Devoted to women of color in business

Because of the nature of my work (web development) I get periodic inquiries from offshore companies wanting to know if I'd like to hire them to fulfill the demands of my business.

Here's one such message (a .WAV file from my voicemail):

Listen to file 

If you can't hear it, it's a solicitation message and it's a little bit garbled.

This is the e-mail that came with the message:

<snip>

This is

[name here]*  (*for privacy, I took out any identifying information)

., working for WEBDEVCOMPANY* - a web Solution Company. I visited your company`s website and wanted to inquire whether you would be interested to hire our well experienced web designers or web developers.

Our Company provides efficient web designers & web developers who are equipped with creative minds, fast fingertips, and are proficient in latest technology. We take great pride in our diverse and exciting designs, from simple text and graphics to more intricate designs, we provide you with amazing services at very affordable prices. No matter what your budget is we will give you the absolute best solution to accomplish everyone of your goals. We invite you to browse our website and learn more about our services.

WEBDEVCOMPANY offers reputed companies monthly human resource hiring. We provide you with a team of highly trained professionals who are well experienced in ASP.NET, Web designing, Graphic designing, PHP, MYSQL and much more.
Our resources will do your work with high quality and a very cost effective rate.

You can hire our professionals for $7.27/hr onwards. This cost effective rate does not imply that we compromise with the quality of our work. Please go through the following links and get back to us if you are interested.

We have two different packages which will be suitable for your web solution needs.
</snip>

 (image from the demotivational series at e-forwards.com)

All in all, a pretty standard solicitation message, but it does remind me to revisit my policies on staffing.

When I visited the Philippines a few years ago, I thought it would be good to establish some connections with staffing there: the cost of living is much lower so wages are much lower. However, since then I've come to realize that our customers appreciate the "personalized" touch, the excellent value they have with us, and the ability to interact with us, and they are not willing to sacrifice these (as opposed to going with a cheaper solution, which oftentimes is exactly that: a cheaper, not necessarily better, solution).

In terms of what we offer and what we believe in, I feel good that we are able to hire locally, create long-term relationships with our staff, improve people's lives in our communities, and provide great service to our customers. Hiring overseas wouldn't be in keeping with our values. We may be able to grow much more quickly if we hired offshore, but in the long run I wouldn't feel like we were building a company that was focused on our mission of community involvement.

That said, $7.27 an hour is a bargain for web development work. I know a number of people who follow the "Four Hour Workweek" also hire people offshore as virtual assistants or to help with e-mail, research, or data entry. Offshoring is not just grunt work: there are medical transcriptionists and accountants who are also being hired offshore.

What do you think? Some would say that the money invested in offshore companies means you're increasing the quality of life for a Filipino, or an Indian, or a Russian, in their own country. Some would also say that with a focus on efficiency, you get tremendous amounts of work done for the money paid. After all, this may be no different than manufacturing goods and even foodstuffs in China and shipping them to the United States to sell at a higher profit.

 For now, however, I appreciate having staff that I trust and who I've met and know.