We all know that outsourcing an IT job offshore can save us a bundle. Posting a job locally, going over dozens of resumes, interviewing the selected candidates can be quite a chore.

Once the ideal candidate is selected, processing the hiring documents through human resource personals, paying the employee salary and benefits, assigning computer workstation, office space, parking space, etc all together can cost you a significant amount of money per employee.

Then when an employee leaves, you have to do the drill all over again to hire another employee. You can avoid the entire headache by outsourcing your photo retouching or image editing jobs offshore.

Clipping path, photo retouching, image editing, glamor enhancement, background removal, hair masking or image masking etc are some popular services you can outsource to an offshore graphic design company. You let your outsourcing partner mange the employees and take care of hiring, training etc. You just send them the job and wait for it to come back to you in a timely manner.

However, you have to take some necessary precautions before selecting an outsourcing partner as selecting the wrong partner can cost you a lot. Below are some areas you should focus on before outsourcing your job offshore.

Communication:

Make sure you are comfortable with the level of communication you get with your prospecting outsourcing partner. If you can’t get your ideas across, then it will be very hard to work with that company.

Timeliness:

Send them an email inquiring about their services and see how long it takes them to respond. If you hear back within the same or next business day, then they are pretty timely in responding to their clients. If it takes a few days or a week to hear back, then that would be a company to stay away from.

Start with a Test Job:

Before assigning your main project to them, send one or two test images to see how the quality of service is. If the test images come out according to your expectation, then assign a small project and slowly start assigning more and more work if everything works out well with the small jobs.

Time Difference:

Most outsourcing companies are located offshore which means there is as much as 12 hours time difference between you and your outsourcing company. If you can’t communicate to them during your normal business hour, then it will be pretty difficult to work with that company.

Email and Phone Support:

It is always better to have both email AND phone support rather than just email support. Sending an email and waiting to hear back the next day on a time sensitive project is not the level of support you will be looking at.

Why Joolo.com Stands out as your Image Editing Outsourcing Partner:

We are a Toronto, Canada based company with offshore production studio. Our regular clients have access to direct phone support during their normal business hours. Which means you can call us directly during your office hours on any question you might have on your projects.

And since our production studio in located offshore, you get the benefit of low cost outsourcing. Low cost and local support makes us your top choice in outsourcing your image editing projects.

This is not a new debate. Ever since offshore outsourcing started, there has been a lot of noise about how offshore outsourcing is a threat to the local economy. Some even go a bit too far by claiming that offshore outsourcing is a bigger threat than terrorism.

It is true that some jobs are being lost here locally due to jobs being outsourced offshore. Lobbying groups put a lot of pressure on policymakers impose restrictions on offshore outsourcing.

But come to think of it. Whether it is small to medium size business or a large corporation, they have one goal in common which is to maximize their profit. It is either maximize the profit for themselves or for their shareholders and they will do that at whatever steps necessary. If offshore outsourcing saves them millions in wages and benefits, then it will be very practical to assume that these companies will do so to maximize their profit.

Skilled labor at low cost makes this offshore outsourcing irresistible for the business owners. If I as a business owner can get a job done for $10k a year offshore as opposed to paying a local employee $70k a year plus benefits, then the outcome is pretty obvious.

People who oppose offshore outsourcing fail to mention the benefits of it. Yes, it is true that some jobs are being lost. In this current state of global economy, nothing no one can do about it. However, when the jobs are outsourced offshore, that makes the profitability of the businesses go higher. More reported income means more tax for the government. Government can use the extra tax money not just to maintain the usual expenses but can use part of the extra tax money on programs that can create more jobs locally.

PCMAG published a nice article titled “The Benefits of Offshore Outsourcing.” If you do further research, you will find a lot of other articles outlining the benefits of outsourcing. At the end, businesses will have to make a decision as whether to outsource the job offshore or keep it locally.