Chapter 14 Outsourcing{0}
This article is called the “Perils of Outsourcing,” it discusses a story of a business owner who chose to outsource his web design and the plan backfired in its results.
Last year, a business man, Fan Bi, opened a web business that manufactured men’s shirts with the ability to create a custom label. Bi had work experience with a London based company that outsourced web labor in countries such as India, Sri Lanka, and Costa Rica and felt he had the knowledge to farm this task out himself.
Bi decided he would outsource the web design and the development of the back-end systems that processed the orders the customers placed. The designers he found were in Romania, Macedonia, and India. They wanted between $5-$8 per hour, compared to $25-$40 for American designers.
The business plan of Bi’s company was customers completely customize their shirts and place the order online. The web designers could not comprehend the vision well enough to make a satisfactory website. The first website had colors that made viewing difficult and it took 10-12 seconds to load a photo. The developers told Bi “This is what we can do, if you don’t like it, too bad.” He said they also never made an effort to give suggestions.
After four months and $7,000 in web developing, Bi scrapped the outsourced developers and brought two American web designer/developers into the company. He states within six weeks his new team had a website better than he envisioned and it did not use cumbersome codes to work.
Farrell, Maureen. “The Perils Of Outsourcing – Forbes.com.” Forbes.com – Business News, Financial News, Stock Market Analysis, Technology & Global Headline News. N.p., 9 Nov. 2006. Web. 19 Nov. 2009. <http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/06/small-business-outsourcing-entrepreneurs-finance-growth-lessons-09.html>.