Outsourcing Work to India

India is one of the largest outsourcing countries in the world. It is popular among companies across the globe, but is it the right thing for your organisation to do?

Various businesses throughout the UK and the world, are outsourcing work to India. Some companies depend on outsourcing their work, while others do it all in-house. It works for some and not for others, but don’t feel pressured into doing it because everyone else is.

What is outsourcing?

A definition of outsourcing from Google ‘obtains (goods or a service) by contract from an outside supplier.’ In simpler terms, it means to give work to a third party to do that work for you. This could be an external digital marketing company, external IT help, external survey processing support. Your company may outsource some of their work already, but you may not be aware of it. Outsourcing has become a staple part of a business strategy from global companies to small businesses.

Why India?

There are many reasons for companies to outsource to India:

Flexible prices on work
The fluency of English, India is the second-largest English-speaking country, so there isn’t an issue with language barriers
Profitable for companies
It frees up more time for workers in the UK based office

These are some of the pros, but there are cons.

It can be hard to find the right one for you and your company. As there are so many, the quotes for work can be low, but this means those you chose to hire may not be the best fit as the people they employ are on a lower wage, and it will affect their quality of work
There is a much higher risk of IP theft, there is more likely to be a breach in security
Communication can be difficult due to the time difference
Quality can be compromised, the standard of work in India is different from the UK
When sending processing work to India, there could be a disconnect in the creation of the drawing. With a large distance between the two offices, those working in India haven’t picked up the data from the physical site.

Outsourcing construction industry or surveying work – what will I be outsourcing?

Whilst construction and surveying are physical, outside jobs, this aspect of the job isn’t the part outsourced. Jobs such as CAD, BIM, 3D Modelling, and architectural drawings are the primary jobs they do. One of the main reasons for CAD being the highest job outsourced is due to India having the largest pool of qualified engineers. By outsourcing these parts of the jobs, it enables your UK employees to spend more time doing other things, spending more time outside, or starting a new project, as they don’t have to worry about the completion of a project first.

Is outsourcing to India for me?

India has been statistically proven to be the most popular country to outsource to. India has proven itself to be up there with the developed countries when it comes to the world of IT and IT services, advanced software enables them to provide advanced services and solutions. The talent pool is vast, with over 2,000 graduates in IT every year, meaning it is the youngest employable population.

Before committing you will need to look in-depth at your business, look at the strengths and weaknesses, to see if your company could benefit from outsourcing some of the work.

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