Part I How Low can the Cost of Name Generation go?

Link to Full Discussion on ERE

I get calls 4-5 times a week from outsourced providers all over the world offering their services to help me offset my internal sourcing/Name Generation costs.

They all promise the highest quality, fastest turn around and exclaim that their researchers are typically, BA, BS, MS, MA PhD's whatever.

What I'm amazed is that the cost of a Name varies greatly from country to country.

How low can the cost of Name Generation go?

When I started out, in 1995, we charged $10 a name (all phone generated by the way) and paid our researchers $5 per name. Then we went to $15, then $20 then $30 and today HTC charges $50 per name and we haven't raised our prices in at least 5 years.

I know there was a discussion on this forum a while back about how Name Generation has become commoditized, especially Internet Name Generation but at what point does the value of the candidate's name or access to it out value the cost to produce or the value a Company would get out of it?

At what point does quality outweigh the cost?
Do clients care, if they can buy a name for $5 or $50
at $5 does quality really matter that much?

Are Internet Generated Names inherently worth Less than Phone generated names due to the ease of generating them. And if so why aren't Internet Name Generators lowering their prices to be more competitve with offshore options.

FYI I have yet to see an offshore Sourcing company offer phone based Name Generation. Why not, isn't the fact that they haven't offered phone Name Generation so far a testament to how easy Internet Name Generation is and how difficult Phone NG can be?



Jeff Weidner
HTC Research Corp
jeffweidnerlinkedin@gmail.com
925 313 9005 X 200