job is high, then you end up paying twice. If you get ripped off by an offshore freelancer, there is literally nothing you can do.

You also cannot really take the ratings too seriously on these sites either. I had hired people who were truely awful, yet had amazing ratings. I would be more inclined to find people who have testimonials that can be verified, such as on linkedin.
At the end of the day, you are better off finding someone in your own country who speaks your own language. You can always use a 3rd party escrow system.

 

[Dario.c]

I have had an awful experience in dealing with IT support from India and I would not advice you to do it.

The key part of the work is helping people finding the right answers for IT related query and most of the time all you do is waste a good hour figuring out the way to explain the issue.