Outsourcing - BPO
Outsourcing CAD Offshore: Assessing Service Provider Reliability
If you have decided to outsource some of your CAD to an offshore
service provider ("OSP"), it is important that you carefully
evaluate your potential partner first. Outsource to them only
if they successfully pass through your appraisal sieve. Here are
some important evaluation criteria and methods for assessing them:
---> Criterion: The OSP Should Be Web-Savvy Check if the OSP
has a website. If they do not, in all probability dealing with
them will yield a bad experience. If they have a website, check
whether their postal address and telephone number are displayed
on it so that they are physically reachable.
Give the OSP credit if the website has mostly text with limited
graphics, has almost no animation, clearly explains what the OSP
is doing and is easy to navigate. This implies detailed knowledge
on website design, which increases their ‘web-savvy’
rating.
Your CAD outsourcing is most probably going to involve transferring
large amounts of data over the web. This calls for an OSP who
is proficient with email. To evaluate this, send the OSP a message
asking for more information and see if you get a response within
12 hours. The response should be perfectly focused on your question.
You have to be careful an autoresponder (ie, a web-based answering
machine) is not replying to you, so formulate your question to
require a tailor-made reply.
Subsequently send two more questions related to the work you
are considering giving the OSP. Check whether these responses
too are timely and relevant. If the OSP has a form on their website
for sending them email, give them extra points (smart webmasters
do not put their email addresses on their websites to discourage
spam robots from finding the addresses and sending junk mail to
them).
---> Criterion: The OSP Should Have a Satisfactory Profile
Email the OSP a questionnaire that gathers a wide range of information
on them. Decide whether you like what you find. This questionnaire
should cover address information, telephone number of the individual
dealing with you, company history, financial performance, references,
specific CAD capabilities, track record, installed hardware, software
platforms, manpower, HRD policies, data security and physical
security. (If you would like to save the extended time and specialised
labour involved in compiling such a questionnaire, you can buy
a bank of 200+carefully formulated questions from The Magnum Group
at http://themagnumgroup.net/cadques1.htm for under $15.)
Get in touch with some of their references and ask them whether
they had a good experience with the concerned OSP.
---> Criterion: The OSP Should Know Their CAD
Now it’s time to ask them for a small paid sample, preferably
a minor portion of a project you plan to outsource. Check if their
output is satisfactory (you would know best about this). Evaluate
whether they asked you all the questions they should have before
they started drawing, which is a sign of good planning practice.
---> Criterion: The OSP Should Know Their Commercial Paperwork
Send them a detailed specification of the CAD work you want done
and ask for a quotation. Evaluate their quotation based on whether
it clearly describes technical scope, cost, delivery time, non-disclosure,
modification costs, payment terms, guarantee and mode of payment.
If all these topics are overed, you are probably talking to someone
with commercial competence --- good!
---> Criterion:Be Satisfied with the Contact Person
Phone this person and chat briefly with him/her. Decide whetheryou
feel he/she is competent and easy to deal with.
~~~ The Evaluation's Over: Now What? ~~~
By now you have an idea of how good the OSP is. Start by sending
them a modest assignment. Don't be worried if there are many technical
questions: these should decrease as the OSP does more assignments
for you. But that's not all. Careful selection of offshore CAD
service providers is not the only factor involved in successful
offshore CAD outsourcing. A major cause of outsourcing breakdown
is the client's failure to manage the ongoing process. There is
a lot to be said here; it will all emerge in my next article ---
stay tuned!
About The Author
Lakshman Balaraman, MS (University of Michigan), B Tech (IIT),
runs an architectural and engineering design firm, The Magnum
Group, India (http://themagnumgroup.net), that provides CAD drafting
services to the global marketplace. You can freely reprint his
articles in your website, ezine, or ebook.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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