Introduction
Offshoring has developed into one of the most dependable and successful commercial operations; it is a recognized competitive strategy by many successful businesses. Even the best business strategies, though, have advantages and disadvantages. Outsourcing has a ton of advantages, from more personal freedom to increased earnings to sometimes just plain need. I won’t get into the specifics of outsourcing benefits; instead, I’ll get right to the point: how to accomplish it.
Of course, outsourcing can be a great method to advance a business quickly and effectively by enabling you to use corporate resources for more lucrative endeavors. It is not, however, a universal wonder solution.
We’ve outlined 8 essential actions that every company should take to ensure the success of their outsourcing journey. Each one, when done properly, will provide a measurable outcome and bring you one step closer to outsourcing success.
Advantages of Offshoring
1 . Set clearly defined goals
Finding out what you do, what you want to do, what you don’t want to do, and ultimately what you can and should outsource is the first step. Divide a sheet of paper (or a spreadsheet) into four columns as follows:
- How I Act,
- What I Do That I Don’t Like To Do or Am Bad At
- What I Would Like To Do,
- What I Can Hand Off.
Once more, it’s best to start the subcontracting process before you need more assistance so that you’re prepared when it comes. Analyze the business justifications for starting to outsource. Is it to help your business development in a certain way?
2. Evaluate your existing systems and processes
Systems and processes are a major problem for many firms. They believe they lack the knowledge and time to select and implement the best solutions, and they frequently don’t think it should be a top priority.
Everyone is extremely familiar with how things are done when a small group of people performs the majority of the labor. They have worked together long enough to become familiar with each other’s procedures and are well-versed in their own. There is therefore no perceived need to formalize, document, or automate anything. However, such a business model is unsustainable. Furthermore, if you intend to scale or go offshore, you can’t operate it that way.
It’s best to think about your systems and processes today if you intend to offshore. Because once you hire your first offshore employees, they won’t have much background in your company and will need to know what to do and how to accomplish it right away.
Making sure that your CRM and business platforms are available to everyone is crucial. To support your business processes, you must make sure you have solid systems in place. A system might be as straightforward as making sure that your client management database or training library is updated often. This makes sure that the business procedures that have been documented are current and that your team has access to the most accurate information possible.
Be careful to conduct thorough research to identify the tools that will benefit your team the most. The most important thing is that no matter where they are situated, your staff can quickly and securely access the information they require to do their tasks.
3. Consider your offshore management team
You must be prepared to assume control of the management and training of your offshore staff along with your managers and team. How would you explain your company’s mission and culture to them? Who will look after your population?
You should spend time on this because hiring a manager for your offshore workforce will improve outcomes. Having a dedicated manager for an outsourced staff improves communication and might hasten the setup of your overseas team.
4. Identify the candidate you want
Create a profile of your ideal employee as the next stage. The easier the next steps will be, the more particular you are here, and the more qualified applications you receive. Knowing exactly what you want increases your likelihood of getting it.
Hiring unskilled subcontractors may appear to be more cost-effective. However, whatever time you save will be countered by the time needed to teach someone to fulfill the content requirements you and your niche’s clients have.
5. Determine how you like to work
How you get along with people will depend on your personality. Frequently, you’ll work with vendors in the same manner that you prefer to work with your clients. Do you like face-to-face interactions and remote working relationships, or do you want to provide orders and let your contractors operate independently?
Do you desire to lead a group of remote subcontractors and possess the abilities to make them successful employees? The goal is to increase the effectiveness of your work. Therefore, outsource to people whose personalities and working styles best align with yours or who can match your company’s needs.
6. Review and research an offshore partner’s experience and stability
There can be a big difference between the experience levels of one provider versus another. Consider us, Nordic Consult Inc, we have been operating for more than 20 years in the IT Consultation industry. With experience like that, you gain a number of benefits from companies with plenty of experience, including:
You gain a number of benefits from companies with plenty of experience, including:
- Greater stability
- Deep local knowledge and improved community reintegration
- Experience in filling positions with highly specific requirements for your industry
- A huge database of potential employees
- Working with businesses of all sizes in the past.
A crucial consideration when selecting your offshore partner is stability. You are, after all, at the beginning of a relationship that will (ideally) last a long time and be lucrative for your company. Offshoring is a significant and expanding industry, particularly in the Philippines, however, if your partner is unprepared, problems like:
7. Address the related legal and accounting considerations
You can hire qualified assistance in this situation, such as an accountant like Wall or an attorney. While blog postings, articles, and other content might be educational and offer free insights, they cannot replace the advice of qualified legal and financial professionals.
It is advisable to get that assistance as soon as your company is established to prevent legal and accounting errors and their effects. It becomes more important due to outsourcing. However, the majority of small business owners handle these problems on their own and offer some accounting advice for outsourcing.
- Significant changes in the value of the currency can be detrimental to their business and may affect your partnership.
- Your offshore partner should have risk management practices in place to reduce any possible disruptions due to outages and technical concerns.
- Business continuity: Reputable offshore partners will have elaborate business continuity plans in place. It is wise to find out exactly what preparations any potential offshore partner has in place.
It is simpler to refer to these procedures for training now that you have a solid grasp of your business operations and have documented all the business processes involved. You have made a quick reference for training by keeping all the data in a database or library that everyone in the company may access.
8. Find the most qualified applicants for the outsourced post
After posting your position and waiting for responses, you should go out and actively seek candidates. Use the same websites mentioned above to browse postings while keeping in mind your search criteria from step 4.
You ought to be prepared to write a letter to everybody whose job intrigues you. With the exception of providing a little additional information about yourself or your company, providing your contact information, and requesting a few good times to set up a Skype call for an interview, you can pretty much base your letter solely on the previous steps and the job posting. Always provide two to three times that work for you; a motivated candidate will typically be able to make one of those times work.
Conclusion
Outsourcing has been a key to success for countless organizations that have benefited from its potential to reduce employment costs by up to 70%, improve efficiencies and provide the support needed to overcome unexpected hurdles and pursue business growth.
If you have IT tasks or projects that you want to outsource you can check out our services or contact us. As the Sales Executive of Nordic Consult, I can answer any questions you might have and as a company in the IT consulting industry for more than 15 years we might just have the solution for you.