In 2004 Flip Media FZ opened its first office in Mumbai, India to service the fast growing web design and production requirements of our Middle Eastern clients. Our offshore interactive media production grew rapidly and now boasts over 70 staff in two locations – Mumbai and Trivandrum. In 2007 our Indian companies were restructured to offer outsourcing web design services to UK digital creative and design agencies. A London office was also opened to give agencies an onshore presence to help bridge the communication and management gap and to drive sales.

As advertising budgets shift from traditional to new media, offshore outsourcing services have become an increasingly viable option. For example, a simple banner campaign with its many sizes, variations in build specifications, multiple campaign concepts and possible language translations can add up to literally hundreds of permutations per campaign. Add in Flash and other rich media, plus the inevitable client calls for creative revisions, individual tagging for performance tracking and the production requirement can soon eat into even the largest digital agency resources. Digital newsletters and other forms of eDM with their complex HTML requirements can be similarly time consuming and expensive.

What makes banner and eDM production good candidates for offshore web design is that they require less oversight from the creative director than other forms of advertising, like TV commercials. An offshore team with the requisite creative and technical talent that understands the brand can produce the banner ads with a high degree of accuracy. In addition, files from these off-site locations can be transmitted instantly to facilitate faster reviews and delivery.

An offshore production strategy should be considered carefully to ensure a seamless transition and to avoid some of the pitfalls that can catch the unwary and unprepared.

First, all outsourcing should be done in a measured way and not as a quick-fix to solve an urgent resource issue. Reducing your production costs over the long-term through offshoring is only advisable if you are 100% certain that your strategic and creative delivery will not be compromised. While many production and some design activities can take place offshore, we recommend that the lead creative and concept work remains with your in-house creative team.

Second, choose your offshore partner carefully. Offshore creative web design outsourcing agencies like Flip Outsourcing that offer both a strong onshore and offshore presence may be slightly more expensive than pure offshore players but agencies like ours offer the best of both worlds. Operating with a sales and project management team onshore means you have access to the agency in your time zone and with the facility for face to face meetings when necessary. An onshore team also gives you the confidence that cultural sensitivities and quality standards in your targeted geographies will be better understood.

Finally, involve the offshore team early and often, just as you would an in-house production department. In addition to the creative concept, we need to understand your client’s marketing strategy and brand execution to be successful and add the most value. You will be pleasantly surprised at how collaboratively and efficiently an offshore web design outsourcing services once the communication processes and relationships have been established.

Fast, efficient and reliable communication processes are essential for a successful offshore web designing company. Flip Outsourcing has created our own work-flow system (Navitask) that has a six year proven track-record and is used as a mandatory tool throughout our operation. Navitask is offered free of charge to our agency partners and is simple and intuitive to use. It offers agencies the opportunity to follow every step of the production process in a transparent and structured manner.