Adopting a new strategy or business approach takes careful consideration, planning and implementation. This applies to businesses looking at offshoring or outsourcing entire functions within their business.
Managing your Offshoring expectations
It’s important to understand that offshoring or outsourcing business units or functions is not the same as outsourcing on a project basis, that is, utilising sites like Freelancer or UpWork.
As identified in the recent State of Offshoring in Australia Survey, offshore or outsourced business functions are a long term commitment and to fully realise the benefits of offshore teams, usually take 6 – 12 months or more to fully implement.
This is reflected in the results with over 65% of respondents indicating that this was the timeframe before their program realised the benefits being sought.
Offshoring requires time and effort to be properly implemented and fully realized
This extended timeframe allows for appropriate pilot programs to be conducted, teams to be on boarded and trained, and finally, for teams to be embedded within the business. Of key importance is the businesses existing approach to processes and procedures.
Without clearly defined processes and procedures, offshoring roles and functions is incredibly difficult and can result in delays in an offshore program.
Businesses that adopt an offshore model and expect results within a six month period are generally disappointed, however, surprisingly, 33% of respondents did realise benefits within the first six months.
How offshore benefits after a year
Ultimately, the build-up of the offshore team, the skills and experience being sought and the training and on-boarding process are all factors. A team of two or three is going to be able to be embedded far more efficiently than a team of 10 or more.
Taking into consideration the time required for recruitment of talent, training, embedding and finally, transitioning and aligning the team with local workforce are factors to take into consideration within the first six months.
To learn more about offshoring’s true effect on businesses, download our full report on the State of Offshoring in Australia.
