Getting Website developed overseas

wcman

Has anyone had a website built overseas that they are happy with? I've heard India and Romania as having loads of very good development companies but not sure where to start. Irish developers seem to be very expensive and not very helpful.

What? Oh Rly!

wcman wrote: »

Has anyone had a website built overseas that they are happy with? I've heard India and Romania as having loads of very good development companies but not sure where to start. Irish developers seem to be very expensive and not very helpful.

Be extremely careful with working with foreign web companies, especially India. They might sound brilliant with the quotes they give you, but their work is usually sloppy and their design work is years behind. Of coarse this is the majority and not all of them are bad! Take into consideration that setting up meetings might be a tad difficult with the time difference and communication in general could be hard.

If I we're you, I would stick to an Irish company, I'm sure you can find one to suit your budget. Also, what exactly do you mean by "Irish developers seem to be very expensive and not very helpful"? How many have you spoken to?

And what is your budget for your project and what do you need done?

MrMatisse

Check out elance.com There are a load of designers who have tons of feedback on that site. The great thing about it is not only the cost but the ease of having people pitch to you for the work instead of having to go trawling about for someone and you have a much wider range of skills available easily than you can get in Ireland.

A lot of Irish designers will come on and bash it but I found it great so far for other things.

If you do go for the cheapest quote only though from someone with no track record you have a high chance of getting a load of rubbish.

Mr. Loverman

I have outsourced work in the past.

I use www.scriptlance.com

Just make sure the person you pick has lots of good positive reviews.

Make sure your job advert contains all details, as their bid will be based on that.

PS Ignore the Irish designers who will shortly be along to claim all foreigners are incompetent, etc.

tomED

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

PS Ignore the Irish designers who will shortly be along to claim all foreigners are incompetent, etc.

:rolleyes:

Anyway... to give some experienced advice...

Outsourcing is a viable option, however you should totally understand exactly what you need done before opting to go this route. The fact that you've already knocked Irish companies means you clearly want to go the cheap route, but there are a few things worth noting.

1. It's tough to find a company you can rely on
2. Their designs are outdated, but design is subjective either way
3. Quality, the majority of the work created by these companies is poor.

There will be plenty of people who come on here claiming to have had a great experience with their outsourced company. The problem is that most that outsource, don't really understand the what should be expected for a properly developed website.

So the best advice I can give is, that if you know about web development and web security etc, outsource - it will be worth your while. If you don't know anything about it, maybe think about putting aside part of your budget to pay for an experienced Irish web developer to project manage the outsourced project for you.

Or, why not just talk to a proper Irish web development company instead of wasting time with those that are not very helpful!

MrMatisse

tomED wrote: »

:rolleyes:

Anyway... to give some experienced advice...

Outsourcing is a viable option, however you should totally understand exactly what you need done before opting to go this route. The fact that you've already knocked Irish companies means you clearly want to go the cheap route, but there are a few things worth noting.

1. It's tough to find a company you can rely on
2. Their designs are outdated, but design is subjective either way
3. Quality, the majority of the work created by these companies is poor.

There will be plenty of people who come on here claiming to have had a great experience with their outsourced company. The problem is that most that outsource, don't really understand the what should be expected for a properly developed website.

So the best advice I can give is, that if you know about web development and web security etc, outsource - it will be worth your while. If you don't know anything about it, maybe think about putting aside part of your budget to pay for an experienced Irish web developer to project manage the outsourced project for you.

Or, why not just talk to a proper Irish web development company instead of wasting time with those that are not very helpful!

This is a bit of a generalisation. You can get equally good crap from Irish companies.

Mr. Loverman

MrMatisse wrote: »

This is a bit of a generalisation. You can get equally good crap from Irish companies.

Yeah, as expected, an Irish designer claiming "Irish designers are better", and claiming we are not being helpful.

Such nonsense.

Kinetic^

I've been dealing with an Irish company who outsources their stuff to India, never again. Communication is non existent and it's taken about 2 months to do up a 1 page website.

Zonua

Kinetic^ wrote: »

I've been dealing with an Irish company who outsources their stuff to India, never again. Communication is non existent and it's taken about 2 months to do up a 1 page website.

I'm in web design and take absolute pride in my work, always meet with clients face-to-face, will take any amount of calls or meetings to ensure the job is done to the 100% satisfaction of the client. Two months to do a one page website - that's crazy, you could've learned how to do a one-page website yourself in that time!!!

I've heard a lot of the businesses/companies with bigger portfolios are simply outsourcing to India, which ironically perhaps is giving the Irish businesses a bad name?

Regarding outsourcing to India, or anywhere, I don't think it's a good idea, unless you already know the person and already have an established communication system with them. Otherwise things can get lost in translation, and you can't have a face-to-face meeting with the client, or maybe can't pick up the phone and call them when you need to.

I'm not on elance myself (maybe I should be), but if you can find someone with an established track-record, and good references, I reckon that would be your best bet, if you want to outsource.

Yurple

I fully agree with outsourcing work to india or romania is not a good idea for many reasons.

Their technology is behind

Communications is really tough because of language difference and time difference

The website might look alright in the front end but behind the scenes is a different story.. messy coding work

There are many irish web companies that do really good work for really competitive prices! You just have to look around and get a few quotes and compare them.

lots of luck!

wcman

Thanks for all that, very useful !

Adjogranty

What does you website need to do ?

Mr. Loverman

Yurple wrote: »

I fully agree with outsourcing work to india or romania is not a good idea for many reasons.

Luckily outsourcing is not limited to those countries...

Nearly everywhere, apart from maybe London and New York, is cheaper than Ireland.

cgifts

Have used outsoucing for a website and overall was happy with the results but there are definitely benefits and shortfalls. The main benefit was the cost which much cheaper than quotes received from the uk at the time. The big problem I had was with the timeline for the project.

I had stated in my requirements the amount of time available for the project and the developer I selected said they would have no problem meeting the deadline. Turned out the project took alot longer to complete than agreed and communicating via e-mail as opposed to the phone didn't help.

The standard of work was good but I missed a critical selling period for an online store because of the delay. I would advise to have an in-built penalty which would reduce the project cost if deadlines aren't met - this may focus the outsourcing company (or any company) to complete your project first if they have a number of them on the go at the same time.

maninasia

One thing you need to understand is some outsourcing companies will then outsource again to other freelancers, that's what increases the communication difficulties and also can cause delays. If you care about design India is not the way to go, they just have no concept of Western design needs. It is okay later on if you have experience and you can split the project between programmers and interface designers.

If cost is your absolute bottom line I'd say outsourcing is fine, if you need quick and reliable ongoing service with good communication try to find a local provider, it's not a guarantee of course but it just makes things easier communication wise and you can meet face to face.

dlofnep

The one thing I'd say about doing things local is that is something happens, you can always talk to the person face to face. Also, you can discuss design ideas with them if need be.

MrMatisse

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

Luckily outsourcing is not limited to those countries...

Nearly everywhere, apart from maybe London and New York, is cheaper than Ireland.

So true!

tomED

MrMatisse wrote: »

This is a bit of a generalisation. You can get equally good crap from Irish companies.

Of course it's a generalisation - that's why I said "most".

That comes from experience, if anyone has any examples of websites they've had completed from abroad, I'm sure most of them will have a lot that we can pick holes in.

However, I'm not saying it's not possible to find a good outsourcing company, I'm just saying it's not easy to find a good one.

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

Yeah, as expected, an Irish designer claiming "Irish designers are better", and claiming we are not being helpful.

Such nonsense.

No-one stated Irish web designers are better, but I for one certainly stated the quality of work from most of these companies is poor at best and that's a fact.

Plus, no-one ever said that you were not being helpful... the OP stated he found Irish developers not to be helpful, I told him he should talk to one that is.

tricky D

In general when searching for a web solution provider, it's hard to find someone who really does cut the mustard. The main reason is there is a very low barrier to entry, as almost anyone can call themselves a web designer. Quality and value are hard to find and price is often a poor measure. It's possible to find good value at the cheap end, but you need to be lucky or work hard to find it. Likewise there's good value to be found at the pricey end, but higher price isn't always a good metric either. There's plenty of bad quality and value at any price point. These points generally apply no matter which country you use.

When it comes to outsourcing to other countries, some additional problems arise:

• Language and cultural differences
• Extra distance and communication overheads
• The lack of face to face (great for communication and trust)
• Lower design standards (not to be overstated though)
• Familiarity with local markets (where applicable)

Irish providers do indeed operate at a generally higher price point due to our relatively high cost economy. However, the above factors mitigate against that to some degree. A better, tighter spec and more rigorous project control are usually required for outsourcing to cheaper and/or remote economies and these incur a significant extra overheads which are not factored into budgets properly. Your own time and its opportunity costs tend to be badly underestimated, and so are very often not realistically costed into the budget and this leads to confusion between price and value. A deadline missed or extra overheads can very easily wipe out the price saving as cgifts alludes to. This can occur locally in Ireland too, but is more likely when the additional problems listed above come into play.

Good advice includes:

• Do up a full spec
• Get second opinions
• Value your own time overhead properly
• Shop around
• The price is not the full cost and is often a much smaller portion of the overall cost than you think
• Focus on good value over a cheap price

MrMatisse

tricky D wrote: »

In general when searching for a web solution provider, it's hard to find someone who really does cut the mustard. The main reason is there is a very low barrier to entry, as almost anyone can call themselves a web designer. Quality and value are hard to find and price is often a poor measure. It's possible to find good value at the cheap end, but you need to be lucky or work hard to find it. Likewise there's good value to be found at the pricey end, but higher price isn't always a good metric either. There's plenty of bad quality and value at any price point. These points generally apply no matter which country you use.

When it comes to outsourcing to other countries, some additional problems arise:

• Language and cultural differences
• Extra distance and communication overheads
• The lack of face to face (great for communication and trust)
• Lower design standards (not to be overstated though)
• Familiarity with local markets (where applicable)

Irish providers do indeed operate at a generally higher price point due to our relatively high cost economy. However, the above factors mitigate against that to some degree. A better, tighter spec and more rigorous project control are usually required for outsourcing to cheaper and/or remote economies and these incur a significant extra overheads which are not factored into budgets properly. Your own time and its opportunity costs tend to be badly underestimated, and so are very often not realistically costed into the budget and this leads to confusion between price and value. A deadline missed or extra overheads can very easily wipe out the price saving as cgifts alludes to. This can occur locally in Ireland too, but is more likely when the additional problems listed above come into play.

Good advice includes:

• Do up a full spec
• Get second opinions
• Value your own time overhead properly
• Shop around
• The price is not the full cost and is often a much smaller portion of the overall cost than you think
• Focus on good value over a cheap price

Very good post, but I wouldnt put the Irish designers so far ahead.

way2tall

tricky D wrote: »

In general when searching for a web solution provider, it's hard to find someone who really does cut the mustard. The main reason is there is a very low barrier to entry, as almost anyone can call themselves a web designer. Quality and value are hard to find and price is often a poor measure. It's possible to find good value at the cheap end, but you need to be lucky or work hard to find it. Likewise there's good value to be found at the pricey end, but higher price isn't always a good metric either. There's plenty of bad quality and value at any price point. These points generally apply no matter which country you use.

When it comes to outsourcing to other countries, some additional problems arise:

• Language and cultural differences
• Extra distance and communication overheads
• The lack of face to face (great for communication and trust)
• Lower design standards (not to be overstated though)
• Familiarity with local markets (where applicable)

Irish providers do indeed operate at a generally higher price point due to our relatively high cost economy. However, the above factors mitigate against that to some degree. A better, tighter spec and more rigorous project control are usually required for outsourcing to cheaper and/or remote economies and these incur a significant extra overheads which are not factored into budgets properly. Your own time and its opportunity costs tend to be badly underestimated, and so are very often not realistically costed into the budget and this leads to confusion between price and value. A deadline missed or extra overheads can very easily wipe out the price saving as cgifts alludes to. This can occur locally in Ireland too, but is more likely when the additional problems listed above come into play.

Good advice includes:

• Do up a full spec
• Get second opinions
• Value your own time overhead properly
• Shop around
• The price is not the full cost and is often a much smaller portion of the overall cost than you think
• Focus on good value over a cheap price

But like other posters on the site - it really does depend on what you want and how well you can specify what you need .. Fitness for purpose is very important to consider .. unlike a puppy a website can just be for christmas - you aren't necessarily going to invest huge amounts of time or effort into developing a sustainable, maintainable website if it only needs to be around for a couple of weeks..

I often think that people should step back and instead of just asking the

"I want a website" question .. should be a bit more specific..

"As a small business, I would like a website to establish my online presence"

is very different from

"As a major retailer I want an e-commerce portal that will provide 24/7 access to customers all over the world"

Websites can often be equated to 'bricks and mortar commercial space' - not all businesses need a warehouse - some are better served by a home office .. and the analogy goes on .. and I'd better stop before I get carried away and I get lost in my standard scope and strategy rant :-)

Not sure answer above helps much .. but it really is important to think what you need first and then look at how to build it ..

Ed

www.theITtree.com

mikefm

tricky D wrote: »

Good advice includes:

• Do up a full spec

After outsourcing numerous projects, the key bit of advice is do a full/comprehensive spec minimising interpretation/vagueness

byrne0f56789

As long as you have a clear understanding of what you want. Do you want a marketing focused website that generates leads? or do you want a brochure site that just looks good?

You need to have a clear idea. Are they going to write the content and sales pitch for your site? Do they offer a marketing package as well as a design package?

I don’t see a major difference in price. I recently ran a special offer for December 2010 to get some business during the Christmas period and my prices were similar to elance. Admittedly, that was under special circumstances, but still you will find that Irish developers’ prices are not that much more expensive.

In fact, when you factor in the additional time you need to give in order to supervise the project there really is not much difference.

In my opinion elance is great for techies who need help. It’s not very good for Irish business owners who want a website that makes sales.