Comment

Letters: Get value for money with Indian outsourcing

Platform: Internet | Source: NMA magazine | Published: 26.06.08

Email article | Printer Friendly | Comment on this articlemore Comment

From David Sheridan, managing partner, Flip Media

Your leader on digital outsourcing (NMA 05.06.08) posed the interesting question of how digital agencies, already operating on low margins, can afford to outsource production.

Perhaps digital agencies should learn from the IT sector, which for the past decade or two has been offshoring development work, specifically to India but also to other emerging markets.

While salaries are increasing in India's booming...

Article continues below

... economy, a good salary for, say, a Flash developer is still 80-90% lower in sterling terms than in the UK.

I'm certainly not advocating this cheap freelance approach. Indeed, it has been the bad experiences of using unprofessional, poorly managed Indian outsource operations that has put off many a UK creative services director.

I know of this negativity towards Indian outsourcing only too well as I have to fight against it when selling our services to UK agencies. One of the strongest arguments supporting outsourcing, even in the offline world, has always been the difficulty and cost that the agencies have in keeping up to date with the latest technologies. With broadband spreading rapidly and mobile now gaining momentum, the range of skills required in digital is already beyond all but the largest agencies.