Many years ago, for some silly reason, we wanted to try to be like most of the other web companies supposedly based in the USA and outsource our design and development overseas. We learned very fast why this was a bad idea. When looking to hire a web design or development company, you should be very careful as well. Keep reading below to learn more.
Times are changing fast. Physical storefronts are unfortunately becoming obsolete and the remaining locations are being forced to have a much larger online presence with an enhanced user experience and more interactive functionality. So the need to find a company that can reliably support you is greater than ever. You should be ready to find someone that you can build a long-term relationship with. The people you will work with should be the kind of people you’d want to go have drinks with or spend time with outside of work. You can’t run all aspects of your business. That’s where the right company and/or team can really help advance your business.
This brings up why it’s a terrible idea to outsource your design and development overseas.
Did you know that outsourced projects are copied with some small changes and reused for multiple clients? This can create huge problems with licensing and copyrights that isn’t easy to resolve when your designer or developer lives in a different country with different legal requirements. Remnants of other projects can be found in the source code, which causes issues when the time comes to expand your website or make changes.
Most overseas freelancers are known to be unresponsive at critical times, lock clients out of websites, or demand more money at random times, or simply terminate a project without warning. Not saying this will happen to you, but it does happen a lot more than you’d think.
Lastly, in comparing the time it should take for certain tasks, we found that outsourced designers and developers were billing for a lot more time that it should have taken an experienced professional. In the end, when you take an account of the time spent in cleaning up their messy code, communicating and/or waiting for a response, dealing with drama surrounding billing and paying more than you really should, you DO end up paying more the vast majority of the time.
Quality and pride in ones craft are particularly important in the web design and development industry. It’s fairly easy to make something look good on the surface, but there is a lot more going on under the hood, having considerable effect on future cost and productivity. A lot of companies cut corners just to get the task done instead of taking the time to do things right.
Why does this matter? If a designer/developer doesn’t consider any future growth or changes with the site, search engine optimization, stability in applying updates to WordPress and plugins, and ADA compliance or privacy laws, it can cost you in the future.
This is why TrevNet takes everything into consideration and gives you a finished product that will grow with your business and change easily so you don’t have to go back to the drawing board in the near future, spending significantly more money than you have to. We also abide by coding standards that will NOT potentially leave you exposed to hackers or future update issues. Bottom line: if you see a good looking website, just know there are a lot more important things happening below the surface that need to be addressed.
Trying to save a few bucks can easily lead to A LOT of wasted time and minimal savings in the end. This is mainly due to the fact that most overseas designers or developers are not experienced enough in their field or craft and lack social background to fully understand the U.S. market. You’ll end up spending an excessive amount of time trying to explain things, then micromanaging when you realize how bad the communication and general understanding actually is.
The fact is, a significant amount of time is wasted managing a project. The savings in cost must be compared against the time spent trying to lead the development of a project on the other side of the world. Communicating and relaying requirements can be a daunting task.
Companies based in countries like India or China hire US-based companies to do their design? They actually call it “American Design” because our standards are much higher.
Countries that do outsourcing for the US, don’t have standards and laws in place that require a high degree of integrity within a website, so they have no incentive to build websites that have clean code and that are secure.
Potentially unstable websites are more subjected to hackers or high-resource usage which can make your hosting provider shut you down. This will cost you more in the long run.
If you have an awesome idea, what makes you think your Non-Disclosure Agreement holds any weight in a foreign country? What is stopping them from reusing what they did for you with other clients? Absolutely nothing. You’re putting everything at risk just to save a few bucks.
The language barrier and time difference can cause major issues and hold back your productivity. It’s a very well-known trend that once you’ve paid your overseas designer / developer, getting in touch with them is next to impossible. What happens if you have a problem and need help? Chances are, you won’t get any kind of response, or it will be delayed by 12 hours when they try to contact you in the middle of the night.
Bad reliability and responsiveness seem to be stigmas in this industry. Exactly why we make that a priority and the sole reason we keep clients for years and they are happy to refer us.
