CAD Services: Outsourcing CAD Carries Risk for Indian Providers

Outsourcing is a hot (and often sore) topic nowadays. Engineers and architects in North America are badly enough off as it is, so it is not surprising that there is often an anguished cry when architectural drafting or engineering drafting is outsourced.

But life is not all milk and honey for Indian CAD service providers, either. For instance, the risk involved with clients’ fluctuating workload is now transferred to the CAD service provider. The CAD service provider must have enough customers so that the aggregate of all their fluctuating workloads is fairly steady. This is more easily said than done!

One reason that creating such an arrangement is not easy is that nowadays North American customers frequently shut down altogether.  If the provider had set up a team dedicated for that engineering or architectural customer, the CAD service provider would suddenly find that dozens or hundreds of his drafters had no work.

Contrary to what many may believe, it is not desirable for a CAD service provider in India to suddenly send away large groups of drafters. To a large extent an employer is responsible for the quality of life of his drafters as well as their long-term well-being. Since their families depend on him for sustenance is important that, as far as possible,  the provider does not get into a situation where he cannot pay them even in extreme circumstances, such as in the case of a large engineering or architectural customer shutting down.

The only solution is for the CAD service provider to have a large, steady steam of new customers to whom he can quickly assign any drafters who are without work. This in turn necessitates an effective marketing machine that generates that large stream of customers. And as we all know, devising such a machine is by no means a piece of cake. It calls for deep knowledge of the various marketing channels available as well as the fiscal resources to invest in those channels.

The assumption of this “workload risk” by Indian CAD service providers is something that is not often thought about, let alone talked about. At present time Indian CAD service providers can just about manage the magical feat of juggling required, but it remains to be seen how long their skill will continue to meet the challenge.