How to run an offshore team? In three words – Make No Difference – treat your offshore team like your Australian team.
How To Run an Offshore Team
In this episode Nick Sinclair of TOA Global will look at how to actually run your overseas team. But please first listen to episode 242 if you haven’t done so yet.
Here is what we learned but please listen in as Nick explains all this much better than we ever could.
To listen while you drive, walk or work, just access the episode through a free podcast app on your mobile phone.
Best Practice
Manage your overseas staff just like any other team member. It is just another office and that office happens to be in the Philippines.
Integrate your global team with your local team so that it is one overall team. And that one team is representing your business.
Cloud v Server
Cloud is easier but server-based works. You can still have an overseas team, even if the work is on servers and not in the cloud. Your overseas team just dials in through a remote desktop.
KPIs
You can have a lot of KPIs for your teams, but the most prevalent one is Jobs Out. How many jobs are the they getting out of their office every week. That is the main KPI.
How many transactions per hour? How many tax returns or SMSF annual returns per day or week? How much gets done? And for all this with what accuracy?
Plan Ahead
Take a longer term view. Have a people strategy in place. Be clear on who you need to deliver the capacity you will have in 3, 6, 9 or 12 months time.
Technology v Offshoring
It is easy to think of technology and offshoring as opposites when you look for efficiency gains – you either streamline processes or you offshore – and reduce your costs this way or the other.
But technology and offshoring actually go hand-in-hand. For successful offshoring you need streamlined processes. If you don’t have clear processes and it is unclear who is doing what when and how, and if you don’t have a well-designed app stack – so apps that are well integrated with each other and talk to each other – then offshoring can easily end up in a big mess and confusion.
But with a clear process – apps well stacked together – you create an environment where teams -be they local or overseas – can work well together. So it is not technology or offshoring but technology and offshoring.
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Insights of an Offshoring Provider
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