Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with outsourcing

Is there a website that tracks information about companies that have offshored information technology jobs?

cosmic.osmo — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:25:50 -0800

Is there a website that tracks information about companies that have offshored information technology jobs? I'm looking for a website that tracks companies that have offshored information technology jobs, and that can provide information about the locations and sizes of their offshore offices.

I've seen references to one at techsunite.org from around 2004, but it appears to be defunct.

Who can I pay to type up my notes?

zachlipton — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:27:28 -0800

TypeMyNotesPleaseFilter: I periodically find myself in need of this service, which obviously must exist, yet I cannot find. I have a bunch of handwritten notes, not written with any kind of fancy smartpen, but rather, just pencil on paper. I would like to be able to scan said notes myself and send them to some kind of service wherein I can pay someone to type them up and send me back a decently formatted copy with a turnaround time of 12-24 hours. Who do I ask to do this? There are a number of past posts on OCR-related methods for doing this, but I've never used one that actually works. Generally, the transcription would be happening during nighttime in the US. I'd far rather have a reasonable level of errors than pay top dollar for camera-ready copy. Of course, I need a usable level of quality as well.

For the most part, these are notes for personal use, without any specialized medical or legal terms. I've found tons of audio transcription services that will type up conversations, but I'm having a ton of trouble finding the 2009-era quick and dirty (i.e. fast and cheap) equivalent to Allison, Don Draper's secretary on Mad Men for a little word processing.

Bonus points if you've used one of these services before and can recommend them or give tips on their use. At this point, even a better idea of what I should be Googling for would be quite helpful.

In order to make change at work happen, I need help

machine — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:03:49 -0800

Does anyone have any recruiter recommendations for looking for tech-y jobs in Toronto? I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about what's working for me, and what's not, in my current job and have started to look for other opportunities outside of my current company.

So this is great (think positive!). However, I'm kind of ruled by inertia and if I don't (in the words of a friend) "make this someone else's job" then I'm going to find myself feeling stuck as I scroll through a million of monster.ca postings.

I'm very comfortable with the notion of 'selling myself' in interviews but doing the same thing in writing is hard.

Does anyone have any recommendations on recruiters for the GTA area? In a perfect world, it would be a company I could contact and then talk to someone about what I'm good at and what I'm looking for as I've done some work on figuring that out.

I need some help with finding a role that aligns with the fact that I'm really good at playing translator (explaining the technical things to the non-technical people and explaining the business needs etc. to the technical people).

Any thoughts?

Help me avoid being outsourced

diogenes — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:46:32 -0800

What would be a good niche for an American technical writer looking to avoid being outsourced to offshore competitors? I'm currently working as a technical writer for a fortune 50 IT company. I'm seeing more and more writing work being sent to India. I'd been telling myself that writing was safe because even excellent English speakers have subtle writing differences that sound "off" to American ears.

I'm getting less confident though. My company seems willing to accept a certain loss of American "tone" in their documentation. On top of that, I'm starting to see more and more writing from India that is indistinguishable from stuff writing by Americans.

I'm thinking now would be a good time to start thinking ahead. What would be a good niche for an American technical writer? I'm thinking green energy or biotechnology. Does anybody have any experience in either of those fields? What would be a good way to start transitioning? Is it possible to break into those fields without a degree in engineering or biology?

Any other ideas for growing fields (that need technical writers) that will be hard to outsource?

Where on the web to post non-coding projects/requests in for bidding?

querty — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:48:28 -0800

outsourcingfilter: Where on the web to post non-coding projects/requests in for bidding? For outsourcing programming/web/coding projects, there are many sites to submit your requests in for others to bid on. Then there is Etsy Alchemy for handmade goods and crafts.

What about custom graphics? Where would I go (besides Craigslist) if I want a custom vector logo done?

What about engineering? Where would I go if I want a custom lawnmower robot made?

Those are the two main fields I'm looking for answers to, what about projects for other fields?

Looking for sites where you can post a project for others to bid on.

I need outsourcing help.

sisquoc15 — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:22:11 -0800

I need outsourcing help. I want to produce about 500, short, non-plagiarized summaries consolidated from 3 copyrighted sources. Problem is, this project won't generate enough value to pay someone US minimum wage. How do I find someone overseas with good English writing skills who would be interested in doing this work? Are there particular countries I should be considering?

Just walk away?

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:19:54 -0800

What if I just stopped paying my credit cards? I have about 12k in credit card debt. I currently have a mortgage and a car. I'm not behind on anything. My payments are made in full, plus some, every month. At this rate, I break even every month, but I have little cash on hand and no savings other than a few retirement accounts that are rapidly devaluing. My credit score is 815. It's looking likely that my job is going to be eliminated and sent to a certain third world country within the year. If I were to find a job that paid me ~70% of my current pay, I could still make my mortgage payments and car payments and insurance but there's no way to pay the cards. So what if i just don't? Is there any negotiation I can do with the credit card companies? Right now everything has been transferred off to low or no interest cards. What are my other options with this debt?

Can it really be harder to employ a yokel from Kentucky than a yokel from Bangalore?

milqman — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:15:37 -0800

How does one go about finding an Inshoring firm to off-load a large project? I have looked and looked and looked, I cannot find a firm that will offer me bulk, remote, unskilled, and cheap labor within the US. I am looking for say 200-300 relatively unskilled man-hours per week (smaller than some projects, larger than others).

If have had no trouble finding numerous labor sources from Bangalore, or the Philippines, or some backwoods province in China, but they will not suffice. For reasons relating to the job, it is important that they be familiar with consumer products found here in the US.

Where do I go? What do I do? I can't exactly tour South Dakota, and get them piecemeal.

Any thoughts?

How do I write a software spec?

thegmann — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:17:51 -0800

Is there a standard to preparing a software specification for an outsourced UI designer and programmer? I have an idea for a piece of web based software, SaaS style, that I could probably write on my own in PHP/MySQL. I have done some software and web design in my days for some custom projects but it is definitely not my specialty, I learned programming on my own and have never done it as my day job. I would love for my app to have an AJAX-y front end but I don't know ruby nor python or any of these other cool languages and I have no reason to learn them when I can easily outsource the project and effectively put together a team. In looking at different design houses, individuals, teams, etc. I have come to the realization that one of the most difficult things in this whole process is going to be getting my ideas across to them- and I would like to shop it around so I can get a good idea as far as price ranges. As a programmer or designer, what do you like to see from a client that immediately gives you a sense of what they are looking for? What can I write up that I can send to these places that will make them go ah-ha instead of scratching their heads? I've come across the terms RFQ and RFP but I don't know if there is some standard I should be going by?

PNG to XHTML in One Hour or Your Money Back

DarlingBri — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 08:59:38 -0800

Has anyone used any of the many PSD to XTML and CSS services out there? Were you happy? Were you sad? Did you employ child labour? I accidentally dropped a project and the MeFite I work with for CSS and XHTML is all booked up on another gig. I urgently need someone to dish out XHTML and CSS from a page mock-up because I am up to my ears at the moment.

I am considering using one of the many sites offering this service on a price-per-page basis. If you've ever used any of these services, can you tell me which one, what you paid, and how happy you were with the output? Similarly if you have a horror story, I'm equally interested in cautionary tales.

(And yes, this is a one-off, and no, I'm not going to drop the lovely mefi I work with in favour of a nameless faceless offshore monolith. I'm just in a jam.)

CAD outsourcing?

mockdeep — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:23:36 -0800

Is it feasible to outsource my CAD work? Has anybody tried this? What are the legal implications? I work at an architecture firm and spend the vast majority of my time drafting in AutoCAD. A lot of the projects are pretty repetitive with similar detailing. What are my prospects for outsourcing this work? Has anybody tried this, either locally or abroad? What kind of quality might I expect from work done externally? What does such a service generally cost? Any recommendations? Would it be a bad idea for me to do this without asking my employer (in order to forgo being preemptively shot down)?

Outsourcing proprietary work

jasmarc — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:05:17 -0800

How can i outsource my job (or a portion thereof) if my job involves access to a very large, complex database that is not (currently) available outside the four walls of the company. How can i outsource my job (or a portion thereof) if my job involves access to a very large, complex database that is not (currently) available outside the four walls of the company. The problem is twofold: 1. the physical logistics of making the database externally available by replicating several dozen gigabytes of data to an offsite location or providing external access via remote desktop over VPN and sanitizing confidential information. And 2. the legal aspects. Suppose the task is very mundane and I would like to outsource it without causing a giant stir at the executive level. I would want to involve as few NDA's and legal agreements as possible. I would assume that I am coming out of pocket and that management need not know nor care that the actual work was produced by someone other than myself. My ultimate goal is simply to offload more mundane tasks to someone else so that, in the end, I am able to focus on more complex tasks and accomplish everything that is thrown at me, thus making me look like a superstar come review time. Coming out of pocket would be a temporary, initial step to prove that I might be responsible enough to be granted a small budget to pursue later outsourcing via more legitimate means (i.e. fully-disclosed to and funded by management)

Should I gon into web design or web programming?

zorro astor — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:29:30 -0800

Should I go into web design or web programming? I want to go into the "web business" and would like a focus. I already program a little (PHP, MYSQL), but I wonder if there are more jobs in the design (i.e., graphical, structural) aspect. I'm afraid I couldn't be the master of both in the short or even medium term, so I am looking for advice as to where there are more jobs.

I've been told that it is more unlikely to outsource the graphical design aspect. But I don't know if this is true or not.

By the way, I have very little experience in either aspect, outside of hobbyist projects.

Across(stitch) the globe

ochenk — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:34:34 -0800

I’d like to outsource piecework. How? Don’t hate me, but I’m becoming a big fan of outsourcing – specifically personal outsourcing. These are activities that I would otherwise do for myself. I’m not taking anybody’s job away – just freeing up my own time. I’ve so far stuck to technical items or organizational items, but only for things that are email-able, which has worked out great.

Is it possible to outsource piecework?

For example, I have a few cross-stitch designs that I’d like to get to, but never seem to find the time. I don’t want them enough to have them professionally done – I don’t want them that bad to spend that much. But I know that there are people around the world that earn pennies doing piecework that eventually ends up for sale in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Somewhere between the full price of local production and the meager price of industrial piecework lies a cost that makes sense for my level of interest.

So is it possible to do this as an individual creating single items? How does one find pieceworkers around the globe?

I could see this being a steady stream of work, but it would never grow into anything that would rise to the level of contracting with production companies. This is just an occasional hobby and I’d like to spend more time on what I enjoy – creating designs – and less time on what I don’t – production.

Create a simple database website (and gather the data)

mtstover — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:46:16 -0800

I'm undertaking a personal web development and database building project, but I don't do web development or database building. Please help me assess the best options to have someone else do the work for me. I think the stuff I want is fairly easy, but please tell me what you think. I want to do a set of three things (in priority order):

1. Have a simple form where users will input information and that will go into a database. Input screens will be 2-3 pages total, and I want to easily play with the forms to test conversion, throughput, etc. A+ answers will let me easily do split A/B testing on the front end.

2. Have a searchable database of contacts, all with the same set of data. Basically contact information, a few links, and some commentary.

3. Have someone scrape a whole bunch of different websites to assemble the initial contact database. (Perl scripting work here probably?)

4. Have a contact entry form that will insert data into the contact database.

5. All of this should be indexible / crawled by google, and of course have the ability to insert ads.

6. Have a non-ugly design.

7. (Optional, at outset) have user ability to comment and "rate" these contacts.

8. (Optional, at outset) create mashup of contact information and google maps.

How best to build this? Hire a rent-a-coder, college student, etc? (If so, how do I go about finding the right person?) Use an off the shelf product and play with it myself? How much should something like this cost? (Would love to hire a Mefite - so bids accepted on Mefimail!) What decisions should I make now that will give me somthing extensible? What are the main technologies that I should look out for? I'm sure many other questions here that I've not thought of -- so fire away! Thanks in advance hive mind!

Reccomend A LI Laundromat

Brian Puccio — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:27:42 -0800

Looking for a central Long Island (Nassau County) drop off/pick up laudromat. Not looking exactly for cheap (though that's nice) but value. Tired of wasting hours waiting for machines to finish. Also, the local one by me doesn't offer a drop off service, so I'm not sure how it works. I assume they charge by weight/bags dropped off? Just drop it off in a bag and pick it up in a bag a day later?

Will President Obama take my job away?

micketymoc — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:29:35 -0800

What would an Obama Presidency mean for the business process outsourcing industry? I work for a company that creates marketing materials for US clients. A growing number of my countrymen also work for call centers that do a lot of business with US companies. Barack Obama hinted in his SC victory speech that he would bring back jobs outsourced abroad. What does that mean for my company and its employees?

Has he made any concrete policy positions that would deal with business process outsourcing in particular?

I was impressed by Obama's SC victory speech, but I couldn't help but wonder if I was cheering for someone who would make life very difficult for my employers (and me) in the near future.

Indian Call Center advice?

jayder — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 15:07:30 -0800

Advice on hiring an Indian call center to answer after-hours calls for a law practice? We have used U.S. answering services for handling after-hours and vacation calls for my solo law practice. However, the quality of service with the U.S. answering services has been extraordinarily poor and, in my opinion, way too expensive.

So we have gone without after-hours answering services, just sending callers to voicemail after hours (which is what a lot of law firms do). But I think that my caseload and client satisfaction would increase if I were able to have the phones answered by a person 24/7, with the agents sending me the messages by e-mail.

I have read good things about Indian call centers, and I've been toying with the idea of hiring an Indian company to handle our after-hours calls. They'd just be taking messages and possibly making appointments for prospective clients. Here are my questions:

(1) Is it true that Indian call centers give a reasonably high level of service?
(2) Is it true that Indian call centers are significantly cheaper than U.S. answering services?
(3) How much can I expect to pay for the service?
(4) How are international call rates avoided when you forward your phones to an Indian call center?
(5) Can anyone recommend a call center that you've had good experiences with?

Tips/anecdotes/experinece for outsourcing web development work to eLance, RentACoder etc.

bystander — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 06:17:15 -0800

Tips/anecdotes/experinece for outsourcing web development work to eLance, RentACoder etc. I have an idea for an ecommerce website that is a bit different to existing sites, and I haven't been able to find an off the shelf package. I am considering posting to Guru.com, RentACoder or eLance to get a developer to build it from the ground up. I figure 50-100 hours of PHP coding.
I have some experience working with development teams and drawing up specifications, but only on large projects with in-house developers. I have novice PHP skills, so I can discuss somewhat intelligently during the development process.
Looking through the outsourcing boards it seems most of the jobs are flimsy, ill-specified requests.
Has anyone got examples or templates for outsourced web site development requirements and specifications? It also seems that a lot of the jobs are asking a lot of work for a few hundred dollars. Are the coders on these boards really working so cheap, or am I just seeing wishful thinking posts?

Any tips, experiences etc. would be appreciated.

And just to head off comments that a local developer will be a better bet, that might be possible in future, but this idea won't get built if it needs $100+ an hour programmers.

Help me inherit code, not objects

furtive — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:42:36 -0800

I'm about to receive a large chunk of code for a nearly code complete web app from several consultants and have been tasked with assuming the knowledge transfer. What questions do I ask? I work for a large financial institution and they outsourced the development of a web application to a consulting firm (it handles reconciliation of data from scanned checks and movement of the scanned images).

I have been tasked to start the knowledge transfer and handle integration issues in our existing environment. They are supposedly almost code complete although no testing beyond unit testing has been done and no integration has been started. Obviously there will be a lot to cover, and I have the impression that they are further off from being done than they lead on, but what I'd really like to come up with is a list of topics and questions to ask. Here are a list of points I've come up with already, I'd like to have more or hear of your own experiences and what to watch out for.

What I've already come up with:

-documentation (specs, architecture, standards, javadoc, support, configuration)

-Source control (trunk, branches, tags)

-General Requirements (JVM version, servlet container version)

-IDE Project file

-Build Script

-list of configuration files

-bug tracking

-Points of contact

-Unit testing

-libraries

-Dependencies

-File system requirements (size, mappings, etc)

-Database requirements

-Other interfaces (ejb, mqseries)

-General security

-User Security

-long term support?

-licenses

What other topics should I cover, what other questions should I ask, what else should I be aware of?

How to get outsourced projects ?

inquisitive — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 10:08:18 -0800

How can I start getting small software development projects outsourced to me in India ? I am looking for alternate avenues to expand my market reach.

I want to start with small software projects so that work can get over quickly. Initially I dont want to take complex or big projects.

I am capable of executing projects in VB6, VB.NET or C#, Excel VBA programming.

Whats the best way to start getting outsourced projects ?

Outsourcing sucks!

special-k — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 23:51:04 -0800

Is there a list of companies that don’t outsource their customer support? After having spent the last hour on the phone with someone (in some country in south east asia) that didn’t understand my problem but kept repeating the same set questions, I am frustrated and feeling completely helpless. I don’t know what to do since I cannot ask them to transfer me elsewhere since there is no other elsewhere.
Instead, I’ve decided that I would rather pay more to do business with companies that don’t treat me like shit. Can someone point me to a list of companies (credit cards, computers etc.) that don’t outsource? Thanks!

PS: Bonus points if you can tell me how to deal with companies that DO outsource (alas, I cannot close these accounts just yet). Is there a good time of the day to call? Are there other useful tricks?

How can I find a computer guru to help me improve my programming skills?

fcain — Mon, 08 May 2006 11:41:34 -0800

I'm a full time webmaster running a news website on the Internet. The more popular my site becomes, the more my technical shortcomings are becoming clear to me. I don't have the money to hire out the work, so I want to build up my own skills (PHP, MySQL, Linux, XML, etc). Where can I find an inexpensive technical guru who can mentor me from afar and bring my skills up.

HELP! I need a personal assistant

elle.jeezy — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 10:18:17 -0800

I NEED HELP! I have quite a few projects that are in process and I need a personal assistant, girl/man friday, someone who can handle the little stuff while I do the heavy lifting. I had a small business and then went back to work full time. I still have outside projects, but I need things like someone to research, followup emails, look up pricing, etc. It's all different types of work, most of it computer related.

I've needed this person for a very long time but I can't pay U.S. wages. I can, however, pay someone in another country a fair wage for there.

How can I find someone overseas who can help me? I don't want to go through an agency and pay fees that will take away from paying the individual. And I'm not trying to take advantage of the person by paying them 50 cents an hour and having them work a million hours.

I just need someone with a strong work ethic who'll complete projects and won't get distracted and disappear, etc.

New Boss Same as Old Boss?

HyperBlue — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 19:07:59 -0800

The Fortune 500 company that I work for has been bought by a Fortune 100 company. I am in IT. "Efficiency Experts" sent from our new company will be interviewing us soon. What is the most effective way to respond during the interview to both keep my job, and advance my position? I'm not sure a Peter Gibbions 'Office Space' attitude is the right approach but... (MI) I've been with the original company about 7 years. In the last 4 years alone I have survived a downsizing, an outsourcing, a reorganization, and two complete global network rollouts. I have had 4 different bosses and have "dotted lines" to 4 more bosses. There are several services for which I am sole support. I am the 'go-to' guy and (hopefully without too much self aggrandizement) have been the key to the success of several major projects. I have, however, been too engrossed with work to self-promote, much less work the politics necessary to advance my career.

How do I get this across during the interview? Thanks in advance.