Every single one of the Fortune 500 outsources some kind of business process or position, many of them globally, so more and more companies are realizing that they need to follow in their footsteps to stay competitive.
The combination of nearshore, offshore, and onshore, sometimes known as multi-shore outsourcing, is a low-risk, cost-effective alternative to hiring nationally. It gives companies the ability to become serious global contenders with access to an endless network of world-class talent at an affordable rate.
Still, there are plenty more benefits and challenges to consider when exploring this avenue for growth.
What are Offshoring, Nearshoring, and Onshoring?
For the uninitiated, offshoring is when organizations outsource business functions to a services provider in a distant country. For example, a US company sending a software development project to India or a Canadian firm partnering with a contact center provider in South Africa.
Nearshoring is essentially the same as offshoring, but the provider is within a short flight distance and shares the same or similar time zone. For example, a US company that sources software developers in Mexico is nearshoring.
Onshoring is outsourcing to a local, domestic outsourced services provider. While it’s usually far more expensive than offshoring or nearshoring, organizations and their customers often appreciate working with people in their home country.
Sourcing Talent on a Global Scale
One of the most significant benefits to operating multi-shore is talent availability. When organizations limit their outsourcing contracts to one region or location, they’re effectively cutting off access to prime candidates, so it pays to have that flexibility.
As an example, the “multi-shore” model is perfect for building teams around software development projects. It makes it possible to hire a handful of software architects in the US headquarters, a group of DevOps engineers in Mexico, and a team of QA testers in India, all working towards the same goal around the clock and within budget.
While it’s possible to find incredible talent in any location, there are several challenges to understand before building a multi-shore workforce.
Communication
While outsourced teams overseas have a fluent grasp of English, it’s important to remember that it’s not their native language in most cases, so they might sometimes have a hard time keeping up with fast-paced meetings or conversations.
As long as stakeholders take the time to make sure everybody has grasped the concepts in play, it’s relatively simple to avoid misunderstandings that could otherwise lead to delays in the project.
Cultural Understanding
Organizations that hire overseas need to prepare internally to learn about their new employees’ cultures. It’s not enough to expect the new hires to work within your culture; cultural respect has to go both ways.
When you’re managing multi-shore teams, you need to think globally and become a citizen of the world. Take the time to learn about working with different people, understanding what diversity can bring to the table, and regularly check in on outsourced employees to see how you could improve that cultural alignment.
Time Zones
Balancing schedules is only tricky when hiring offshore, as nearshore and onshore teams share common or similar time zones. Still, it’s vital to outline your workday schedule expectations for new employees overseas, or they could end up resenting the late/early meetings or missing them altogether.
Transporting World-Class Professionals to a New Industry
When searching for talent, it’s often difficult to find people with work experience specific to your sector and location. That goes for onshore, offshore, and nearshore—you’d be hard-pressed to find someone with US mortgage or lending industry experience in Asia, for example.
However, you can find people who have worked with massive multinational companies and developed impressive levels of subject matter expertise in their particular field. With this level of experience and a little industry training on your part, they can introduce world-class best practices to your business.
Many functional tasks carry over into every sector, such as scheduling calls, talking to clients, sending emails, filling out business requirement documents, following up, researching, escalating, and more. It would be a waste to turn down a candidate with these skills because they haven’t spent five to ten years in your sector.
By transporting people over to your sector and helping them learn the specifics of the industry, you have the freedom to cast your recruitment net much further. Their unique experiences and perspectives will also lead to innovative ideas that can help you enhance your business.
Partner Up to Manage Global Teams
Managing teams across several continents is incredibly challenging for businesses. When you go it alone, it’s time-consuming, costly, risky, and especially difficult to perform the right due diligence or set up overseas operations during the current pandemic.
Finding the right partners who can help you fill those needs is the way to go. Some partners can offer global access to talent and help set up international operations offshore, nearshore, and onshore. They have the capabilities and the network to help you find, recruit, train, and operate teams of any size, anywhere in the world, so you can find and onboard your ideal candidates in a fraction of the time.
At Zventus, we handle recruitment, candidate selection, and candidate preparedness training in multiple global locations. We’re focused on the candidate’s success and ensuring they have everything they need to integrate seamlessly as part of your multi-shore operation.
Partners like Zventus can offer expert training on cultural alignment, communication, and the essential considerations to be aware of when working with international employees. For example, we recently provided a new client with an overview on working with teams in Latin America, covering culture, traditions, people, conducting business, and finding success with Latin American teams.
If your organization is ready to develop its global footprint by creating a world-class team, get in touch with Zventus today, and we’ll help you begin that journey. We also provide a range of business management consulting and technology services that complement our staffing solutions, so feel free to explore our website to learn more.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
Angel Alban is President of Zventus, a leader with 25 years experience working with global brands in strategy, operations, and technology. Zventus provides management consulting, staffing solutions, and outsourcing services that empower organizations to innovate, improve and grow their business. Contact us to learn more.