Top reasons to use NAV 2009

matttrax

ara3n wrote:

Tectura offers clients to do upgrades at lower rate provided the work is done overseas. Customers don't see a difference since they still get local support during testing etc. They save a lot of money. There are also other solution centers that do the same and are very experienced in upgrades.

I'm sure there are. Like I said, I've only dealt with a limited number of partners...although we're currently integrating a third party solutions with Navision. The integration for the two was developed by Tectura India, and let me just say the code / fact that they left out obvious things / definitely didn't do a full test, makes me think less than highly of them. Just my one experience with them, though. They may do great work otherwise.

Anyway, I think we've all gone a long way off the original thread title...

ara3n

It depends on which developer has done the work. And yes they do like everything to be specified in the Change Orders.
I have worked with them on a project for about 6 months and the work they do is about the same if not better of equivalent developer with same number of years.

Alex_Chow

ara3n wrote:

Tectura offers clients to do upgrades at lower rate provided the work is done overseas. Customers don't see a difference since they still get local support during testing etc. They save a lot of money. There are also other solution centers that do the same and are very experienced in upgrades.

I think most solution centers has this option at their disposal.

For me, I get at least 3-4 calls a week from companies in India asking whether I'm interested in outsourcing. And they are cheap, very cheap.

ara3n

Just be careful, the level of experience varies and I would test each developer that is actually doing the work.

David_Singleton

Alex Chow wrote:

... And they are cheap, very cheap.

You might need to explain what you mean by "Cheap", do you mean hourly rate or the cost to get the ob done. Generally a $250 an hour programmer is a LOT cheaper than a $15 per hour programmer.

Alex_Chow

ara3n wrote:

Just be careful, the level of experience varies and I would test each developer that is actually doing the work.

Yes, I've already had experience outsourcing. Not a very good experience. It takes more time to get your requirements across than just doing the work yourself.

Alex_Chow

David Singleton wrote:

Alex Chow wrote:

... And they are cheap, very cheap.

You might need to explain what you mean by "Cheap", do you mean hourly rate or the cost to get the ob done. Generally a $250 an hour programmer is a LOT cheaper than a $15 per hour programmer.

I mean the hourly rate is cheap. The cost to get the job "done" is a completely different story.

David_Singleton

Alex Chow wrote:

David Singleton wrote:

Alex Chow wrote:

... And they are cheap, very cheap.

You might need to explain what you mean by "Cheap", do you mean hourly rate or the cost to get the ob done. Generally a $250 an hour programmer is a LOT cheaper than a $15 per hour programmer.

I mean the hourly rate is cheap. The cost to get the job "done" is a completely different story.

The sad thing is that today to many clients just look at hourly rate, and just don't care that they will pay more in total, just the rate matters.

DenSter

David Singleton wrote:

The sad thing is that today to many clients just look at hourly rate, and just don't care that they will pay more in total, just the rate matters.

It's not just customers, it's partners too, for instance when evaluating the 'value' or freelancers. They often quote jobs in "number of hours", and then only think about how to make as much margin as possible. Using inexperienced programmers from overseas will then give them two "advantages": 1 - they are dirt cheap per hour, so lots of margin, and 2 - they take a lot of hours, so lots of hours to bill to their customer, against higher hourly margins. I've lost jobs because my hourly rate is "not competitive", and it seems like that's the only thing they look at during that process, it's really frustrating.

We're getting a long way away from the original topic though

Alex_Chow

DenSter wrote:

David Singleton wrote:

The sad thing is that today to many clients just look at hourly rate, and just don't care that they will pay more in total, just the rate matters.

It's not just customers, it's partners too, for instance when evaluating the 'value' or freelancers. They often quote jobs in "number of hours", and then only think about how to make as much margin as possible. Using inexperienced programmers from overseas will then give them two "advantages": 1 - they are dirt cheap per hour, so lots of margin, and 2 - they take a lot of hours, so lots of hours to bill to their customer, against higher hourly margins. I've lost jobs because my hourly rate is "not competitive", and it seems like that's the only thing they look at during that process, it's really frustrating.

We're getting a long way away from the original topic though

Yeah, we should get an admin to split this topic.

Anywho, I'm guilty of evaluating based on hourly rate as well. I think the reason is because teh hourly rate is constant, whereas the hours work "depends".

DenSter

What should really happen I think is to give the customer the choice, with an open evaluation of the alternatives. All things considered equal (equal quality, equal final cost, which is a very unrealistic assumption in my opinion) I think many customers will think it's important to have that choice.

rsfairbanks

David Singleton wrote:

DenSter wrote:

So now they are faced with the choice of either taking the chance and let their system blow up at any time, or actually plan an upgrade.

or buy SAP, which will be cheaper than upgrading Navision :whistle:

Just seen this if of any interest:
http://www.accountancyage.com/accountan ... ds-4642960

matttrax

I'm guilty of evaluating based on hourly rate as well.

I'm just curious, with partners billing at least $150 / hr, more like $175 lately I think, what do you think an independent consultant should bill at? At what rate do you say "This person probably knows what he's doing and this other one doesn't." I know there are no hard rules, just want to know what people are thinking.

DenSter

It shouldn't really matter where you get the help, the rate should be whatever value it brings. If you can get a local freelancer to complete the job in 2 days, versus an offshore partner that will take a week (not mentioning the time it takes to manage the effort, deal with language, time zones, etcetera), what do you think the rate should be? $100 an hour for the offshore company? that comes to $4000 for one week. What do you then pay the freelancer? No way that anybody in here is willing to pay the freelancer $4000/16 = 250 per hour, even though they would bring exactly the same value, only for less work.

By the way, when I worked at a partner, my standard hourly rate was $185, and I was regularly billed for up to $225 an hour. To me, freelancers rates should be at the same level as partner rates. You tell me, because I am also curious, what is fair? Maybe we should start a new topic on that

matttrax

My apologies. I just highlighted the text and clicked the quote button. I'll change it once I'm done here.

I never did much freelance work through partners, but I guess I was underestimating the value. I usually charged 50% more than what a salaried employee would make per hour. It still gave the partner a good deal of margin but paid me more than what I would make on salary. Also gave me a much more competitive rate. But now I'm wondering if it was too competitive.