It’s better to have a holistic picture of what’s going on in the CAD outsourcing area before you jump into it. Here are some in-your-face factoids:
Because it’s a pain outsourcing CAD to a strange foreigner…
You’re going to get into an intimate relationship with a person from another culture. Will he be polite, will he slap you around? Does he have body odor? Does he spit in public? Will your parents like him? Does he have table manners? Does he dress like a tramp? Does he have aligned teeth? Does he pick his nose in public? Will he return your calls?
If it fails, you look like an ass
Everyone can outsource CAD but you blew it. Is something wrong with you? Plus you mentioned your failure to a friend and he’s broadcast it all over town. What will people think now? Added to that, your friend succeeded in outsourcing his CAD to India in 2002! That kind of establishes that you’re stupid compared to him. Will any customers approach you now?
If it fails, you would have spent a ton of scarce time for nothing…
36 hours down the drain. You could have done the CAD drawings yourself in that time. Or spent it bonding with your largest customer. Or just pondered how to improve your latest design. Or tried to get an appointment with that large new prospect (after chatting up the receptionist). Or put your life back together at Starbucks.
You’re ruining your county’s economy by outsourcing CAD
All the jobs are moving to less expensive economies. Drafters in your country are increasingly unemployed. Why contribute to that? Also, the CAD drafters working in your office are going to be mightily ticked off when you start to outsource some of your CAD requirements. What’ll they think of you? They will leave for more secure employment pronto. Then you’ll be forced to outsource, i.e., to eat crow.
WHY IT DOESN’T SUCK TO OUTSOURCE CAD
You pay per use. When there’s no work to do, there’s no expense.
If you had your own full-time staff, you would have to pay them even during slack periods.
Your cost is at least 30% less
Let’s say you pay an in-house drafter $2000 per month. Add-on vacation pay, disability insurance, workman’s compensation, social security, cost of the workstation, cost of software, cost of space taken by the workstation, cost of electricity, cost of parking spaces plus any other benefits you might be giving a drafter and you’re nearer $3,000 a month. Outsource at $12 an hour for 160 hours (1 month) and your cost is $1,920. You save $1000 a month on a $3,000 tab, i.e. 33%.
You grow faster
The above savings can be deployed for growth: it can fund lunches with prospects, Christmas presents for clients, networking events, media and online advertising, association fees, et al.
You are more competitive
Because of your higher margins, you can cut your prices when you need to for winning contracts. You’re a lean, mean design machine that your rivals are seriously concerned about.
You have less administrative hassle
You don’t have to worry about filling out all those forms for your employees (like W2s), your facilities department will have fewer hardware maintenance headaches, your accounts department will see a reduction in payroll processing costs and your HRD department will not have to look under every rock in the State and spend a packet in ads to find new drafters when you need them.
These are the facts. NOW YOU DECIDE WHETHER TO OUTSOURCE YOUR CAD OR NOT.
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