Outsourcing to India is no silver bullet, says Algy Williams, managing director at games specialist Babel Media.

‘You have to budget for extra management time and you can easily find your margins disappearing,’ he says.

Babel tests and translates computer games, making sure that they run smoothly on different platforms, such as mobile phones. Working with Vodafone and Sun Microsystems, among others, Babel’s sales currently stand at £6.4m.

Three years ago, Williams realised that he needed to find a high-quality, low-cost base for checking that games always functioned properly.

Despite concerns about intellectual property and bandwidth, he chose to outsource to India.

‘It is a huge risk to set up on your own there, so we found a local partner. It is still radically cheaper for us, but we found that you need close control and communication,’ he says.

‘Pure outsourcing is fraught with difficulty. You have to be firm. You want to be 200 per cent sure that your partner understands what you are trying to achieve.’

Fresh from a trip to Bombay, Williams believes that these efforts are about to pay off, particularly as a new generation of consoles is on the way.

‘International publishers are dropping their reservations about outsourcing,’ he says.

‘They are realising that if they want to cut their costs, they will have to look at India.’