How to choose the right offshoring provider for your business

Location

If you’re looking to offshore in a specific location, you’ll need to find a partner that’s established in that area and ensure your partner’s facility is located ideally for:

• Attracting and retaining talented staff
• Public transport (or parking) access
• Good internet access (with fast speeds and minimal downtime).

Costs, transparency and fee structure

Every offshore provider has its own unique approach to fees. Before signing up with an offshore partner, it’s critical to find out exactly what they include and how the fee is broken down. That way, you don’t end up with any unexpected costs. The main differences in fee structures are:

• What are you paying for?
• How much it costs?
• How often you pay?

The recruitment process

When comparing offshore partners, we recommend discussing their recruitment process like:

• How they source talent?
• Do they have an existing database of qualified applicants?
• How quickly they can fill roles?
• How involved you need to be in the hiring process?
• What are the key steps involved in the process?

Facilities

Generally, ‘managed offices’ include all the furniture, IT and facilities your team will need to do their jobs. But these are really just the basics. It’s important to also ask about the ongoing support for your staff, such as:

• What happens if a computer breaks down or the entire floor loses internet access?
• Does the provider have dedicated support onsite at every facility?
• Do you get onsite security? Are there nurses onsite?
• Is your offshore partner ISO-certified?
• Ideally they should be ISO 9001 (Quality Management) and ISO 27001 (Information Security Management) certified?
• Do they have a certification team?
• Do they offer project management teams for the onboarding of new employees?

Quality

When it comes to choosing your offshore partner, you want to ensure they’ll deliver consistently good outcomes for your business. Ask them questions like:

• How will my offshore team be managed?
• What infrastructure do you have in place?
• What will you provide my offshore team with in terms of equipment?
• What tech/software do you use?
• How will you track productivity and quality of output?

Who’s responsible for what

When you’re comparing your options, we also recommend that you get clear on what you’re responsible for and what your partner is responsible for. Ask them questions about:

• What reports will I be provided with?
• What do we need to do to make this experience successful?
• Who will be my designated point of contact?
• How reachable will you be?
• How transparent are your fee structures?
• Can I get a tour before I sign up?
• Can I pop in at any time?

Stability and managing change

While offshoring is a strong and growing sector, especially in the Philippines, you need to ask your prospective clients to provide how they manage:

• Currency fluctuations
• Outages and tech issues, e.g. do they have risk management procedures in place to give you more uptime and fast speeds?
• How long have you been in business?
• How steady has your growth been?
• Have you experienced disruptions to your services over the past few years? If so, why?

Take this information into consideration when you decide which offshore provider to work with.