Outsourcing
Recently I've had some clients contact me to repair design projects that they've had done through online tender sites. These are bidding sites where a client can upload a brief and budget, then designers from anywhere in the world can bid on winning the contract. As you'd expect this includes India, Pakistan and China where the average wage is far lower than ours.
What my clients have found is that, just as you'd expect, the standard is also much lower than ours.
In one instance the quality was so poor that an entire print run was thrown away due to a resolution that was far too low for the end product. As a show of good faith I offered to rebuild the project for her at zero cost, after the client made numerous attempts to get an acceptable product from the "designer" in question (not something I'd usually do but the client was already in a tight spot with their boss).
The emergence of these sites is sending the local industry into rapid decline, just like so many local industries that are battling cheap imported, lesser quality labour. Printing is another industry that is suffering a similar fate. Local printers, who have a quality product and who aim to meet environmental standards are competing on the world stage against firms in countries where the environmental standards are probably equivalent to Australian standards from the 1950s.
If you care about our local economy... If you care about quality... If you care about the environment, keep it local, or else your industry may be the next to suffer at the fate of cheap imports in this time of globalisation.
Here at Barracuda Design we strive to produce a quality product in a reasonable timeframe and for a fair cost. Our portfolio speaks for itself, and our long industry history stands for a constantly evolving skillset that you can be guaranteed will meet your goals and quality expectations.
Paul
