5 Things You Must Consider While Outsourcing Your Work to India

In spite of all anti-outsourcing rhetoric and sentiments, the flow of outsourcing continues unabated. And this is largely due to the strong business case that it makes. The urge to outsource to India is even more irresistible because of the advantages that this practice offers, such as technical expertise and availability of talent. You should, however, understand that outsourcing your business to India is not a panacea for all your business problems. You need to approach it in the right way to reap its advantages.

Considering the following 5 things will help you when you decide to outsource your work to India:

1. Focus on the Vendor’s Capability

Success in outsourcing depends more on a vendor’s project execution capabilities, and less on the outsourcing location you choose. So, you should not focus too much on “which country should I outsource to”. It is another matter that Indian vendors possess superior technical and project management skills compared to their counterparts in other countries such as the Philippines whose prowess is mostly limited to back office work. This is also because India is a mature outsourcing destination.

Make every possible attempt to ascertain the delivery quality and capability of your vendor. Try to know what kind of projects they have delivered in the past or what their core technical capability is. For example, there are some vendors who are very good in SEO and who also provide web development services alongside, although the latter is not their core competency. Knowing such things in advance will help you save yourself from future disasters.

2. Don’t Be Biased

The internet is replete with a lot of articles and blogs that offer ultimate advice on outsourcing to India. Unfortunately, most of these resources are either factually inaccurate or biased. Some of them also share their negative experiences. The reason behind their failure may be their inability to understand the whole process of outsourcing. Also, for every failed outsourcing project — there are many more successful stories that are not shared in the public domain. You need not pay heed to such biased opinions. Approach outsourcing with a completely fresh perspective.

3. Understand the Scope of Your Project

Understanding the nature and scope of your project is the first concrete step that you take toward ensuring a successful outsourcing arrangement. You should have absolute clarity about your outsourcing objectives. Do you want to improve the process or cut down on costs? Having ambiguous goals often results in acrimonious disputes with vendors.

4. Shun Your ‘Offload-the-Mess’ Attitude

Outsourcing is not about offloading your mess to vendors. In fact, it’s just the opposite. If that is what you think too, you’ll fail for sure. You’ll be better off if you consider your vendor as a business partner and make a collaborative effort. This will encourage your partners to go that extra mile for finding solutions to your problems.

5. Take Care of Data and IP Security

Intellectual Property laws in India are the most evolved ones compared to other popular outsourcing destinations. You can, however, adopt a vendor-specific approach for safeguarding your business interests. Some vendors are very particular about their reputation, and they follow stringent data security practices. Apart from this, you can decide about the ownership of the code at the time of the signing of the SLA (Statutory Level Agreement). That will help you a lot.

Final Thoughts

By now, you must have got some insights into how to proceed in the right way when you are outsourcing your work to India. Most outsourcing projects fail because of lack of clarity vis-a-vis the goal and the scope of a project. Often clients have mismatched expectations and conflicting objectives. Hope these tips will help you get rid of the various doubts regarding outsourcing your business to India.