Off-shore sub contracting (websites)
Discussion
We were due to start work this week on updating a client's website - nothing fancy, bit of creativity and functionality - about £2ks worth of work.
He called me in today to show me a website one of his partners companies had done.
It has some really fancy animation (all unique, nothing off the shelf), and lots of intricate links and functions.
It lacks a bit of creative flair but otherwise, its a really good, very active and highly animated site.
He asked me how much it cost. I suggested a ball park figure with all the animations would be in the region of about £12 - £15k (which is actually quite conservative but at this point, I'm thinking that this is what he now wants!!!)
They paid £500 for it!! 500 quid!
Our web chaps rekon that equates to about £5.80 an hour!
Where? In India.
How can we compete with that?
Good job I like curry!
He called me in today to show me a website one of his partners companies had done.
It has some really fancy animation (all unique, nothing off the shelf), and lots of intricate links and functions.
It lacks a bit of creative flair but otherwise, its a really good, very active and highly animated site.
He asked me how much it cost. I suggested a ball park figure with all the animations would be in the region of about £12 - £15k (which is actually quite conservative but at this point, I'm thinking that this is what he now wants!!!)
They paid £500 for it!! 500 quid!
Our web chaps rekon that equates to about £5.80 an hour!
Where? In India.
How can we compete with that?
Good job I like curry!
A friend of mine got a really nice website + maintainence for £750 .
From a very small design company in Spain.
The work was on time and exceeded my friends expectations .
Having said that , you'll still find most of the original creative work from our shores.
Famous razor with three not two blades ...yep UK
Pay as you go mobile vouchers
(because only 1/3 people were credit worthy)...yep UK
The trouble with website pricing is too many web/dot-com companies still think its 1998 when HTML skills earned you £45 / hour. Everyone still believes theres £££ money to be made online.
(because your neighbour/friend/
mate's mate/boss/secretary/son's friend from school
...sold their domain/dot-com for x million)
There is but you'll have to come up with something original & different.
Look how successful friends renuited has been !
Knowing the difference between a JPG/GIF/MNG file and what <META ...> tags are is no longer enough for that luxury lifestyle you dream of.
:-)
>> Edited by robertuk on Wednesday 3rd March 18:49
From a very small design company in Spain.
The work was on time and exceeded my friends expectations .
Having said that , you'll still find most of the original creative work from our shores.
Famous razor with three not two blades ...yep UK
Pay as you go mobile vouchers
(because only 1/3 people were credit worthy)...yep UK
The trouble with website pricing is too many web/dot-com companies still think its 1998 when HTML skills earned you £45 / hour. Everyone still believes theres £££ money to be made online.
(because your neighbour/friend/
mate's mate/boss/secretary/son's friend from school
...sold their domain/dot-com for x million)
There is but you'll have to come up with something original & different.
Look how successful friends renuited has been !
Knowing the difference between a JPG/GIF/MNG file and what <META ...> tags are is no longer enough for that luxury lifestyle you dream of.
:-)
>> Edited by robertuk on Wednesday 3rd March 18:49
steviebee said:
How can we compete with that?
Guess it's become a victim of it's own success... well, for some people, ie local web designers. being a global thing, the internet means that we can employ people far away for much less money. The downside for a clientis reliability, not knowing for sure if the project will be completed on time or the true quality of the work (unless you are a coder too and can verify that their code is bomb-proof)... if things go wrong it's much harder to shout at someone face to face or take them to court to get your money back, plus how do you tell if a company you've never heard of is ligitimate?
IMO most of the IT contractors i have met have charged too much for what they offer, and hence if it goes abroad its the UK IT contractors fault for over pricing. and hence force smaller and more prudent companies to source alternative IT contractors from Abroad.
Because of the overpricing in the late 90's i deceided to learn alot myself. Though not being upto Pro Standards its saves me a packet in IT Support costs.
Because of the overpricing in the late 90's i deceided to learn alot myself. Though not being upto Pro Standards its saves me a packet in IT Support costs.
robertuk said:
The trouble with website pricing is too many web/dot-com companies still think its 1998 when HTML skills earned you £45 / hour. Everyone still believes theres £££ money to be made online.
Totally agree Robert (also with Stevieb).
We set up a Multi Media department in 1995 when it was still a black art and yes, there was money to be made.
Three years ago, we stopped offering it as a separate service because to be honest, any decent graphic design/marketing consultancy is now expected to be able to produce a decent website in the same way they would a brochure or exhibition stand or whatever.
What we do now is to inject a bit of marketing savvy into online marketing rather than simply create an electronic version of a brochure.
The trouble is, that when clients are faced with £6 an hour or £90, it makes life difficult for us, even though what we provide will have greater substance, more validity and be far more than simpy a website!
Hummphhh!
stevieb said:
IMO most of the IT contractors i have met have charged too much for what they offer, and hence if it goes abroad its the UK IT contractors fault for over pricing. and hence force smaller and more prudent companies to source alternative IT contractors from Abroad.
Wrong. The employers hold equal blame for not telling contractors to "Sod off and come back with a decent price". Much like the rise in the housing market, buyers can't see the option of just laughing and saying "It's not worth that in a month of thursdays".
agent006 said:
Wrong. The employers hold equal blame for not telling contractors to "Sod off and come back with a decent price". Much like the rise in the housing market, buyers can't see the option of just laughing and saying "It's not worth that in a month of thursdays".
Im not completly wrong.
Quiet true, but in some ways i do not blame them for being greedy when they had there chance. But to be honest anyone working in IT now is paying the price by getting crap pay.
I had a quote a few weeks back to install my network, as i didnt really have time to do it, for 3 servers, 10 workstations. They wanted to charge me 1000 per server, and 200 per workstation.
Jesus im not thick, all the workstations were identical and only needed to configure one installation and ghost it to the server and run remote install from the floppy disc. And he wanted me to pay him £200 per computer to insert a floppy disc and run the backup install.
But also if you are running a critical server Eshop or have a company dependent on image and branding pay the cost that the Pro companies charge, but 90% a normal static site will be fine.
>> Edited by stevieb on Thursday 4th March 23:33
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