Five Tips for Successful Off-Shoring
Off-Shoring is a sensative topic among large and small institutions alike. I’ve heard horror stories about off-shoring initiatives and have been involved in many successes with off-shoring. Below are some tips to make off-shoring resources successful. This not by all means not a comprehensive list.
1. Get buy-in from all Management levels. Off-shoring will get screwed up by middle and lower management because they don’t believe that it will work. They don’t share your cost-custting vision. They don’t share your effeciency vision. They don’t share the this-will-take-work-off-their-plates-vision. The managers will do the absolute bare minmum so that it will fail and you will look like baffoon to Sr. Management. Do the work and get buy in.
2. Work in small teams. Many firms outsource a large function, a help desk, call center etc… Large implementations usually do not work well because the help desk or call center are trained in only dealing with low level requests. Meaning that anything that requires them to think, they’ll kick up the request to another level, which is ususally back to the host country. You want the people answering the phone in the off-shore location to actually help the customer. You want the issue to be handled in one phone call or atleast have one contact to manage the process. Training the off-shore team using small teams is the most effective way for training the large unit. Fly your senior staff members over the off-shore country/area to hold training sessions. The staff members should be working with no more than 12-18 people. The staff member will remain off-shore until the off-shore members are traineds. Usually a minimum of two – three weeks to a maximum of six months. (Most staff members going off-shore should expect to say between one month and three months, as that is more typical.)
3. Assign an off-shore Czar - Most off-shore programs fail because of this. For large off-shore installations you need a off-shore Czar managing all of the off-shore resources. This person is typically a member of the Sr. Management team that either relocates or spends 60%+ of his time in the off-shore region. The Czar performs the following functions:
- Resolve conflicts between off-shore and on-shore resources. The czar must have an open door policy with all off-shore members so that issues are not filtered through the management ranks.
- Learns about local customs, hiring practices, business practices etc… All of these items vary from country to country.
- Acts as a translator from on-shore to off-shore resources and vice versa. Not necessarily as a language translator, but as a business requirements translator. Many times on-shore folks ask for A but get B.
- Act as a lead management trainer for the off-shore management team. The off-shore managers need to think like on-shore managers. They need to understand what is being asked of them, what is the best way to perform and delegate work, the most important: how to talk to clients in the on-shore region.
- Compile working metrics, identify deltas and successes with implementation and report back to all on-shore management levels.
4. Have a right-sized off-shoring budget. Successful off-shoring should not save the company much money in the short run. It will save the company money in the long run if implemented properly. Remember your first concern should be client service. It’s not worth spending money on an off-shore program to save a few dollars this quarter while dropping client service. Make sure Sr. Management understands that this is a medium term to long term investment in cost savings. If successful, after a year and a half, savings can be seen. Most off-shoring programs do not have the right budget. Many are so slim that they do not account for all of the travel and work for on-shore members getting the off-shore members properly trained. So, most of that work doesn’t get done and customers complain that they aren’t getting the service they require.
5. Let time take it’s course - Even if steps 1-4 are executed well, setting up an off-shore team will take longer than anticipated even if you’ve done it a few times. The reason being is that culture and personality can add some roadblocks in the process. It’s up to the off-shore czar to identify road blocks with any off-shore implementation and make sure the implementation is going smoothly. Sometimes there are unforseen events that either delay or stop the process. These can either be government conditions, weather conditions or general resource contraints (like not being able to find the right talent). Make sure that enough time is allowed for the implementation so that Sr. Management and the czar can work through problems and issues.
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