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>
> If companies find it economical to send tech writing
> offshore, and tech
> writers feel that the resulting work isn't as good
> as it should be, it seems
> to me there could possibly be a business model
> waiting to be developed.
>
> Has anyone approached either the offshore companies
> or their US customers
> with proposals to manage and QA the documentation?
> It seems to me that on
> either end, there could be a positive response if
> you could show a value
> proposition of significant quality improvements
> against a relatively small
> addition to the cost. The bulk of the work would be
> done by the less
> expensive offshore workers, but a smaller set of
> managers, editors, etc.
> would do the QA and maintain standards to an agreed
> level.
>
It's an idea but even if it did work, you'd have one
management/QA job created for every - what, 4, 5, 6? -
writing slots lost. Getting such a job would be a good
break for the guy who lost his previous writing gig,
but it would take someone who's a whizz-bang pitchman.
Personally, I think it wouldn't work because the idea
you propose would make the numbers worse. Example:
right now, some manager can say that he saved the
company $250,000 by offshoring all the TW work. Now
he's supposed to go back and say the company needs to
shell out money for an American to QA the docs, so the
saving will actually be only $200,000? I don't see
that happening.)
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