we are establishing a commercial website that will have as a core
requirement the need to continously post information to it in the form
of pdf documents (received from third parties) as well as respond to
queries generated by clients (the senders of the information). There
is also an element of website management and supervision required eg
updating the database automatically daily with the importation of an
efile of 1500 records

Outsourcing to Indian IT companies or individuals is all the rage.
Exactly how cheap is it and may I have the contact details of
reputable indian firms that will agree to manage an active website for
a small but hopefully soon to be growing \internet website/ How do
they charge - fixed fee on an hourly rate?

Any other tips on outsourcing?

I personally can't recommend any specific firms, but the "best
practices" for outsourcing is to make sure that you have your product
definition document defined extremely carefully, and provide milestone
payments for work done to build the website.

Most outsource projects that fail are because the project was not
defined carefully enough, and rasonable milestones were not set and
checked along the way.

If you aren't technical, I would suggest hiring a local engineer to
help you write the specifications of the website so the outsourced
engineers will be able to build you exactly what you want/need.

Thanks - it is clear that the structure of the website terms of
reference have to be comprehensive - the question is more of an
ongoing management outsource where the key administrative functions
happen in the background day and night - these too will have to be
strictly set out in terms of reference. From what I have seen a lot of
the repetitive tasks etc are programmed into the website but a human
interface is needed. That human interface should be Indian - so then
what are the costs and what are the services offered by reputable
firms? There must be lots of precedent.

My name is Vamsi Krishna, I am Executive-Business Dev. in a California
based Software Company with its development center in Bangalore,
India. We do have client interaction centers in Singapore and
Malaysia. There are 74 software engineers working from India, we work
on various technologies. If you could suggest me a time to get in
touch with you, I would have my manager attend the call understand
your requirement, and then we can take things ahead. You can leave a
message at (909)-390-0483 Extn 219.