I stumbled across a thread on one of the better forums that I hangout on, WickedFire.com, about outsourcing. Basically, the thread starter had made a rant about how everytime he has outsourced, the results have sucked real hard. And he’s not alone.

One of the greatest mysteries of all time is that if nearly every entrepreneur who has ever outsourced to India (or other popular outsourcing destinations) has had a bad experience then why are more and more companies pouring millions in there?

What is exactly going on? If crappy work is what these companies are after, then why bother sending it to India when high-school kids in US can do crappier work at even lower costs.

I’ve been outsourcing to others and doing outsourcing for others myself since 1999. I’ve seen this industry evolve from virtually nothing to the giant it is today. In this article I am going to talk about why results of outsourced work always stink and how to avoid it.

If you take a look at the talent pool in India, you will find that there are three verities of people - the geniuses, the ‘lets just get it done’ and the wannabes.

These geniuses are what Harvard Business Review calls the ‘Clever People’ and they know their worth. This variety is the one which either gets hired by top-notch companies like Google or they become entrepreneurs. Get a Hint?

The ‘Lets Just Get it Done’ variety is the kind which has the technical skills to get things done and are the target for headhunters at outsourcing firms like genpact and Accenture. These are the people which form the bulk of talent pool in India and are in highest demand.

And then there are the wannabes. These are the people who have some skills but none of the outsourcing firms want them. But they still dream of working at a fraction of price of their US / UK counterparts and still live like kings here — thanks to the exchange rates!

So what do they do? They start finding work at sites like RentACoder, ODesk, eLance and DigitalPoint. And that is where the things start going downhill.

When people think of outsourcing, they know that they are going to outsource but don’t know who to approach. So, they put their wanted ads on freelancer sites like RentACoder, ODesk and eLance. These are invariably small projects and not worth the time for bigger outsourcing firms, so they don’t see these ads. The kind of people who hangout here are the third variety i.e. the wannabes.

These people overestimate their skills and over-promise — just because they want the order at any cost — and the entrepreneur thinks that they have found the road to El Dorado. After all, they have just been promised the world for pennies.

But when it comes to delivering the results, these people just don’t have the ability to deliver them. So what do they do? They try to do everything to everything to avoid the client, keep their money and everything else that you read in these rants about outsourcing.

However, if I was to say that the above is the only reason for bad experiences then I’d be totally wrong. Another reason is when these people take more orders than they can handle. Sure, they have the skills and they proved it to you. But what they forget is that they only have 24 hours in a day.

So what do they do when they can’t deliver to the client? They just avoid them and that translates into bad experience for the client. And then all of a sudden another rant thread magically appears on one of the forums.

Am I saying that you can only find the worst of people on these sites? Absolutely NOT. There are some really wonderful people looking for work on these sites but they are very few in number. Finding them is like finding a needle in haystack. And most of the times they will not match the price of this ‘get the job at any cost’ crowd.

So how do you save money by outsourcing and still get great results? che1959 gave the best idea which is to have a manager who keeps the offshore staff motivated and focused on the task at hand.

However, managing remote teams is not so easy and to get the best performance you need to have a good understanding of local culture. You also need to get to understand your employees, which is not best done unless you meet them and interact with them face to face.

I am a big fan of the old saying — Where there is a problem, there is an opportunity.

For some time I’ve been promoting Outsourced Link-Building Services (Details - Temp Page). Some people offer these services as prices that it sometimes makes you think if they are using child labour from the slums.

Now I cannot match these people in price but one thing which I totally blast them at is providing quality services and an amazing experience to the client. And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

How are we doing? Thankfully, each of my customer had nothing but great things to say about the service we provided to them.

And how can we consistently provide great service to hundreds of customers? Is it because I have brilliant people working for me who can pull such feats? Of course I have amazing people working for me but our secret sauce is our checklists and operations manual.

We ensure that things are done only in certain way to ensure the best quality services - always.

Seeing all these threads that keep popping up at these forums, I think it could be a great opportunity to expand into offering other services while providing great customer experience and amazing results.

Sure I will never be able to match the prices of others because I hire quality people and quality comes at a price. But I am sure that people are looking for the best value for their money rather than the cheapest labour they can find. Don’t you agree?

I’d love to hear what you will want us to do or avoid as an outsourcing solutions company. Feel free to post em in comments.

PS: If you want to try our Link Building Services for your website, email me at lord@lordbrar.com.