Flexibility has always been one of offshoring’s best qualities. As such, we’ve seen several established industries take advantage of what it can bring to their objectives. Lately, we’ve witnessed some niche and growing industries that are beginning to have their own offshoring success stories. To emphasize this point, a leading online retailer in Australia approached HGS with an interest in adapting an offshoring strategy. Particularly, they looked into strengthening their back office roles.
HGS pitched a multi-faceted strategy that met their requirements, while also addressing other functional areas of their business. Through close collaboration and engagement, HGS was able to satisfy the client’s initial objectives and business needs. Eventually, this partnership led to different avenues of growth that the client would take full advantage of with us.
Establishing Objectives and Boundaries
This particular online retailer considers itself a digital-first organisation. To meet business expectations, their offshore team needed the technical expertise and experience for the initial roles they had planned. Based on their criteria, HGS saw the number of back office roles that they could effectively offshore.
Before recruitment could get started, however, it was important that the client understood what they were looking for in their offshoring strategy. We’ve discussed before that undertaking an offshoring strategy is a big commitment. Despite the advantages, there are aspects to it businesses need to know to fully utilise it. For instance, discussing some of the best practices in efficiently managing their offshore team remotely helps set their expectations.
The Initial End Result
Together with HGS’s Talent Acquisition team, the online retailer was able to build a team that met their growth objectives. The formation of a project management team came from HGS’s stringent recruitment process that seeks out the best people for the job. A readiness support plan was also created that gave an overview of communication processes between the team and the client.
The end result was a small team of agents and team leaders who supported the client’s customer service operations. Other HGS department heads also helped contribute to the team’s formation in an effort to immerse them early in HGS’s office culture. Building close relationships between teams and their clients is something that HGS takes immense pride in. These initial steps laid the groundwork for fruitful collaboration and growth in the days to follow.
Explorations Of Growth Through Offshoring
And grow they certainly did. After a few months of collaboration and engagement, HGS helped the online retailer identify other key areas in their business that could be successfully offshored. Offshoring roles in marketing, finance, and logistics was a possibility for them. As the team grew and branched out into several different departments, so did HGS’s involvement. To handle this increase in growth, HGS’s senior management team members helped the client address both their daily business needs and also exploring opportunities for growth. Indeed, the online retailer also saw opportunities for new learning and development functions that could help upskill their team’s initial knowledge. The client and senior management continued to maintain a close relationship that helped foster their eventual growth with ease.
To date, our client’s team now has more than 300 full-time employees spread across several teams and divisions dedicated to supporting our client’s business. These include:
- Customer Care Managers
- Full Stack Developers
- Graphic and Web Designers
- Marketplace Consultants
- General Accountants
- Accounts Payable Specialists
Our client was able to achieve these milestones through close collaboration with HGS and understanding what their performance requirements were. They achieved this through regular client care meetings that updated them with any developments within their team and getting everyone on the same page on addressing each of their objectives. These factors have led the client to enjoy their continued growth and success, with HGS as their offshore service provider.
Not Just For An Online Retailer
To summarise the experience, the online retailer that approached HGS was given an offshoring strategy that was tailor-made to their expected outcomes. It was also important for HGS to adopt the client’s approaches while encouraging them to remain consistently engaged with their offshore team and build stronger connections that help drive their motivation and productivity.
That said, it’s not just the online retail industry that can benefit from offshoring. The most important thing to remember about an offshoring strategy is that every industry is different and special. Through HGS’s approach to offshoring, any industry can benefit from it through proper strategizing while being closely involved with managing a team.
Citations:
Full Scale. “Offshoring Examples: Successes and Failures of Companies that Offshore.” Full Scale.
HGS Offshore Staffing Solutions. “Why retailers should consider offshoring to the Philippines.” HGS Offshore Staffing Solutions, 18 Nov. 2018.
