Website Development in india

Auscast

I have a rather large and data intensive website I am designing, and am planning on having it built and maintained in India. Does anyone have any experience in this and can offer some insight?

thirtythirty

I assume you're doing it in India on a cost-basis then.

Basically, you get what you pay for. If it's a large and data-intensive website, then perhaps it might be worth spending the extra money and getting some officially qualified and highly experienced specialists in Ireland or UK to do it. Anyone can build a site, not anyone can make it efficient and scalable. Communication throughout development would be a lot easier too.

Having said that, I don't personally have experience with Indian development so please note that I'm saying this from personal POV, rather than experience.

Gloomtastic!

I've outsourced tech work (not websites though) to India in the past and found that using a company with an Irish or UK-based intermediary made things much easier when it comes to communication and time differences.

professore

Buy a 3 phone and try ringing tech support. This will inform your decision.

Noel 006

I outsourced a website design to a guy in india, not an e-commerce site though, it was as basic as you can get. He did a reasonable job but a couple of things I found very frustrating. Trying to communicate your thoughts via e-mail is very difficult, try it and see what I mean. Yes there is the phone but time difference can be a pain when you go east, dealing with time differences with america is not nearly as bad. Remember, if you decide in the afternoon you want to change something you will probably have to wait till the next day before it's done, depending on the business that may not be a problem, but can be annoying! I now have a guy here that does it for me, so much easier to sit in front of a screen with him and point at what I want and where I want it. When I started I got some crazy prices for web design in Ireland but it is far far cheaper now than it was 5 years ago and the little bit you save by going to india you will spend on anger management classes!!!

On a different business I tried to outsource to a company called Brickwork India, they are a one stop shop for everything. But what sounds great in theory is not so good in practice. Again trying to communicate what you want can be extremely frustrating, and from what I can remember of their prices I don't think you will be saving huge amounts of money. As I mentioned earlier, I would rather pay a small premium to be able to sit face to face with somebody to explain what I want. Do extensive research, it will be worth it in the end! Good luck with the business!

GoneShootin

I've found that Indian website designers are not particularly great as they don't have the design experience that is pleasing to western eyes. I can't fault their backend and technical abilities mind you, but graphics and web design tend to pale in comparison to western companies.

You could take a look at places like Poland - merixstudio.com for example is one crowd that I got a quote for and their were very competitive.

PCPhoto

OP ... the problem here is cost v's comfort.

it will cost you 2-3times (maybe more) to get this project done in Ireland/England .....but it will more than likely be 3-4times more stressful dealing with someone with broken English ... the language barrier is the most painful thing.

so if you can find someone with perfect english and you can communicate well with then go for it, I have found when dealing with Irish/English companies on web design/programming they price themselves out of the market .....and if you have a problem with the outsourced product - they charge you more because you should have gone to them in the first place.

I will be doing a similar project - I'm still working on all the finer details (been working on it 3yrs now...I'm always finding problems...and potential situations which could lead to conflict... that combined with I can't afford to get it done by an Irish/English company - last quote I got was in 2008 for €30K - so I've been streamlining the idea/concept since then)
So OP if you find someone reliable and good quality please let me know.

Noel 006

http://www.filthylucre.com/brickwork-india-%E2%80%93-just-more-of-the-same

To add to previous post, I just googled Brickwork India rates and found this blog. Not sure if I linked it correctly, I'm not at all tech savvy. I think you have your answer from this and all previous posts!

gavney1

spottyelephant wrote: »

I assume you're doing it in India on a cost-basis then.

Basically, you get what you pay for. If it's a large and data-intensive website, then perhaps it might be worth spending the extra money and getting some officially qualified and highly experienced specialists in Ireland or UK to do it. Anyone can build a site, not anyone can make it efficient and scalable. Communication throughout development would be a lot easier too.

Having said that, I don't personally have experience with Indian development so please note that I'm saying this from personal POV, rather than experience.

In terms of quality of website -have to say that I disagree with this "you get what you pay for". While I'd say it's true that you're MORE LIKELY to get a better website if you pay more, it's no guarantee.You might get lucky and get a website for 1800 and it will be better than one for 7000

Thing to bear in mind is that there's plenty of Irish guys based in Ireland who are just acting as the "face" for an Indian web-development company. They just talk to the customer, and then send the message on to the guys in India.

Saying "you get what you pay for" in this instance is like saying that if you got a jumper made in a factory in England for 50euro, it's going to be better than a jumper made in Pakistan that you buy in Penneys for 5euro. It's not - the only reason it would cost 50euro is cause the cost of labour in England is massive compared to that in Pakistan - hence why 99.9% of textiles are not made in 1st world countries.

HOWEVER - I have had experience getting a website made in India. And have to agree that the communication thing is a pain in the neck. Often had to send an email 2/3 times before they understood what I was trying to say.
The website cost 1800euro. It's not quite finished yet (mostly due to my own lack of time tbh, not theirs). But so far so good. I gave them some websites that I liked the look of, and they've done a good job of re-creating a similar look and feel.

Have also had experience with Nitrosell in Ireland - have to say they weren't a huge amount better. They're obviously easier to communicate with - but take forever to do something, and aren't very willing to change anything other than very basic things.

Have also had experience getting something done in Poland. Luckily, our company's IT guy is Polish, so he had no problem communicating with them. It was a B2B section of our website (not a whole website) It cost 220euro and it's exactly what we wanted and works perfectly. We were quoted a ridiculous price of 8K by a guy in Clare.

OP, ultimately the answer is that there's no easy answer. Try and get recommendations from people you know other of specific companies/web developers. There are good and bad Irish developers, just as there are good and bad Indian ones. Only real difference is communication. If that's worth a difference of 2k, versus say 7K, then go for an Irish one

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Just a quick point on data intensive web projects, it's not just a "web designer" you'll need. Most important is the web architect, who will structure how the site, tables and data is laid out. Anyone can pull a site together, but it'll fall apart when you need to scale it without decent architecture. Then you need a graphics guy for skinning the site and a designer to do the features and user interface. In my experience its very rare you'll find a web-designer with really good web architecture understanding. Ofcourse if you can do this yourself and just outsource the grunt work this can be cool, but outsourcing a whole project which you don't quite understand whats involved structurally in could be a dangerous play.

Auscast

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan wrote: »

Just a quick point on data intensive web projects, it's not just a "web designer" you'll need. Most important is the web architect, who will structure how the site, tables and data is laid out. Anyone can pull a site together, but it'll fall apart when you need to scale it without decent architecture. Then you need a graphics guy for skinning the site and a designer to do the features and user interface. In my experience its very rare you'll find a web-designer with really good web architecture understanding. Ofcourse if you can do this yourself and just outsource the grunt work this can be cool, but outsourcing a whole project which you don't quite understand whats involved structurally in could be a dangerous play.

True, that's why I am hard at work organising the architecture of the site. It's important to me to be on top of every process and be able to communicate my needs to the developer. Scalability is also important, as I plan on launching the site with limited features, then implementing more as the site gains traction.

I also like the idea of 'cloud' hosting, for scaleability and as I'll be travelling the country to market the website. Any opinions on this?

As for design, I am a Creative Director with 20 years experience working for international advertising agences so I have the design for every page in the whole site almost complete.

The reason I was looking to develop my site in India is to keep costs down as I am financing the build myself, and there is a lot of work involved. It would be great to be able to work with someone locally, but let's face it, I most probably won't be able to afford it. Perhaps this is another reason to find a mentor.

way2tall

Can bring my experiences to the table .. have worked with various outsourced projects - small websites, enterprise systems, maintenance etc .. in India, China and Eastern Europe..

I have had some really good experiences .. but agree with some of the comments here. Distance makes communication hard! and this cost is often not included in the approach..

I have just been involved in a project for someone to build a web app with an Eastern European company - the cost was about a fifth of what other people were quoting and the technical implementation / ability was excellent .. However 9 months in we have maybe 60% of the originally planned functionality and we have a user experience that is incomprehensible .. And that is after major hand holding - including at one stage daily meetings ..

My advice - specify and then specify some more - with web work ask for prototypes - use an agile approach .. establish a instant feedback mechanism ..

Get help with the DB Model and the architecture - if you can that right .. you will find it hard to go too wrong at a fundamental level ..

Think about scaleability and performance - just to ask the outsourcers the right questions .. it will also influence your design ..

In the cloud or not ? Really depends on environmental factors .. The cloud is great but can be expensive .. Microsoft Bizspark is overing 16 months free use of the their cloud - Amazon is offering free micro-compute instances - you can get some good deals BUT if you really are dealing with large amounts of data plan for it .. as an operational cost..

I envy your creative background - if you can use this to specify each page AND more importantly the user journey .. then that is really on step of the battle and makes it much easier to engage with an outsourced vendor..

-> So Scope and Specify - Use cases, User stories, Size and Scale Expectations, Future growth

-> Provide Context - Provide as much context as you can .. this is just a fact of life for web site development .. Developers in India, China, East Europe etc.. will be working from a different cultural and societal context - Things that are obvious to you are not to them .. their background of obviousness is different

-> Over Communicate - Skype, Instant Messaging, E-mail, Shared folders you name it

-> Iterate and Deliver Frequently - Demand results, prototypes, screenshots .. not because you want to catch anyone out but because you want to help them get it right

-> Divide and Conqueror - Mini-projects can help control the void or get some sort of project manager involved to help with the project planning

-> Partnership - Not sure about this one - ideally you need to empower and engage the vendor you work with to deliver quality .. so that they believe in the project and believe in what is being built.. when there is a disconnect and you end up with robotic code mechanics then you lose the passion that could make your solution great and you get something that is just and barely good-enough.

The costs will vary and your success will vary but maybe these tips will help - My problems have tended to stem from Scope & Specify and by inherent belief that people want to do the right thing and want to do things right ... Recent experiences have made me a bit more cynical....

But I still believe in global sourcing - I believe you should get the right people to do the work for you not purely on a cost basis but also on a skills basis .. just sometimes you ignore the talent under your nose for the greener grass abroad

Anyway hope this is helpful - feel free to contact me .. if I can help- am currently trying to put together a website / q & A site that would help SMEs and SMBs with these types of questions and help support them in outsourced development processes .. Not pretty at the moment but getting there www.theITtree.com

Auscast

Brilliant. Thanks way2tall.
Very interesting.