- The time you take to write a brief, explain it to another person and manage this from another time zone will be time consuming.
- Different time zones mean that answers take a long time, over night in some cases. Think about all those additional public holidays in India.
- Every time you need to make a change or amend it can take another day or two. This slows the whole web development process down to a crawl.
- How you look is a major when it comes to delivering web projects within scop and on budget. Delays can really tarnish your image and reputation
- Can the development team implement on site SEO techniques?
- Development coding that is full of bugs and issues.
Following are some issues when offshoring web development:
Communication problems
Unable to have a face to face meeting with your developer is a major problem. Communication with someone in another language, half way around the world is a recipe for disaster. It’s a numbers game with these developers and if you are not happy with them, they simply get another client. They have little regard for customer service and will be happy to NOT return your call or email in a timely manner. Work cultures are different to what we are used to in Australia. Here we want answers and want them fast. In India for example, this is not necessarily the case and you can be left hanging for an answer for days on end. Do not expect the same level of communication or customer service when your developers are offshore. Even if they have a contact in Australia, this just won’t work. The communication issues will still remain no matter what light you try to paint this in.
Really Bad Code Quality
They just have little or no quality control. Projects are passed from one develop to the next, with no planning. The end result is rotten code, broken links, no SEO insight and bad content management solutions. I have seen the result first hand of projects being out sourced and what we have had to do to fix the issues. It’s JUST NOT WORTH THE HEADACHES. There is no one to talk to and responsibility and blame for poor programming is passed from one person to the next. It’s an absolute shambles.
Lack of Real Guidance or Team Leadership
Offshore developers will never offer creative solutions on web issues or try to offer alternatives or provide information about the latest technologies. Their concern is to get the job out the door and get paid as fast as possible. Here at Hopping Mad Designs are not order takers. Every project we work on, will be supervised by a team of web development experts to ensure that you get a real return on your development dollars.
One great example, is in regards to SEO which will be completely ignored. Not only will your site look bad but there will be no chance of it ever ranking on Google.
Payments in Advance.
These guys want your money upfront and won’t release files till payment is made. If there are any issues post web launch they slug you for more money to fix their mistakes. Believe me I have seen this before. Why this happens, is that they quote so low to get the work that any amends that need doing has to be charged. It’s a matter of costs. They want your business and will say and do anything to get it, but once there, you are stuck. Another thing is the falling dollar. The price of the development rises each time the value of our dollar slides. These guys are not silly. If our dollar goes up they will adjust development costs accordingly.
What Can You Do?
In not saying that it’s a complete nightmare. There are the one in a million companies that are probably OK. Even development companies here in Sydney are known for their shoddy work. The trick is to do your home work and meet with the developers. Get a sense of their work, commitment to your project and past experience. Even better why not give us a call here at Hopping Mad Designs on 02 9360 8514. If you think your website is in need of a revamp or a looking to get a new site please get in touch.