The Common Mistakes that Come with Outsourcing Work Offshore

Adopting the wrong outsourcing model

When you’re a small to medium business, there are a number of models you can follow to outsource work:

• Virtual Talent Model. When you use this model, you hire full-time staff and house them in a professional office space with reliable infrastructure. The staff adopt your way of doing business, your culture and your business process. This model is the most sustainable one for small to medium sized businesses.

• Work-at-home/Online Freelancer. Hiring a freelancer is a great way to get some work done if you have an ad hoc project.

• Business Process Outsourcing. This is only suitable when implementing a larger assignment with scale (a minimum of 10-20 headcount or more). In this model, you work against a standardised process.

• Dev Shop. This is where you work with a senior and then they assign the work to their junior resources to get it done.

Picking the wrong outsourcing destination

The wrong outsourcing destination can cause problems:

• Poor communication. This prevents the work from being done properly.

• Wrong time zone. This can make the work less productive, particularly if your virtual talent has questions that need to be addressed throughout their work day.

• Poor attitude. You need the virtual staff to have a good service orientation.

• Limited talent available. You need the talent pool to be deep enough to allow you to access the type of skills and experience you need to get the job done well.

Not taking your Australian team on a journey

If your team doesn’t buy-in to working with a virtual talent or remote team, they will not set-up the project to be successful, and this can kill the project.

Not treating your Philippine staff like you would an employee back in Australia

You need to make sure you treat your virtual talent the same; after all, they are people, too. For example, say good morning online is a good start.

Becoming intoxicated by hiring offshore staff that are very cheap

If you get intoxicated with hiring “cheap” staff, you will learn the hard way that the most expensive person when outsourcing work is you — not your offshore team. On the other hand, if you aim a little higher and hire more highly skilled and experienced staff, you will be able to leverage your time better.

Thinking that if the work can be done in Australia, then it must be able to be done in the Philippines

Given that the Philippines is culturally different compared to Australia, some roles are more suitable than others to be sent offshore – given the natural disposition of Filipinos. Also, some roles are more common in the Philippines so you can access a deeper talent pool from which to recruit. That said, you would be surprised what roles can be done offshore in the Philippines.

At Innovent Offshore we take the stress out of all your offshore software development needs. With over 5 years experience and many successful dual shore projects managed, we are confident to provide the right team for your needs. From front-end experts to back-end specialists, testers and designers we have you covered. Please contact us today for more details 1300 781 681 or info@softwareoffshore.com.au

Read the full article here – http://flatplanet.com.au/hard-heads-the-bpo-business-case/355-the-common-mistakes-that-come-with-outsourcing-work-offshore