The Keys to Success – Orbitus Solutions

How To Make Outsourcing Successful

Outsourcing can be a great way to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and gain access to specialized skills and expertise

Managing an offshore team is almost exactly the same as looking after your team at home. To make it work, you need to be prepared to invest some time and energy into your team.

Take the time

Offshoring is an opportunity to expand your business faster and save on costs. However, to make it work you’ll need to invest time up front. It’s not a ‘set and forget’ solution. You need to train, mentor and speak with your offshore team on an ongoing basis, just as you do with your onshore team. This will improve the quality of service for both you and your customers, and consequently lead to a stronger return on investment.

Treat your offshore team like your onshore team

Your offshore team is part of your business. And they’re people. Just like your local (onshore) team, they’ll perform best when they feel included and when they have excellent working relationships with their colleagues and managers. So be sure to talk to them and build strong relationships. This will help them:

NOTE : Simple programs like Skype, Google Meet, Zoom and Go to Meeting make it super easy to have face-to-face team huddles.

Dedicate Lead to manage them

Your offshore team is a critical part of your business. You need to equip them with the knowledge, skills and attitude they’ll need to fill that role. Just as importantly, you need to ensure excellent team cohesion, collaboration and goal alignment.

The best way to do this is to dedicate two ‘champions’ to your offshore team – one onshore and one offshore. Their role is to glue your two teams together, making it far more likely you’ll achieve the outcomes you seek, and far less likely you’ll experience any of the problems that disconnection and distance can cause.

Your onshore champion should manage and communicate with your offshore team. Your champion will be someone who:

Has an intimate understanding of your business and culture
Your offshore team can come to with questions
Provides clarification and guidance to your offshore team
Hosts regular meetings with your offshore team
Checks in with individuals on your offshore team
Is responsible for your offshore team’s performance

It’s not just about knowledge transfer, either. It’s also something of a cultural transfer. Your onshore champion has to provide information and insight that your offshore team couldn’t get simply by reading your website.

Visit your offshore team regularly

Visiting your offshore team and facilities is a must. It’s best to organize a trip when you first set up the team, and then visit regularly after that.

Fly over and take a few days to work with your team on the ground. Get to know your staff properly and allow them to get to know you. Face-to-face conversations help make your business, its goals and its customers a clear reality to your offshore team members (rather than remote concepts). If your offshore team understand who they’re working with, and more importantly why, they’ll deliver far better service quality and results.

Visiting your staff in person will also give you an insight into their strengths and weaknesses, so you can better allocate resources to appropriate tasks and make decisions about advancement.

Plus, while you’re visiting, chances are you’ll get to meet other business owners and managers who are offshoring too. This is obviously great from a networking point of view, but – more importantly – it’s a great way of exchanging best practices with other clients.

Create clear systems and processes

Clear systems will help your team do their jobs effectively, and you’ll see a quicker return on your investment through:

Orbitus Solutions has a great deal of experience in all of these areas. We’ll walk you through the process of setting up your systems and processes, and once you’re up and running, we’ll offer proactive advice whenever we see an opportunity for improvement.