I am getting lots of contact these days from Offshore development companies - mostly from China and India - who want “business partnerships” to enter European markets.
Fair enough, that’s what I do.
But, whatever happened to USP’s? Are Unique Selling Points a thing of the past?
Each and everyone of them boasts huge office capacity in (Shanghai / Bangalore / wherever), lowest prices, highest quality, 24 hour contact, Microsoft certification, etc, etc, etc…. YAWN!
Don’t they do market studies? There is a lot of competition out there, some with established offices (particularly in the UK). They would have to offer something more than the others, and price is not necessarily it.
I have noticed their horrified surprise when I ask them if anyone at all in their teams speaks French, if they want to enter this market. Do they have a web page or two in French that I could point a potential client to? No, they do not. And their business models only work if everyone speaks some form of English.
I did once run a cross-continent project.. design was carried out in the UK programming and testing in Australia and final user/acceptance tests back in the UK. Now there was no outsourcing involved, everyone worked for the same company, everyone spoke English. But even with these favourable circumstances, things were not easy and misunderstandings kept getting in the way.
So, I have stopped talking to these companies. I do not want to waste their time or mine explaining how to enter - for instance - the French market. I hope they find someone who serves them well and wish them every success… I don’t think many of them make it though.
