One of the best ways to boost productivity, reduce costs and maximise growth is to supplement your staff with an off-shore team of specialists in the Philippines. Managing an off-shore team, however, isn’t always intuitive. So here are ten tips that will help you get the best out of your off-shore team.

1.    Treat your offshore employees as part of your team

The best way to integrate your off-shore employees is to treat them no different to your on-shore employees. So, for example, ask them to meetings and include them in company announcements. That’s because, despite being employed by Outsourced, your full-time off-shore team is 100% dedicated to your company.

2.    Get to know them personally

Don’t treat your off-shore employees like a number. Instead get to know them, as you would your on-shore team. Find out about their family, hobbies, goals and what they do to relax and have fun. The more you understand your off-shore team, the better their integration and the higher your gains.

3.    Learn about the Philippines culture

Understanding the Filipino culture is key to unlocking their potential. So for example, it’s important to know that whilst most Filipinos speak fluent English, they don’t always understand slang words. Also, most are Catholic, so they prefer not to work on Sundays and Christian holidays. Many can also travel up to two hours on unreliable public transport to arrive at work, so it’s understandable if they are a few minutes late.

4.    Communicate daily with your off-shore team

Nominate a staff member in the local area to keep in touch with your off-shore team every day. […]

Did you know that more than 60% of workers support a flexplace working environment? With this arrangement, employees no longer need to work exclusively from the office, but instead are able to work remotely. This arrangement can also be called telework, telecommuting, work from home or remote work. It’s fair to say, however, that a flexplace working environment has always been a contentious issue for many employers. Nevertheless, the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated that remote working is a viable business model.

As restrictions begin to lift and businesses are starting to reopen, this hybrid working model may help employers navigate the post-lockdown world. It’s a strategy that has the potential to not only help keep everyone safe, but also boost productivity and reduce a company’s overall operating costs in the Philippines.

What is the flexplace business model?

This arrangement allows employees to spend part of their working day, week or month working outside their normal working environment. So if people normally work in an office, they can be given the option of working from a pre-approved location, usually their home office. It’s important that employees understand that if they sign up for the flexplace business model their workload doesn’t change. They are still expected to manage the same workload at the same level of quality as if they were in their normal working environment.

What are the benefits of a flexplace business model?

Whilst most employees are looking forward to returning to work, it’s apparent from local studies that a large proportion of employees would prefer to work at home, either full-time or at least one or two days a week. […]

Have you considered hiring an offshore logistics coordinator in the Philippines for your company? Offshoring or hiring a remote logistics coordinator has become an increasingly viable business model for many companies across a variety of different sectors. In fact, any business with a supply chain can benefit from hiring an offshore logistics coordinator, analyst, officer or clerk.

An offshore logistics coordinator manages, monitors and plans projects, people and processes, depending on the industry in which they work. Their roles revolve around purchasing orders, managing inventories, warehousing, distribution and transportation. They can respond to customer enquiries, review purchase orders, prepare invoices, and communicate with airlines, trucking and shipping companies. Whilst your revenue depends on your supply chain, your supply chain depends on the expertise of your remote logistics coordinator. 

Benefits of hiring a remote logistics coordinator

As a key element in streamlining your supply chain and outperforming your competitors, you need people who are qualified, experienced and hardworking in these roles. Offshoring these positions to the Philippines means that you not only leverage local expertise, but you also significantly reduce your costs. 

Whether you want a remote logistics analyst, clerk, officer or coordinator, there are a number of distinct advantages to offshoring these roles. These benefits include reduced operational costs, refocussing on your core business objectives, access to overseas talent pools, increased capacity and greater service quality.

• Reduced […]
  

If you are ready to expand your IT company and take on more work, you might be considering offshoring vs outsourcing. Given changes in the global economy and recent advances in technology, both of these strategies are becoming more and more popular. There’s definite benefits to both of these strategies, but which is right for your IT company?

What is offshoring and outsourcing?

Both of these strategies are based on leveraging the experience of outsourcing or offshoring companies to engage additional IT staff, often people who are specialists. These new staff are qualified and experienced and have been vetted thoroughly by the hiring companies. It’s a good way to reduce your recruitment expenses and hire employees for additional IT work.

Why do IT companies use outsourcing?

Outsourcing is popular with IT companies that don’t have the resources to manage a project themselves, so they outsource this work to a third party company. This company is located and hired via an outsourcing company who specialise in finding the right staff for the job. The hired company takes control of the project using their own employees and resources to complete the work.

Outsourcing pros and cons

The main advantages of outsourcing is that saves IT companies a significant amount of time and money, otherwise spent on the resources needed to complete these additional projects. As you can imagine, it’s costly to purchase new IT infrastructure and can be stressful finding the right specialists for the project. On the flip side, your IT company loses control over the project, because it’s now in the hands of the outsourced company. So if you want to […]

FIND & RETAIN THE BEST POSSIBLE PEOPLE AT THE BEST PRICE

People are the most important asset a company has and one of the biggest challenges you are probably facing is how to find and retain the best possible people at the best possible price.

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For many years, India was the country that was known for outsourcing solutions. However, other Asian countries have started to rise up as new and advantageous opportunities for outsourcing. One of such countries is the Philippines.

When looking into business process outsourcing (BPO), you’ll see that this industry has been steadily increasing within the Philippines. It is currently the second largest contributor to GPD for the country. The Philippines serves as a resource for business process outsourcing for countries around the world, including the United States.

So why should you consider Philippine outsourcing, and what kind of services can you outsource to the Philippines? Let’s discuss these points in more detail.

Benefits of Philippine Outsourcing

·       Good Economic Situation

Continuous economic growth over the last few years has led to good projections for the future of the Philippines. Also, the good relationship between the Philippines and the United States creates an environment that supports further growth.

·       Language and Culture

The official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and English. Actually, the Philippines is one of the largest countries of English speakers. Beyond the fact that most Filipinos are fluent in English, their accent is known to be somewhat neutral. This is a huge advantage for customer service providers.

Along with the language, the culture of the Philippines is also conducive to outsourcing. The Philippines was colonized by the United States between the years 1899 and 1946. The influence that the United […]

Outsourcing, although not an unfamiliar term in the entrepreneurial sphere, it’s still a fickle to deal with. As a small business owner, outsourcing is your ticket to expanding your team without compromising your company profits. However what can be difficult to most is knowing which jobs are suited as an outsource task and which is better for someone you can interact with face-to-face everyday. When attempting to discern this, consider the skills required for the jobs you currently handle and what has the least skills needed, yet takes up a ridiculous amount of your time. It’s usually this tasks that can be offloaded for a small, yet worthwhile price.

Still stuck? Here are some of Outsourced’s tips on what to outsource to free up your time and increase your productivity:

Outsource Task #1: Social media

Whilst you can be particular on how to word your tweets or which filter you want to use for your Instagram posts, delegating this task to someone else frees up a lot of time. To save even more time, task the same person with writing your blog posts and manage your publication deadlines.

Outsource Task #2: Customer Service

Once you have clear company guidelines in place, there’s no reason why you need to be the first POC. Outsource this job to someone with strong personal and communication skills to handle the brunt of the calls, and allocate yourself to manage serious customer matters only.

Outsource Task #3: Book Keeping / Account Management

Cashflow and the intricate finances of your business is probably something you would want […]

As business outsourcing continues to grow, the significant changes that this growth presented dominated 2015, particularly within the Philippines. It’s common knowledge that BPO services have become almost an unofficial trademark of the Philippines, with more and more global brands turning to employing Philippine offshore work staff, resulting in over a million employees and generating revenues of $22 billion.

“The BPO industry continues to be the forefront of our economy,” Danilo Sebastian Reyes, chairman of IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), stated at a conference in Manila earlier this year in February.

“In 2015, we breached our target revenue of $21 billion. We registered almost $22 million in revenue and almost 1.1 million direct employment.”

This successful business outsourcing explosion has come from a number a different factors, from a large supply of English-speaking college graduates, to the strong US dollar to Pesos rates and an overwhelming support from the government. This has ultimately helped the Philippines overtake India within this industry, who are well known for their consistent dominance within the  business process outsourcing  (BPO) sector. According to Reyes, Philippines is determined to allow their rise in ranks to only continue to grow, with a new revision of the 2022 revenue and employment projection underway.

“We’re already close to reaching our 2016 revenue target of $25 billion and employment of 1.3 million workers. Given this, we’re now setting new and bigger targets for 2022, to be announced sometime this August.”