Programmers and their speed of work

April 8, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: Popular on Google+, Software Development | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Programmers and their speed of work
 
I lacked perspective because I used the same people for years
I have had the pleasure or displeasure of needing the services of many programmers in my lifetime.  They are all different in so many ways.  Some get back to you when they are supposed to while others leave you always wondering what their progress is, has been, or will be — if any.  In any case, I had spent too many years with the same programmers and noticed that one of them was pretty fast while the other was sometimes reasonably paced, and sometimes a little slow. I didn’t realize that the speed of a programmer can vary much more than these two.
 
Programmers quitting & getting fired by the boatload
After this, one of the programmers got fired, and the other quit.  I was left high and dry. So, I tried some other programmers out, foolishly thinking that they would churn out work at a similar speed to the previous programmers.  The first one I hired took three times as long to do similar tasks as my previous programmer.  He used the excuse that he was not familiar with the coding of the site.  I tried another who took four times as long.  Familiar or not, I feel that maybe taking 50% longer makes sense but three or four times is ridiculous.  I don’t know who is right or wrong because I am not a programmer.  All I can say is that I would really like to have my old programmer back.
 
Don’t pay by the hour as a general rule
The moral of the story from a business standpoint is that you can NOT assign programming jobs to be billed by the hour, unless you are very familiar with the individual doing the work.  Otherwise, you can easily get crazy bills that are high because the programmer is slow, or perhaps they are padding their hours, or who knows what? It is not easy to say unless you know a person’s character or behavior. I only know the bottom line which is that I am being billed for far more hours than I feel is reasonable.
 
Quality & speed can really vary
Additionally prices for programmers can range from $10-30 per hour in India and from $45-$180 in the United States.  The quality and speed of their work can really vary, and it is not easy to know how skilled an individual programmer is unless you really know them well and have worked with them extensively.  The best way to assess a programmer is to engage them in conversation, see how responsive they are about their work, and use your senses.  If you start having problems with their work, that might not show up for months, so in the beginnning — use your senses.

Evaluating the work of outsourcing companies

March 23, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles, Semi-Popular | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Evaluating the work of outsourcing companies
 
People who do analytics analyze various metrics, and might come up with formulas to evaluate market performance, or perhaps the performance of people’s work.  It is sometimes easy to evaluate the work done by a particular company, but there are so many variables, that it is not easy.
 
Quantity is an easy metric to concern yourself with. If the average employee working on your project at a particular call center can do 30 calls per hour, that is a metric you can use to see how valuable they are.  You might find that one employee averages 25 calls while the other averages 40.  Is one being lazy, or are they more thorough?  Do they spend too much time chatting with clients when they need to move on to the next  customer?  Or is it good to spend a little time being personal.  In this busy world, many people are in such a hurry, that they don’t have time to get to know others or to make small talk.  Many discipline themselves not to make any small talk, but to frantically move on to the next call.
 
Quality is not such as easy metric to look at.  If you hire a call center (call centre), and they do many calls for you, you have to listen in on their calls, or get feedback from clients as to how good they are. Call center work is actually quite involving.  There is the way a clerk speaks which might be clear, too quiet, or they might have poor pronunciation.  Some clerks don’t answer questions clearly. It is common for call center employees to show empathy if a client has suffered at the hands of the company, while other call center employees behave like they couldn’t care less.  Some employees might suggest solutions to problems, or even be able to talk a client into making an additional purchase.  If you made an evaluation check list, the list might get longer and longer the more you look into these types of issues.
 
Flexibility — is the company you hired able to adequately handle your changing workload or are they rigid? Do they nickel and dime you too much with hidden charges, or are they accomodating and working for your convenience instead of theirs?
 
Reliability — Many companies have a very “fluid” workforce. People are being hired and fired regularly, so you are always having to deal with new employees. You might have an old worker you learned to trust, but then they might disappear.  Or, the boss, might allocate his workers to another project leaving your project on the back burner going slowly.  Are there strange things that happen to your account from time to time, or is it always steady?
 
There are other metrics to think about, but these are some basic ones.  Good luck figuring out how to assess the strength of your outsourcing partners!

Tweets:
(1) Measure the quality & quantity of work done at various outsourcing co’s to compare!
(2) Flexibility & reliability are metrics that are even more important than quality & quantity!
(3) 1 way to compare outsourcing companies is to see how long they keep the same workers!

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How do you train a BPO worker?

March 20, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

How do you train a BPO worker?
 
I have a very small company, and we do tasks very similar to what people in BPO companies do.  We do call center work in small quantities — perhaps an average of two hours a day of outgoing calls, and then we have one dedicated full time incoming phone attendant.  We do about two hours a day of data entry work filling in online forms.  We even do KPO type tasks (we meaning myself individually) such as SEO analytics which includes keyword analysis.  Content writing is another specialty which I personally engage in, etc.
 
The hard part is how to train others to do all of the 20 types of tasks that I do daily.  Training BPO call center workers is not easy.  The manager has to create a SCRIPT for the call center worker to use when doing outbound calls. 

Hi, this is Don from ZYX company, we are calling in reference to your account with us … etc.
 
The script is easy to write, and to say.  The tone of voice that you require for reading the script might require a special personality.  Perhaps a strong man, or a caring woman.  Or, perhaps a tough woman, or a sensitive guy!  The hard part is training them to answer questions. There are so many questions that someone could ask, and how do you train a worker to answer all of the possible questions?  I think that creating an online cheat sheet is super, where all of the answers to common questions are there, and you can search by keyword.  Workers should be trained in the main topics, and be quizzed regularly to make sure they understand things well.
 
The next question is, how often do you check up on your workers?  Some people get better with experience, while others keep making the same mistakes endlessly no matter how many times you correct them.  There should be periodic checking up on workers, and regular evaluations.  If someone has been on a project for three weeks, and hasn’t mastered the basic questions after receiving regular coaching, maybe it is time to say good bye! On the other hand, perhaps your star employee is having trouble dealing with some of the finer points of answering more subtle or less common questions.  How detail oriented should your staff be before handing a question over to the manager?
 
If you are training a BPO data entry clerk, it might make sense to show them the process, have them repeat it a few times in your presence, and then to do a few hours on their own, and then have a reevaluation.  Data Entry seems to me to be less involving than call center work because there are no incoming questions — the complexity of the work is hence, more limited which makes it easier.  But, how do you teach a disorganized person good formatting skills?  You are on your own! Good luck!
 
Training for KPO work is much more sophisticated, and I don’t want to touch that topic today!  Let the folks in Bangalore deal with that — there are so many highly qualified KPO workers there.

KPO and Analytics, which company is right for you?

March 17, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: KPO | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

KPO and Analytics, which company is good for you.
 
There are many KPO companies out there offering a vast range of knowledge process outsourcing skills.  Some skills such as accounting require formal qualifications.  But, analysts need only be “good” at what they do.  An analyst might have a certain amount of training to be “good” enough to work for a company.  I have found that a trained analyst might know more than you do about analyisis, but are they as sharp as you about analyzing your business metrics and data?  I think that you are paying more attention than they are since your retirement rests upon it, and I stress the word rest.  If you analyze wrong, you might not rest, but only stress during the time you thought you were going to be retired. 
 
A good analyst is only as good as they are smart, and have time to devote to your project. If they are in a hurry, they might not look thoroughly enough at the complicated details of your business or marketing plan, and neglect a lot.  If you hire a KPO company, fancy or not, make sure they are paying attention to your case and not being neglectful! Or you will be sorry!
 
Some companies might have fancy offices, fancy looking secretaries, fancy graphs, and a fancy website. It all looks impressive, and someone less fancy might not insprire credibility.  But, being fancy is not enough. They need to deliver results to you — in a way that is helpful to you without breaking your bank account.  Maybe your first assignment should be to hire someone to analyze how much you should pay your KPO company analyst?
 
I hired a web analytics person to help me, and he changed my life.  So, his help is still helping me now, because he taught me skills that I will keep with me for life!  Some investments give you a 100x return, and this was one of them.
 
Sometimes analytics projects take a while, because step one is to create a source for accumulating data. No data, means there is nothing to analyze.  It can take time to accumulate data, and you need to have a clear idea of what type of data you want to accumulate. For my purposes, I do internet analytics, so google analytics is my main tool, and it is wonderful.  For doing other types of marketing research, you will have to ask your KPO analyst what tools they want to use.

Assigning billing work overseas to BPO companies

March 14, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Assigning biling work overseas to BPO companies
 
This is a topic of concern to many US companies, particularly small ones who have less control.  It is nice being a big company.  You can set up huge offices anywhere in the world, get business licenses anywhere and your attorneys will do the work for you.  You can have your head office in the Caymen Islands where there is no corporate tax.  You have a lot of freedom being big.  But, for the rest of us, we do not have these luxuries.  We are at the mercy of who works for us.
 
There are many companies that hire overseas BPO companies to do their billing and credit card transactions.  It is common.  For the most part, it is business as usual.  Americans are always fearful that people in a foreign country will be more likely to cheat them, but I feel that you need to look at countries one by one. India and the Philippines do most of the BPO outsourcing in the world, and there are only scandals from time to time, and perhaps not that many more scandals than their equivalents in the United States.  I don’t have the data.  If you hire a reliable company, all it takes is one bad individual (or apple as we say over here), to spoil the bunch.  One bad employee can commit serious fraud involving credit cards, and ruin a whole company’s reputation and cost them millions. That bad guy could be anywhere. He could be in India, or Canada, or who knows where.
 
If you are in Nevada, and hire a company in Nevada to do work for you, you can have a contract, and you can sue them if they violate the contract.  If you are in Nevada and hire an Indian BPO company to do work for you, it is not so easy to sue them.  For that matter, if you are in India, it is not easy to sue someone in India due to the inefficient legal system.
 
To keep the trust of your clients, if you are a smaller company, you might be better off having your billing done domestically rather than hiring an Indian BPO, and preferably by a trusted staff member.  I would not have billing done by anyone you have worked with for less than a year if at all possible. There is a lot to lose here!

Working in an office vs. at home

February 8, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Do you work better in an office or at home?
 
Many of us work at home these days. Some of us are disciplined and can churn out hour after hour of work at home.  We never shut down, when we are home, we are always working.  Office folks clock out at a particular hour, and don’t lift a finger when at home.  It is a completely different lifestyle.  I have spent my life working very industriously at home or should I say, “from home”.  However, I have spent some time in offices, or hotels in office areas, and the vibration in those places is so work oriented that I work faster. 
 
So, rather than saying that working from an office is better, I would say, that working in a place with a good “work energy” is fantastic.  Your productivity can go up significantly.  It is hard to measure how much extra work you can do in a good environment, but perhaps we SHOULD measure it.  A good work environment could help you to get more done per hour. While it could also help you have the focus to put in more hours without getting tired or distracted. 
 
Part of it is seeing other people busy around you. That will rub off on you as well. I study feng-shui, so I believe that whether you see these others or not, their feng-shui of being busy and productive will rub off on you.
 
The worst thing that can happen to you is to be in a lazy place. I go on vacation in the woods.  I bring my laptop to the hotel in the redwoods.  This is a place that does wonders for my health and spirits, not to mention all the nice people I meet hiking around.  But, I feel lazy about work in those types of foresty places.  Sometimes I don’t crack open the lap top for days, and if I open it, I might only do two or three hours of work. I always work on vacation, and call a vacation a workation.  I go away to revive my health and spirits, but not to slack off. I am extremely busy on trips, and every minute counts.
 
My concluding note is to meditate in an environment that is condusive to meditation.  Work where it is most condusive to work. Play where it is most condusive to playing too.  There is a perfect environment for everything, you just have to find it.  And if you can’t have the perfect environment, then work with what you have, but do it with awareness!

Choose a company from an area that specializes in what they do?

February 6, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Choose a company from a region that specializes in what the company does?

I recently chose a programming company that was in an area that specialized in wine and small farms.  I found that the skill of the programmer was quite good.  However, the attitude about getting things done, and getting back to me was very lackidasical.  Perhaps this is the culture of the area they are in which is famous for wine, and a great place to take a weekend away from home if you live in the big city. The area has wonderful family owned small farms with all types of produce.  There are wonderful small restaurants, bars, seashores, oysters, and much more.  Is it bad luck that I had bad luck with this company, or did I break a rule of life?
 
My last programming company was in suburban Los Angeles.  The head programmer was quite good, and the boss was excellent. But, once again, they were not completely focused on programming, and had only two programmers. Now, they have zero since the market for programming got slow nationwide.  I’m thinking that they are in an area which is not focused on programming. Our area is focused on Hollywood, and the clothing industry, and other things, but not IT work. 
 
I talked to some smart young guys I bumped into at an Indian fast food joint.  They were in the social media and programming business in the management end.  These guys told me that in the Los Angeles area, only one out of ten programmers is good and hard working, while in the Bay Area (silicon valley) which is famous for the computer industry and where the the computer and internet was invented, that 80% of programmers up there were good in their opinion.  I think these two gentlemen summed it up, and proved my point.
 
If you want to hire a wine expert, go to an area famous for wine. If you want to hire a great cook, look for one in an area famous for food.  But, if you want to hire a programmer, hire one in an area famous for programmers.   Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Silicon Valley, and Phoenix Arizona are places that come to my mind.
 
The company I am using now for programming has been working on projects with me for five years. They are in Pune which is an up and coming programming hub in India.  This company has 45 programmers.  This proves how serious they are about the industry in contrast to companies in America that have one or two programmers who are perpetually late completing projects, etc.

What is the process of setting up a BPO Company?

February 4, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

What is the process of setting up a call center or data entry house?
 
I have never done anything like this before, so I am the wrong person to ask.  However, I regularly interact with those in the BPO, Call Center, and Data Entry professions, so I know a few of the basics.
 
Here is a step by step plan for setting up a BPO company.
(1) You need to be an expert at most of the core skills of the outsourcing company you are setting up. If you don’t know what you are doing, you will not be able to hire or train others to do the job well. Also, if you don’t know what you are doing, you are not serious, and will fall on your face.
(2) You need to be a business expert, and an expert at attracting and keeping clientele.  If you know how to run a BPO call center perfectly, but fail to attract clients, you would be better off as a manager at someone else’s call center. If nobody will hire you, then that proves your value (or lack of it)
(3) You need to pick an auspicious location.  Some areas offer better rates per square foot.  In my opinion, lucky offices will attract more clients, so keep luck in mind.  Do you see an area where companies are generally thriving and making profits?  It is easy to see if someone has revenues, but profits are harder to detect. Maybe these seemingly thriving companies are just getting by, or taking a loss.
(4) There are companies that focus on selling equipment and networking for new companies to set up their phone systems and internet systems. 
(5) Once you have your office all set up, you need clients.  If you have an attractive web site and do outreach to large companies that might need a call center, you might be able to set up a client base.  From there, hopefully you will get referrals.
(6) You need to have a large pool of workers you can call if you need service.  Call centers have unsteady business, so you need a long list of people to call if you get a new client.  It is not a bad idea to let the client have a say in who you hire for their particular projects too.
 
Those are the basics.  I am not in that business, so I can not tell you more!  But, keeping an eye on your employees, and making sure they are doing their best is key. Bringing in an outside consultant to train and critique your workers could make a wonderful improvement too, and is worth the money.  Quality wins the game in the end, so if you are willing to invest in quality, you could beat out the competition.

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What is your management style?

February 2, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

What is your management style like?
 
I have seen different management styles in action. I have seen managers who keep distant.  I have seen others who micromanage.  I have also seen some who are mean and yell at their workers all the time.  There are others who praise their workers all the time.  Which management style is correct or optimal?  I think it depends on what type of workers you have.
 
Some workers know exactly what to do, and don’t need help. Leave them alone and they will be happier and excel.  Other workers are pathetic, and can’t do anything right unless someone is babysitting them.  Many workers are brilliant, but will never finish anything on time unless you are constantly on their back. Then, they complain that you are always on their back — maybe there is a reason why you are on their back. If they would finish work on time, then you wouldn’t be micromanaging them in the first place — do they realize this?
 
India is an interesting country to visit.  They have a very rigid class system.  If you are a manager, culturally you are supposed to behave like a dictator when you are around your underlings.  You point authoritatively and say, “Do this, do that, and make it snappy!!!”  From an American perspective, it is a culture shock watching these managers in action.  But, maybe the type of workers they have need this type of authoritarian approach for them to perform at their best. It is not for me to say, because I have not had to manage people in India.  I only work with OTHER people’s employees who have always behaved — otherwise they would get fired (gulp!).   I think the Indian work ethic depends greatly on what type of industry you are in.  IT folks seem very diligent in India, while government workers have a reputation of being lackidasical — too much job security if you ask me!
 
America is the opposite, where you have to be nice to employees, while they feel free to have bad attitudes and even talk back to their bosses and customers.  I am not a big fan of the American work ethic in 2012, or the lack of it thereof.  India has it’s problems, but people WANT to work, and that willingness is such a huge plus, that it makes working with Indians a positive experience, even when there are problems. 
 
Regardless of what your management style is like now, if you work in a BPO, KPO, LPO, or other outsourcing company, you can think outside the box to find new and better ways of managing people.  Do you offer bonuses and incentives?  Different people are motivated in different ways.  Some workers see the long run scenario, while others like quarterly bonuses.  Many people can not see more than 24 hours ahead of time.  If you give the wrong incentive to the wrong person, it won’t work out even in the short run. 
 
If it were up to me, I would think about a dozen different management styles, and compare notes with others in management. Try some of your better ideas out for a quarter and see if they are better than the status quo.  The only way to improve yourself is to try new things that seem promising. If they don’t work out, you can always go back to the old way of doing things!

Hybrid binational companies – the way of the future?

January 31, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest, Semi-Popular | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Hybrid bi-national companies — the way of the future?
 
Many American IT companies have a partner company, or an office in India, Vietnam, or some Asian country.  It only makes sense. It is hard to find IT workers here, and they are expensive, and often uncooperative.  It is not worth a managers time to always be trying to overcome insubordination, when you can find able and willing workers in India or elsewhere. One big problem is that many American software companies are tricky, and don’t inform their clients that they use overseas labor.  But, putting honesty aside, many outsourcing companies that are able to grow and succeed, use what I call the hybrid model.
 
Hybrid bi-national businesses
India has great labor resources for medical billing, programming and all types of back office BPO type tasks. I feel that it is foolish not to take advantage of this willing and able workforce.  Setting up an office in India requires a lot of travel and time spent, but in the long run, it seems worth it.  It makes it easy and flexible to get lots of work done as it is needed.  I know many people who work at bi-national companies with one office in America and the other in India.  Or a front end office in Singapore, and a back office in Hyderabad, etc.  
 
Problems with bi-national work relationships.
There are always difficulties in any type of business set up.  In America, the crushing costs of rent, labor, accounting, and taxes put many out of business or drain their cash away, especially if you are located on a coast where everything is sky high!  Try renting an office in California.  You might be paying $2000 for a modest sized room in a high rise that can fit three people.  The problems in a hybrid company are dealing with communication issues between America and India.  Communication styles are different in different countries.  People are in different time zones, and some people answer questions faster than others.  Some people communicate faster than others, and others have a different sense of how long things should take.    But, if you have people in America who enjoy working at night, a relationship with India becomes perfect, and easier than a relationship with an American partner who leaves work at 5pm right when you are warming up!
 
Marketing and management in America?
It is more effective to have your management and marketing in America.  We have more of a command of middle management than India does.  For some reason, I have seen hardly any middle level in Indian companies. You are either the boss or the worker, but customer service reps are only for large companies in my limited experience.  If you have your intermediaries in the states, who are a go-between for the workers and the clients, you might do very well in business if you hire the right people.  In India, it would be much harder to find such people, and they wouldn’t be that cheap either if they were any good!  It seems that different countries have their niches and specialties.  Argentina is good at art and dance.  India is great at programming.  While America and the Philippines are good at interaction — or at least we think we are!!!

Tweets:
(1) Many American IT companies have a partner company, or an office in India, or some Asian country
(2) If you’re a night owl, working w/India is better than a US partner who leaves just when you are warming up.
(3) Binational companies capitalize on American expertise & an Asian labor pool. The best of both world(s).
(4) Having a binational company has its advantages. Office space in Bangladesh is a lot cheaper!
(5) A happy marriage of American management & Indian labor leads to optimal efficiency

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What is the best BPO work environment?

January 21, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

What is the best BPO work environment?
 
If you are running a BPO, Call Center, Data Entry outsourcing company, or other outsourcing firm, you need to be refined in how to manage your work environment.  I had an interesting chat with a buddy of mine who runs a small web development company. He says that at many of the more successful American IT and marketing companies, everyone works in one large room, where the cubicles have low walls, so you can see everyone at a glance.  This was an interesting opinion. 
 
So, what is better, private cubicles, a room filled with desks and no dividers, or completely separate rooms?  If it is up to me, I like a separate room, but if I am managing others, I like to be able to hear them faintly in the distance, so if they are telling a client the wrong thing, I can run in and intervene — but I get relative peace and quiet simultaneously.  In the real world, my perfect environment is not so easy.
 
Are there studies that discuss the advantages of office set ups?  I am reading on Wikipedia that having a bunch of people working together in the same large room is called an “Open Plan”, and contributes to higher noise, higher turnover, and stress.  I can relate to that.
 
I’m reading another blog called The Good Work Circle that claims  that many larger companies are getting rid of cubicles and adopting an open workspace office set up.  The open workspace model was better for communiation and a sense of community. 
 
I like the idea of a hybrid system for BPO companies, where you get your private space and quiet part of the day, but can have togetherness during other parts of the day. 
 
Another factor is how cool the building is that you are working in.  A really pleasant work environment for BPO companies might have high ceilings, art work, a pool table, a pleasant break room, and places to interact with others. If rooms are too small or efficient, then it might not be so pleasant to be in them.  A good balance between space efficiency and coolness might win the game in the long run.  It is good to not overlook the fact that many people just don’t care about how cool the building is while others who are more tuned it will really notice and just not want to hang around if the work environment is not up to their standards for coolness!
 
Since every group of employees is different, rather that reading a book written by an “expert”, why not listen to YOUR employees and see what they say about what they think a good layout would be!  That way you please the people who you are stuck with, and can make the best out of it.  And remember, BPO companies in India have a high turnover rate, so if you can make your employees lives better, the will stay around longer!

Is it easier for bigger companies to do outsourcing?

January 19, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest, Semi-Popular | Tagged | Leave a comment

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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