It’s a no-brainer isn’t it? You go offshore to get something made more cheaply than you can at home. With luck, those goods - or services - will also be better.
Offshoring exploits the difference in living standards, and rates of pay, around the world. It’s a variant of the buy- low sell-high riff and is as as old as time. Although it’s a dialogue between north and south - the so-called ‘first’ world and the ‘third’ - at its best, everyone’s happy to take part. What seems cheap to me is still a good price for you. The problem is that it’s not that simple.

I recently needed a website with quite a lot of functionality. That meant putting it together in php with a mysql backend. I used one of the excellent freelancer websites. People like me post their projects and providers from around the world bid on them. I got 9 bids. Seven of them came from India and Pakistan, one from N.America and one from Europe (not Eastern Europe).

The most expensive bid was from India, the cheapest was half as much and that, ironically, was the one from Europe.

I asked the most expensive would-be provider how he arrived at his bid price. His reply was aggressive and borderline rude. My inquiry had been sraightforward and reasonable. If he could justify his rate I would have listened - lowest is not always best after all. Instead he suprised me by going for crude bluster. Bad tactic. The work went to the European. I did shortlist another sub-continental bidder but their feedback from other projects wasn’t quite as good and were more expensive. As I am based in Europe I know my final decision might seem a bit unadventurous. Maybe I’ll get a little further afield next time.

Or maybe the north is the new south?

Labels: Upside down, maybe?

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