There are several ways your company can do a better job in outsourcing.
(1) Be better at what you do.
Do you do web design? Try to be better at it. Don’t ask me. I’m not in web design. Just make your designs look better for lack of a better description for what to do. Hire people to train your workers to do a better job. It will cost, but you might get a good benefit. The experts sometimes can change your entire way of thinking with only a few hours a day!
(2) Be better at communicating.
Americans are amazing at communication, but very lazy about actually getting work done. I don’t understand how our country has reached such greatness with all of these lazybones. The only people in America who are useful are foreigners. They actually work. But, try talking to foreigners. Most of them can’t communicate, or just prefer not to — especially Asians. With Indians, the more educated types tend to be good at communicating while the working class has a dismally horrifying way of communicating. The problem is that as an Indian manager, you are too used to how things are, and don’t realize that it is a problem. People who mumble on the phone and speak inaudibly are a problem. People who don’t answer questions or don’t announce who they are when picking up the phone are a big problem. You either hire people who can communicate, or drill it into them. Communicate!
(3) Hire someone to do verification?
What does this mean? You need someone to check on your workers’ work. Make sure that when they say something is done, that it is done. Make sure they are not slacking off or being inefficient. Make sure they are not cheating on their hours, etc. If they can do training or motivation as well that is great. But, you can’t rely on workers to check their own work. Most people are sloppy and verifying is a niche profession. As a manager, you can double check verified work to verify the work of the verifier. It is like Russia. You hire someone to work, another one to watch him, and another one to watch the guy who is watching the work, and so on (comrade)!
(4) Make sure you are tight on deadlines
Nobody respects a company that doesn’t finish work on time. People like it if you are always done on time, and communicate that fact to the client. You might need someone to plan how you intend to get work done on time, and that person might be the one to force people to work overtime if work is not done on time.
(5) Interact
Do you give progress reports to your clients? I like to get an email every two business days stating what they did, what types of issues they encountered, etc. I also like friendly heads up calls or emails. I know a nice guy in Bangalore who sends an email to me from time to time. I like him and his partner a lot as people by the way. He is genuinely a great person! He even came to America to see some clients, and I gave him a tour of the town, took him out to dinner, and showed him where the multi-millionaires live in Los Angeles. Keeping in touch and interacting for business and social (small-talk) reasons with your clients pays off in a big way.
(6) Small talk
Marketing is a serious profession. But, what Indians don’t understand is that Americans culturally like small talk. Indians are a social bunch. Many of the older women are chatterboxes. They never stop talking. But, when it comes to business, people clam up. Don’t be like this. The reason I like Indians (when I say Indians, I mean nice Indians, because I don’t like the mean ones) is because they are more friendly than other nationalities. Try to be friendly with the people you work with. When you are marketing and trying to attract more clients, they will seven times more likely to work with you if you can make small talk with them. Instead of just asking what the requirements are, talk about the weather. Talk about your trip to the office. Ask them if they have any specific needs. If you just ask in a dull mono-tone what the requirements are, they will think you are very undesirable.
(7) Refine Your Marketing
Having a great website, and great ways to reach new prospective clients is very important. On the other hand, if you are the best company in town, you won’t need to prospect clients — they will come to you. I do marketing for a living. It is a little hard to describe how to be good at marketing in a single paragraph. But, to make it short and sweet, you need to be constantly interacting with new prospects every month. You need to be constantly refining the art of attracting and interacting with those prospects. Marketing is not mastered in a day. It is an ongoing process and it is an art form! I don’t know the details of how you should market your company, but try twenty different approaches and see where you get a return on your investment!