Offshoring services are long known to be effective for businesses as a cost-efficient upscaling solution. When you understand how offshoring works, it can be a game-changer for business success.
Offshoring has been helping companies save costs and create a path to business growth for the past 50 years. Companies within the manufacturing and construction sector were migrating their operations to the most cost-efficient locations, using the differences between currencies and economies to lower the prices they had to pay for resources, personnel, and procedures. As the internet gained steam during the 90s, so did offshoring. It is no longer limited to manufacturing and construction. Pretty soon, offshoring services extended to white-collar jobs, ran remotely to offset more costs should cost-cutting strategies become vital to operational growth or stability. If you want it, you can have your entire business moved offshore.
However, businesses must be strategic with offshoring to maximize their full potential. Before jumping into things, business owners must analyze, evaluate, and strategize like every other business plan. To make offshoring work for your company, you must follow a path that ensures success.
Where Should You Get Offshoring Services?
Offshoring involves the strategic relocation of company operations to another geographical area. As a result, the first step to benefit from the service is to find the best location for it. However, the strategy is more than just determining the placement of operations.
Many factors will help you determine the best offshoring destinations for your business, especially when you are in a highly developed country. The top, and usually the most influential factor, is financial attractiveness. After all, offshoring’s primary benefit is to help clients save on high costs from their local market. With that in mind, countries with low-cost economies have become hot spots for business process services. According to the findings of the Statista Research Department, these countries rank at the top of the most financially attractive locations for offshoring:
Among the top five most financially attractive countries for offshoring, two are considered business process outsourcing giants: India and the Philippines. Both countries are well-known for providing high-quality service for significantly low costs, making them ideal locations for businesses looking to save while expecting high value in return.
What Do You Want Out of Offshoring?
There will be specific triggers as to why companies use offshoring services. They can be disruptive to the entire operations, with organizations pulling resources and finances to make way for offshore teams and facilities. Although it can save you high costs in the future, offshoring can still be messy and complicated.
There needs to be a clear strategy for any business-related matter, particularly when the company is undergoing a significant shift. When you decide to offshore, you must know the benefits you expect from it other than financial attractiveness. Is the business function achievable to perform remotely? Will you receive access to a more talented talent pool for your specific offshored processes? Will buying equipment and building facilities contribute to your goal of saving up on costs when availing offshoring services? Answering these questions should be part of your strategic planning before approaching offshoring partners in your chosen location. That aspect will be critical in your next step, which involves discussing what you expect from the service.
What Do You Need to Make Offshoring Functional?
The whole offshoring service is a series of complex steps with a single purpose: to provide clients with fully functional offshore teams to perform business operations remotely. However, there are a lot of steps that go into the process. As mentioned above, the first step to maximizing offshoring’s attractive benefits is planning.
Planning falls squarely on the client’s shoulders, which includes defining the goals and scope of the project. Identifying the country and offshoring companies you consider ideal partners will also be necessary. Clients must compare rates and benefits when finding the perfect offshoring partner. Without planning, it might take a long while before you can reap the rewards that come with offshoring or get a return for your investments.
Once you finalize your plan, you can start collaborating with your chosen offshoring partner. In this stage, both sides must talk about each other’s expectations within the partnership, including crafting strategies to make offshoring effective. Roadblocks will also be present, especially with both sides adhering to separate government policies and regulations. The collaboration aims to create a concrete path toward building the offshore team, even if it is still in a blueprint.
Part of collaborating involves defining the roles and responsibilities of the offshore team. As a result, the client and the vendor must discuss the positions that need to be filled. The client must provide details about the professionals they are looking for, from their skills and knowledge to their expected salary and company culture fit. The offshoring company, meanwhile, will start to brainstorm for recruitment strategies to tap into the local labor market. Since the vendor has connections with the country’s workforce, their recruitment efforts will resonate better with locals, ensuring that finding candidates will be seamless.
The recruitment stage will bring about the ideal candidates that clients need to fill for their offshore team. With access to another country’s labor pool, clients can benefit from specialized expertise that would otherwise be too expensive to bring in-house. Moreover, clients will share the hiring and overhead costs with the offshoring company, making it possible to extend a competitive job offer to candidates. This situation is why countries known to be ideal offshoring destinations are what they are. They have strong government support and are often the economic pillars of their respective nations.
Once the initial offers have been extended, offshoring firms will start to set up remote facilities for clients and their offshore teams. It begins with communication channels, ensuring that both sides can easily connect through secured apps or software clients currently use. Custom suites with the client’s branding will also be the top priority, full of equipment and devices that offshore teams need to perform their responsibilities. Moreover, offshore teams can benefit from the offshoring firm’s resources, including amenities like pantries, restrooms, breakrooms, sleeping quarters, and more. The offshoring firm will also collaborate with clients on the team’s structure. Many clients opt to bring in-house managers to handle remote operations, while some hire locals with the proper credentials to lead the offshore team themselves.
Once everything is in order, offshore teams will begin operations. All the while, the offshoring firm will handle legal matters, as well as tax preparation and payroll. If clients are satisfied with their offshore team’s performance, they can add more roles as they wish. If the offshore team needs improvement, the offshoring firm will provide educational resources and training programs. Support services will be vital in this role. Here are the following support services that most offshoring teams offer:
- Human resources
- Finance
- IT Support
- IT Cybersecurity
- Facilities
- Client Services
- Marketing
- Training and Development
Support services can be the difference between an effective offshoring firm and an inefficient one, making it necessary to consider all offered services in the offshoring solutions package.
Overall, offshoring solutions require the client and the vendor to be all hands on deck. To move forward with success, a mutually beneficial partnership must be achieved first.
Make Offshoring Work for You with iSupport Worldwide!
Clearly, for offshoring solutions to work wonders for your company, you need to start planning. However, that is only half the process. You’ll also need to partner with an experienced and competitive offshoring company in the Philippines known for its excellence in the highly regarded business service.
iSupport Worldwide is an established modern offshoring company based in the Philippines, one of the most attractive offshoring destinations in the world. The company is among the top BPO companies in the nation, recognized by prestigious multinational award-giving bodies like Inc. magazine.
The organization is dedicated to helping businesses of any size, language, and industry realize their growth and success dreams. If you want to use customized offshoring solutions that will work for you, you can count on iSupport Worldwide. Sign up here to get started with the process!