Is it easier for a big company to outsource or a smaller company?
I run a tiny company, and I find it easy to outsource. I am old fashioned and want to meet everybody in person who I work with. In America, nobody wants to meet you in person anymore which I find to be a deal breaker. What are they hiding that they don’t want to meet me? If there is something wrong with someone, it is easier to find out if you are with them regularly. On the other hand, a person can be very pleasant in person, and then later on you find out that they don’t keep promises. Putting my personal issues aside, it is easy to get on a plane to India and interview a dozen companies for a particular task to outsource.
But, what about larger companies? My company has two full time people and a few others who do outsourced work like social media, programming, etc. But, what about a company with 12 employees, or a hundred. Is it easier for them to outsource? If you are a manager who has 12 employees, you will have a problem leaving them alone for ten days while you fly to India. Or perhaps you could hire one of them to fly to India themselves and set up a deal if they are smart and reliable enough. The question is, would you outsource to another company, or set up your own office in India? This is a difficult question to answer. If you want to be able to control who works for you, then hire your own staff. If you want someone else to deal with hiring and firing, and always having people ready to work, then outsourcing to an existing company is perfect. Or, you could outsource, but ask the boss if they can hire special people according to your specifications. There are many possibilities. One key factor is that Indians want to work, and are eager to please foreign clients, while American companies are often extremely rigid, and often will not even return your calls or emails!
Huge companies seem to have refined outsourcing to a set routine. They have a standardized method of sending the right people to India to have huge offices built that are dedicated exclusively to their corporation. They know how to do market research and find out how to attract the best employees. Everything is refined to a science for the big guys.
My blog is more oriented towards small and medium companies, so my suggestion is to poke your head around and see if you can find the right people to work with overseas. Be prepared to visit them once or twice a year, or perhaps more! Whether you are a small or medium sized company, it is time consuming and tiring to fly to India. Jet lag is terrible, and stomach disorders that you get in India really take their toll. I feel that it is worth it in the end, but not without it’s price. If you have a larger company, then your trip to India might get more accomplished in one trip making it more efficient. But, the bigger issue to me, is learning to refine your travel and business plans so you get the most out of any investment in travel.
Tweets:
(1) It is easier for big companies to outsource because they can create their own office overseas
(2) Bigger companies get more favorable treatment from outsourcing companies purely based on their size!
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