Outsourcing advertising make-up to Express KCS in India allowed the brand new El Sol News in the Canary Islands to start up in record time  with great quality. Launched at the beginning of December, it's a free fortnightly broadsheet aimed at English speaking tourists and residents on Fuertaventura, the second largest island in the Canaries archipelago, which has a largely Spanish-speaking native population.

Based in New Delhi, Express KCS runs a 24-hour operation, so it can turn round all ad design, layout and modifications as they are requested.

Andrew Buxton is publishing director, managing director and a partner in El Sol News. He has worked in newspaper production for years including a spell at UK systems developer PCS. “I had heard of the idea of outsourcing to India and I actually found Express KCS on the Internet,” he says. Although he'd been planning the launch for some months, in the end there was very little time between the finalisation and the intended launch date of 1 December.

“We had already had a chat a couple of months earlier, but then Andrew called a week before publication and asked if we could start right away, so we went over for a meeting and set it up,” recalls Robert Berkeley, managing director of Express KCS.

“It would have taken a month longer without outsourcing,” Buxton says. “There aren't enough experienced people here on the island to handle this type of work, especially as they'd have to be English speakers.”

While outsourcing has an image of lower costs, Buxton says that this wasn't as important as the level of service that Express KCS can offer. “We get really good ads and a fast turnaround.” El Sol 's full-time staffing levels are fairly minimal – three on the editorial side including editor Isabel Cardenes, operations manager Clare Mapp and designer Marisa Ruiz, plus advertising manager Carmelo Carballo with two sales staff, and distribution manager Steve Mapp. “Going up to two full-time designers to handle ads in-house would have been a big leap for us, while freelancers are more expensive without the same level of service,” Buxton explains.

El Sol News ' advertising is largely from local restaurants, hotels, tourist attractions (such as whale watching) and property agents. Most ads are taken by the sales staff and the majority will require design and layout, or modification for regular repeats. Relatively few include electronic artwork.

“Our ad manager writes a job sheet for each ad, that includes any copy plus instructions for the style needed. After a week or two she learned to write the instructions in a way that Express KCS could understand, so now they come back perfectly.”

Pictures and logos are scanned if necessary and sent by FTP with the job sheet and a URN identification code. Express KCS returns the ads as PDF files that are dropped into position on the electronic page layout.

With the first few issues running smoothly, Buxton is planning further ventures. El Sol News will soon gain a website, also created and hosted by Express KCS, and there are plans for Spanish and German language editions. “Outsourcing let us get off the ground rather than not at all,” Buxton concludes. “We might have got going somehow, but not with the same quality!”