A Google search for "Why should I offshore?" will give you a plethora of search results with a very common theme, "reduce costs". While this isn't incorrect, it is one of many reasons to consider offshoring. This article will explore a handful of reasons, not directly related to costs, that may encourage you to consider offshoring.

Access to talent

To put things into perspective, in 2016, Australia had a total of 14.5 million residents who were of working age (Australian Beauro of Statistics). Comparatively metro Manila, akin to Greater Sydney had 5.6 million residents of working age (Philippine Statistics Authority) and the offshoring market has grown significantly outside of Metro Manila in locations such as Cebu and Baguio. Across the Philippines, their are over 41 million residents of working age (Philippine Statistics Authority). Now it is important to note that none of these statistics breaks down workers expertise or industry but it does provide context about the differences in populations.

Cultural Diversity

The benefits of cultural diversity within teams have been thoroughly studied and reported on, but key benefits include; improved innovation, better team decisions, increases language skills, increased employment attractiveness for new candidates and improved team performance.

The fundamental benefit of diversity is that it injects different points of view and influences into your internal, strategic and operational discussions. The statistics back up these statements too; a study conducted by MIT found that racially diverse teams outperform non-diverse ones by as much as 35%, that's huge!

Better support for your customers

Offshoring enables your organisation to consider more thorough support for your customers. It may initially mean extending your support hours, but as your processes adapt to an offshored team, then a more traditional "follow the sun" model can be adopted without the need for local "on-call" staff, that is likely to lead to job dissatisfaction and increase your staff turnover.

Don't underestimate the leadership or managerial opportunities

Most people automatically think of offshoring as "low-value" roles or tasks, but that is an unfair estimation of the talent available. There is great leadership and managerial talent available in the offshored environments, whether it be an "internal promotion" or a recruitment campaign. It will, however, take an open and innovative mindset to realise the benefits of these opportunities.

Of course, like any leadership or managerial position, there will be a need to mentor, develop and guide your team members but dismissing this as a possibility is a mistake.

Access to strategic advisory services as part of the process

There are many great advisors who offer information and support to offshoring initiatives, just as Change Fox does, and this is a great opportunity to engage with them and leverage off of their experiences. Definitely within the offshoring or outsourcing field, but even business strategy, training and management support.

All the other reasons that are really about costs

There are also a number of reasons that should be considered but ultimately they also come back to a costs discussion so we will not go into any detail;

• Removing operational tasks from your most knowledgeable local resources (read: have high-cost resources working on high-value tasks)
• Remove staff overheads (read: engage with an offshore service provider aka BPO who will be responsible for tax, HR, payroll, performance management, information technology services and support)
• Get more staff for your buck (read: you can usually hire 2-3 offshored staff for the costs associated with local hires, including wages and overheads like income tax, HR, payroll, superannuation)

Would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Have you considered offshoring but haven't proceeded yet? Why Not?