It’s no secret that finding experienced, motivated, and eager employees is a daunting task in today’s turbulent job market. If your business is feeling the pressure of a smaller and less-experienced talent pool, take comfort in the fact that you aren’t alone — over 75% of companies across the globe are struggling to fill vacant positions in 2024. Across industries, crucial tasks are left unaddressed due to staff shortages, leading to downsides like client dissatisfaction from long response times, reduced work quality due to overwhelmed departments, and lower productivity overall. Thankfully, there’s a solution that alleviates this stress.
A decreased flow of competent job seekers may feel like an inevitable result of global trends, but this simply isn’t the case: the problem isn’t who your next potential employees are, but where they are.
Global outsourcing has been a reliable method of finding well-qualified candidates for years, but the wide-scale adoption of remote work has grown exponentially. Countless businesses have already circumvented the downsides of staffing struggles by removing the arbitrary requirement of mandatory on-site staff or strict hybrid work policies. Once geological limitations are removed from the equation, the potential for securing new, highly skilled team members skyrockets.
So, You’re Ready to Start Looking for Outsourcing Services … What’s Next?
Offshore staffing offers advantages beyond basic cost savings. Tapping into a flourishing talent pool across borders, seas, and even the prime meridian opens the door to new opportunities normally unreachable through a local candidate search.
That said, balancing a new approach to your talent search with the daily functions of your business leads to subpar execution in both regards. Organizations primarily use outsourcing services over searching on their own to stay focused on providing excellent service while exploring new opportunities abroad. With a trusted provider at the helm, screening, management, and onboarding are executed seamlessly. Benefits typically include:
- Cost reduction: Outsourcing allows companies to take advantage of lower labor costs without experiencing a decrease in candidate skills, leading to substantial savings.
- Access to specialized skills: Utilizing a global talent pool reveals previously unforeseen candidates with expertise that may be hard to find or too expensive domestically.
- Scalability: Providers can quickly scale services up or down depending on your business’s changing needs, offering a swift method of expanding or scaling back operations depending on demand.
- A greater focus on core competencies: By outsourcing indispensable to daily workflows, businesses free up internal resources to focus on initiatives for growth.
While outsourcing advantages are clear, finding the right provider is essential to fully realizing these benefits. The wrong outsourcing partner leads to inadequate communication, missed deadlines, and misalignment with your company’s objectives, ultimately harming your business instead of improving it.
Outsourcing services substantially benefits any organization, but it’s essential to find one that understands your goals and works collaboratively to achieve them.
Traditional Outsourcing: Efficiency at the Cost of Flexibility
Traditional outsourcing involves transferring entire business functions directly to external providers rather than bringing new staff onto an internal team. This model allows businesses to offload routine yet crucial tasks in processes like customer service, IT, and accounting.
Outsourcing services hire and manage these external groups but maintain complete control over partnerships, typically leaving clients unsatisfied from a lack of input or governance.
Benefits
The best and potentially only positive outcomes for such a provider are increased productivity and decreased spending. Outsourcing to preexisting groups allows businesses to free up internal resources and pivot towards expansion over maintenance. Being cost-effective, outsourcing services leverage economies of scale to deliver services at lower rates. Traditional outsourcing can offer a streamlined, no-hassle solution for companies falling behind.
Drawbacks
Clients have minimal say in day-to-day operations, leading to little to no agency handling tasks. This model tends to feel rigid, failing to suit businesses that need custom staffing solutions. Challenges will likely develop from poor communication and a lack of transparency, especially for companies that require a more collaborative relationship with their service provider.
Offshore Subsidiaries: Cost Savings with Long-Term Commitments
As an approach that relies on direct company involvement rather than merely hiring staff through outsourcing services, offshore subsidiaries allow organizations to maintain direct control over new staff. This is particularly appealing for those looking to expand globally, as they offer an opportunity to hire and manage staff without relying on a third-party outsourcing provider. However, such a high level of oversight and customization comes with an equally high maintenance cost.
Benefits
Though distinct in execution, offshore subsidiaries share a commonality with traditional outsourcing: the potential for substantially reduced budget strain. Companies can tap into highly skilled labor markets at a fraction of the cost compared to domestic operations, all while retaining direct control over processes. By providing the much-needed flexibility that traditional outsourcing lacks, larger enterprises may see this as a viable option.
Drawbacks
Setting up an offshore subsidiary comes with long-term challenges despite the more immediate advantages. Establishing a foreign entity also requires significant investment in capital and time. Navigating legal, regulatory, and logistical hurdles can be complex and resource-intensive, making this option less feasible for businesses seeking quick scalability. Additionally, there are significant costs and execution risks associated with the physical and administrative infrastructure needed to support an offshore team.
Managed Services: Guaranteed Performance, Limited Flexibility
Outsourcing services in this niche involve offshore staffing for specific business functions, typically IT-related, to third-party providers. The providers manage these operations under clearly defined Service Level Agreements (SLAs), a collaborative guideline determining the quality and expected outcomes of their global outsourcing efforts.
This model is prevalent for businesses looking to outsource critical areas like cybersecurity, cloud management, and network infrastructure. Managed services are appealing due to their contractually guaranteed performance, clear metrics for success, and continuous monitoring to see that both elements are met.
Benefits
Above all else, the benefit of managed services lies in predictability and consistency. SLAs ensure that businesses receive a reliable level of service, reducing disconnects between expectations and results. Offshoring services that offer this approach often have access to teams with specialized expertise, making them a more cost-effective option compared to maintaining an in-house team.
Small- to medium-sized businesses typically jump at the chance to utilize managed services as they rarely have the resources to establish well-trained IT departments. By combining the benefits of global outsourcing and managed services, businesses build a framework for round-the-clock support. Using separated time zones enables faster response times and a swift rate of meeting customer expectations at any time, day or night.
Drawbacks
With the best aspects of hands-off professional support and a firm understanding of expectations, managed services may seem like the best route for any and all businesses interested in offshore staffing. However, the predictability of SLA-based outsourcing is also a drawback — while its fixed nature provides an expectation of quality, it also acts as a barrier to change. Customization and the opportunity for adjustment are often limited; the primary goal is to maintain standard service levels rather than adapt to meet changing demands. Relying heavily on a third-party provider could also lead to a loss of direct over critical operations, a problematic cause for businesses requiring more agility.
Make The Right Choice by Balancing Convenience, Control, and Consistency
While outsourcing services offer incredible savings and growth potential, assessing each option against your company’s unique needs and long-term goals is crucial. Traditional outsourcing provides efficiency but might limit flexibility, whereas offshore subsidiaries offer control with long-term commitments, and managed services guarantee performance with restrictions on adaptability. Selecting outsourcing services that align with your values is the only way to maximize your chances of a successful hire.
At Thrivemodal, we do things differently. By combining the best aspects of each model, we offer a flexible, customized approach that lets you maintain oversight while benefiting from global talent.
We provide end-to-end support, from recruitment and onboarding to ongoing management, allowing you to scale your team based on your evolving business needs. With no hidden fees or long-term commitments, we deliver significant savings while ensuring our highly skilled professionals from the Philippines seamlessly integrate into your company’s workflow, acting as a natural extension of your day-to-day operations.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you scale with global talent and explore our customized staffing solutions. our team can help you thrive in this dynamic environment.
