Outsourcing to an offshore team is always a good idea to expand company operations. However, to get more out of your outsourced team, you need to have them work together effectively. One of the common ways to do that is by having them work in parallel. Here is how you can make it happen.
The Challenges Of Bringing Together Onshore And Offshore Teams
Bringing an offshore team into your operations might seem easy at first. But once they and your onshore team come together, you will encounter various challenges, including the following.
Communication
The first challenge here is ensuring steady communication between both sides. Several things can result in this. One is the language barrier, especially if the offshore team is not proficient in your mother tongue.
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Another common reason for the lack of communication is a lack of interest. As it is, outsourced teams often work independently of your team. Thus, they might not feel the need to communicate with your internal team until after completing work. On the other hand, your internal team might also not be obliged to respond.
While this is normal, it can create a lot of problems. For instance, it can result in a disjointed workflow. Teams might not be able to address issues quickly due to the lack of response from the other side.
Work Quality
While offshore teams try to keep pace with the work done by their in-house counterparts, there might still be concerns about a drop in quality. This is often due to both sides not having a clear agreement about the expected output.
There might also be the issue of the two sides not using similar approaches regarding the work. As such, one side might have a result not compatible with the other. Such discrepancies can slow down the work’s progress.
Leadership Presence
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Leadership presence is also essential for effectively managing an in-house and external team. However, it can be challenging to implement when dealing with an offshore one. That is mainly due to the distance between you and them. That lack of presence can make it harder for you to guide both sides into working together.
Strategies To Bring Together In-House And Outsourced Teams
Bringing together an internal and offshore team requires careful thought. Here, remember that each business has its own work culture. As such, you need an approach better suited to a particular offshore working relationship. However, here are a few approaches to help you make it happen.
Start Small
A common mistake many companies make when offshoring is to send entire departments over in one go. That can make it hard to sync both sides since there is no transition. To avoid that, it would always be a good idea to start small.
Begin by trialing one or two roles to the offshore provider. This move will give you an idea of how they would handle the work. At this point, you can also start determining the standards you can create for the contract. As you gain more confidence about how the partnership works, you can slowly expand the offshore team.
Create A Training Plan
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Okay, this might seem a bit odd since there is already the assumption that your internal and offshore teams are already trained for the work. However, the training plan’s goal is to help the offshore team understand what you expect from them. Here, you get to explain to the outsourced team your business goals and how they fit into that.
The training plan should also cover how they integrate with your in-house team. You want to create sessions where the two sides can come together. During this training period, encourage both sides to share their respective work cultures. You can also encourage them to create a joint approach on handling different work situations.
Choose Your Tasks Wisely
When sending work to an offshore team, you might often think of it as simply a means to offload repetitive tasks. However, to effectively blend both it and the internal team’s work, you have to look deeper into how the choice of tasks to outsource will affect the latter.
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An effective strategy here is to identify the key result areas for both sides. These are the most crucial areas determining the overall level of productivity expected for both. From there, you can decide which tasks to send to maintain those expected levels. Review these key areas routinely during the duration of the offshore contract to refine them and their associated tasks.
Encourage Openness On Your Onshore And Offshore Teams
To facilitate continuous communication between your onshore team and the offshore provider, you must foster openness. That is integral, as it lets parallel teams engage without any obstacles. Openness also encourages a more free exchange of ideas from both sides.
An effective way to encourage that openness is to create out-of-work interaction opportunities for both sides. This can be something as simple as a common chat room. Here, they can discuss various things to better understand how each side works.
Keep Your Internal And Offshore Teams At Pace MORE
At Virtua Solutions, we understand the value of being able together with client teams, no matter how far the distance is. And we are ready to help you out in making that happen. So follow these tips and you will have great success in your offshore ventures.