45 Tips for Sourcing Work Overseas
13 Consider a book's print run and weight. Books with higher page counts (200 and up) and larger print runs (75,000-plus) are usually best kept in the United States due to shipping costs.
—BookTech Magazine
Deciding on a country.
Ask your peers which countries they have had favorable experiences with in outsourcing. One expert suggests:
14 Canada offers slightly lower pricing, and quick, reliable delivery by truck.
15 Mexico and South America offer faster delivery than Asia at better prices than North America [for many jobs]. Quality control remains an issue.
16 England and Europe generally offer competitive pricing when the U.S. dollar is strong, faster delivery than Asia, and generally speak English well.
17 Japan, Singapore and Korea are known for excellent quality, but are struggling to match pricing from China. They also have good paper availability.
18 China and Hong Kong offer the best pricing, but language can present communication problems, and paper must be ordered in advance.
19 India, Malaysia and Thailand are known for spotty service and quality issues without any great advantage over China in pricing. In general, at the present time, it is best to avoid these countries.
—George Dick
Location, Location, Location.
Also consider the ease of doing business in foreign countries. Some tips to help:
20 Choose offshore partners with sites in countries/cities with a politically stable democracy with free press, rule of law and a market economy.
21 Choose partner sites in countries with excellent technical-educational systems and entrepreneurial cultures to ensure that the site is staffed with highly skilled and trained … experts.
22 It helps if the country has abundant, skilled, English-speaking manpower to ensure effective communications ….
—Rakesh Gupta
23 Decide which countries represent political risks. China has strict controls on nudity and forbids mention of Tibet in published works, for example.
