Tag Archives: outsourcing

Time to Plan your Business Success by hiring Remote Teams

The advent of digital transformation and the severe shortage of engineering talent in western countries have accelerated globalization. This, followed by the increasingly intensifying struggle of maintaining their operations and keeping their workforce intact during the pandemic. It has led organizations to revise their talent acquisition strategy.

Following the astronomical rise in remote work, 88% of organizations reported adopting the approach and expanding their recruitment efforts beyond the in-team/onshore model to hiring remote teams. This includes some of the most popular organizations like Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

Evident from a KPMG global outsourcing survey, offshoring is already a major hit among companies, especially in the west. So much so that North & South America alone constitute 42% of the outsourcing buyer region. This behavior on the part of organizations comes on the back of the purported benefits offshore teams offer them.

What are Remote Teams or Offshore Partners?

Since offshore partners are third-party resource teams, companies can assign them full responsibility for a broad range of business functions. It includes overseeing development to ensuring legal compliance, and handling daily administrative tasks. These teams become value-added extensions of their onshore team and enable competitive advantage through labor arbitrage. According to a Deloitte Global Outsourcing survey, the main reasons why businesses switch to offshoring are:

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The same survey noted that 57% of respondents said outsourcing helped them focus on their core business operations. In comparison, 17% said it helped them break their business mold and drive change from within. They also afford businesses smaller time-to-market and more incredible staff support, allowing them to remain competitive, and scale their services and offerings.

Why Do You Need a Remote Team?

According to a global manpower study, as many as 54% of companies faced talent shortages, which led to the hiring process becoming long and drawn-out. As a way to stray from this ineffective recruiting model, businesses turned to hiring remote teams. This helped them gain greater access to intellectual capital, thus allowing them more room to accommodate projects.

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Take, for example, the case of Repeat Booking. An Australian company that offered sole traders the ability to add customers for automated follow-ups, Repeat Booking needed to grow soon and turned to an offshore team to achieve their business goals. By hiring remote teams, they were able to build their website and scale it to their users in just 180 days.

Remote teams have come to be regarded as the epitome of innovation, apparent from their increased activity prompting the global offshoring and outsourcing market to grow to the whopping US $88.9 billion.

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As the number of businesses hiring remote teams rises, it pays to have a look at its reasons in detail before moving to how to collaborate with them for improved business success.

Reasons Why Every Business Should Leverage Remote Teams

1. Inexpensive Approach

Offshore teams provide better value at a comparatively lower cost. So much so that outsourcing IT services reduce overall costs by 60%, according to McKinsey.

For instance, Apple (the popular member Fortune 500 list) is able to generate great profits each year owing to its offshore development teams.

2. Access to a Wider Talent Pool

Offshore teams provide you with greater access to intellectual capital. It is the joint top benefit among organizations looking to hire remote teams and is what fuels the fancy of 28% of them.

3. Improved Productivity and Quality

When asked about it, 31% of companies said that they chose remote teams for their improved service quality. Offshore teams also have all the required infrastructure ready at their disposal so that you always get a stable product with superlative UX.

A well-known remote team success story- The communication giant Slack outsourced the designing process of all of its major visual elements i.e. the app redesign and logo design. And to the company’s expectation, this move helped Slack refine the crucial designs of their product, helping them scale to 15,000 users in just over a fortnight.

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4. Flexibility

When outsourcing work to remote teams, you share the risk management and impact with them. This allows you an additional resource that can help you respond to and effectively manage unforeseen situations.

In fact, this practice is so well-known that 81% of businesses have a remote team because they believe it to be a crisis response team as well.

5. Greater Number of Market Opportunities

Working with an offshore team helps you innovate quickly and bring down the time-to-market. In the opinion of 17% of business executives, this opens up a greater number of market opportunities and helps drive a broader transformational change.

For instance, in Repeat Booking case study the dedicated development team was able to develop a fully functional and scalable website for the business within just 180 days.

How to Plan for Success by hiring remote teams?

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A Deloitte study reported improved business outcomes for organizations with dedicated offshore partners courtesy of their cost-effectiveness, better global scalability, and enhanced service qualities. The same study also highlighted the importance of partnering with the right remote team to ensure frictionless and high-quality collaboration.

However, creating a successful and productive relationship requires a lot of effort. While it falls upon the offshore partner to build your remote team, it is equally important that you stay invested in the process right from the beginning. Lay down a recruiting framework before signing up a partner that takes care of the following to ensure a smooth collaboration:

Review business goals and targets
Establish the dynamics of your collaboration
Evaluate your partner options based on their past portfolio, breadth of services, expertise in automation technology, and more.
Have an IT specialist on your end
Recruit the right professionals that make up your remote team
Make use of overlapping hours

How to Manage Remote Teams

While the particulars of your framework may vary, it will more or less resemble the one provided above. Stick to the framework and have your IT team always engage the suitable hires from your offshore partner. Last but not least, allow your remote team autonomy and don’t escalate to micromanaging them as a survey by Trinity Solutions reported that it causes 60% of professionals to consider switching jobs while 71% think it negatively impacts their performance.

Here is, 10 Tips on How to Manage your Remote Team

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While it isn’t unorthodox to supervise your offshore team, micromanaging them can make them feel they lack freedom. This can end up obstructing their thought process and impeding their productivity.

An equally important consideration on the subject of productivity is taking the difference in time-zones into account. Use overlapping hours to create an effective weekly communication schedule, such as status calls, meetings, and scrum calls.

Also Read: Best Team-Building Exercises for Your Remote Teams

Conclusion

If you’re looking to build your own offshore web development or marketing team and want a partner with a superlative track record, contact us today to learn more about how we can help you.

Uplers is recognized as a forerunner of innovation in web development among global circles of outsourcing agencies. We command both experience and competence to turn your projects into success stories.

Impact of Covid-19: Revealing Key Learnings for Digital Agencies

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It’s clear by now that, with the current pandemic, we’re zooming into a new age of remote working, virtual training, and new business strategies. There is a huge Impact of Covid-19 on digital agencies. Let’s find out.

This is the new normal, and the sooner all of us adapt to it, the better.

At Uplers, we partner digital agencies of all shapes and sizes. We wanted to create valuable insights for our agency clients and others by leveraging this network.

It is our hope that this will help everyone navigate through this unparalleled time.

Who Participated in the Survey

A total of 130 digital agencies from all over the world responded to Uplers’ request to participate in the survey.

These are based in the UK, the US, and Australia, among other countries, with an employee strength ranging from 1-5 to 25-100.

They willingly shared their experiences, insights and learnings in order to help the larger agency community.

The responses from our survey clearly show that all have been impacted by the COVID-19 in one way or another. The crisis will have ongoing and far-reaching consequences.

The agencies also shared valuable advice on coping, adapting, and succeeding in this brave new world.

The Key Survey Findings

Duration of the impact

The results of our survey showed that most agencies believed COVID-19’s impact would last anywhere between 6 – 12 months.

It seems clear from this that there is going to be a new way of working for the foreseeable future, and agencies need to adapt.

57% of the agencies felt that the impact of COVID-19 would last for more than 6 months. Among other geographies, Australia and New Zealand that were the most positive in their outlook.

43% of Australian agencies expect the impact of COVID-19 to last 3 to 6 months.
40% agencies in the USA expect the impact to last for 6 to 12 months.

Janelle Strickland of Little Bird Online Marketing commented: “A financial downturn can affect agencies in waves, so if you are not impacted in this first wave, it may come later down the track – especially if this impacts the economy for 6+ months. So stay focused on what you’re doing, continue to watch costs, and adapt as the market requires.”

Impact on revenue

While 66% of agencies experienced a decrease in overall revenue so far, 16% actually saw an increase. Smaller agencies with under 25 employees were the most heavily impacted.

Among sectors, it was technology that saw the most growth, with a rise of 16%. This reflects the common perception that claims the use of technology has risen in these times.

eCommerce and healthcare were close behind, at 15% and 14%, respectively.

Among the sectors negatively impacted were consulting and legal services, at 6%, and manufacturing, at 5%.

Impact on Leads

Expectedly, 66% of the agencies surveyed experienced a fall in marketing leads. However, 14% actually saw an increase.

Clearly, the agency clients were negatively impacted by the pandemic. For the agencies, it is a challenge to make up for the downturn by winning new business.

What’s interesting, though, is that 90% of the agencies whose leads increased were actively spending on marketing, across multiple channels. They were able to capitalise on new openings in this way, by taking advantage of reduced competition.

For many others, as Allison Duine of Intersection Online, Inc put it: “I think this is an opportunity for businesses to embrace downtime to update design and marketing initiatives.”

How Agencies Countered the Situation

The word most commonly used to describe the current situation is “unprecedented”. Thus, there is no single rule book to approach it with.

Agencies took a variety of approaches to combat the crisis. 29% said they would explore new services for their current clients. And an equal number said they would explore new channels for new businesses.

Among the approaches were:

Doing all work in-house for cost reductions
Offering new services: cross-selling and up-selling
Prospecting for work from new clients as well as industries
Explored outsourcing for cost-efficiency and flexibility

In a nutshell, agencies expanded their offerings and added new digital marketing services to their skill set in order to secure new business opportunities.

In pursuit of this, the most recommended digital marketing channels to clients were:

- Email Marketing (15%)
- Web Development (13%)

Blog content (13%)
Paid Social (13%)

A full 35% of agencies recommended new marketing messages, and 34% urged their clients to increase digital marketing spends.

Flexibility in Relationships

Another important aspect that emerged from the survey was that agencies were open to a greater degree of flexibility in client relationships.

Over half offered flexibility in contract terms and 28% actually reduced fees.

In terms of region and size, 31% of UK/Europe agencies offered the most price reductions. And mid-sized agencies provided the most flexibility in the contract terms.

Approaches to Outsourcing

When asked about their approaches to outsourcing during this period, a staggering 80% of the agencies said that they would either explore, continue or increase outsourcing.

In fact, 80% of the agencies who saw above 30% growth in their revenue are outsourcing.

This is because outsourcing offers agility and flexibility and increases cost-efficiency. Another advantage is the ability to scale teams up and down, depending on demand.

The Big Picture

Digging through the statistics and the varied responses, the picture that emerges from the survey is that all agencies have been affected by COVID-19 in some way or the other.

The crisis will have a continuing impact and will shape agency operations into the future.

The three main takeaways for agencies are:

The new normal has arrived, and we’re living in it. This is the time to adapt, not to wait.
Services and skills need to be expanded, and clients offered a greater menu of services than ever before.
The option of outsourcing ought to be explored more thoroughly because of its flexibility and risk-management abilities.

As one of the contributors to the survey put it: “The world will change after COVID-19, so business will have to change too. There is a new norm upon us all and those who have the pedigree in business with digital at the core will not only survive but will thrive.”

5 Dedicated Team Outsourcing Case Studies Every Business Can Learn From

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Case studies are a staple and a powerful tool in the world of business. They are real i.e based on actual events and thus act as a great learning resource for people and enterprises alike. Case studies break things down into a simple blueprint- practical challenges, customized solutions and tangible results. In this article, we bring you the 5 dedicated remote team outsourcing case studies every business and outsourcing enthusiast must know. So grab your cup of coffee and read on.

5 Successful Remote Team Case Studies

The trend of remote working or outsourcing has taken the world by storm. As of March 2020, an estimated 16 million U.S. workers started working remotely.

1. JXT- How a Dedicated Team Developed 500+ Websites Within Just 5 Years

JXT is a leading digital marketing service provider for recruiters in Australia. The company leads the market with its custom CMS (Content Management System) for developing websites for their clients.

As JXT moved ahead with its expansion plans, its first approach was to expand its in-house team of developers. However, there were a series of challenges the company encountered along the way.

Major Challenges

Shortage of right talent
Right talent came with heavy investment
Increased overhead cost with inhouse hiring
Freelancing lacked reliability
Retention of employees

Solution

A diligent and dedicated remote team at Uplers was able to help JXT deliver more than 500 websites in just 5 years. JXT is now the #1 digital marketing solutions provider for recruiters across Australia. The dedicated model has helped JXT scale its business and they are currently expanding their business in the USA, UK, and Canada. Read the entire case study- JXT Case Study.

2. Racenet’s Organic Journey to Top 3 Rankings on Google

Racenet is Australia’s premier horse racing destination, providing the latest in-news, form guides, tips, statistics and tools to help punters back more winners. Owned and operated by industry veterans Craig “Clocker” Tompson and Glenn Robbins, Racenet has been the leading online portal for Australian horse racing since its inception in 1998.

Racenet came to Uplers intending to improve their PA (page authority), DA (domain authority) and DR (domain rating). To increase keyword ranking for targeted keywords was the prime focus. Racenet also wanted to obtain as many authority links as possible in order to be ranked well for relevant keywords.

Solution

After reviewing Racenet’s website performance on different parameters, Uplers worked on a strategy to target specific keywords as an anchor text for the relevant landing pages. Once the keywords were ranking for respective landing pages, Uplers started working in the direction of improving the rankings of the targeted keywords.

Result

1. A whopping month-on-month increase of more than 400% in their website traffic.

2. Secured more than 192 authority links in just 12 months.

3. This led Racenet to be visible on the top search queries and secure the first 3 positions.

4. A substantial increase in the PA (Page authority) and DR (Domain Rating).

Check out the full case study- Racenet SEO Case Study

Also Read: Explained! The 10 Most Common FAQs About Dedicated Team Model

3. Weight Watchers – How Uplers Helps Build 60+ Email Templates for WW every Month

Founded in 1963, Weight Watchers (WW International) is a globally-acclaimed wellness technology company. Helping customers overcome lifestyle disorders for over 6 decades, they have inspired millions of individuals around the world with their people-focused & science-backed approach to promoting weight loss and healthy living.

Objective

In 2017, Weight Watcher’s increasing demand for a quality email development partner brought them to Uplers, whose dedicated remote team of experts helped them with Seamless ESP Migration, Email Templates Production and provided Operation Support to CRM team.

Solution:

The dedicated remote team deployed by Uplers consisted of a Campaign manager, Salesforce expert, QA professional and email developers who were available across time zones to assist the team 24/5. The 2-way partnership between WW and Uplers has now grown multi-folds and Uplers is now a dedicated partner for all of their email production requirements.

Check out how Uplers managed to develop pixel-perfect email templates for WW within just 8 hours- Weight Watchers Full Case Study

4. How a Dedicated Team Model Helped Elite Mobile in Expanding their Business

Elite Mobile is the longest-serving and largest UK distributor of telecommunication products and services. Established in 1994, Elite Mobile is considered an expert in the ever-evolving telecommunication industry and distribution field. It works directly with local and large retailers to supply them with SIM cards and unrivaled service. Elite Mobile also has the operational capabilities to deliver end-to-end mobile services to its retailers.

Objective

Elite Mobile wanted to expand its distribution of telecommunication products and services in the UK and around the world. They needed a holistic ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Solution which contained all modules like purchases, sales, warehouse, inventory and accounting.

Solution

The team set local development solutions with multiple developer logins and QA server for testing. In addition to this, the dedicated team also took care of maintaining the live server for the site. Everything from maintaining space for the application’s documents to configuring IIS for .Net applications, signatures, PDFs, barcodes, etc. Moreover using task management services the team was able to do some everyday scheduling tasks for Elite Mobile.

Result

Elite Mobile now has over 45,000 partnering retailers, with over 200 field representatives with 3 UK Hubs.
The ERP system was built in a way to manage the sales, warehouse, inventory and accounting, online purchase of the sim cards, transferring of commission, viewing activations and redeeming the points.
Uplers has been serving Elite Mobile for the last 7 years
Elite Mobile achieved the global authentic presence they were aiming for

5. Repeat Booking- Turning a Business Idea into Reality in Just 80 Days

Repeat Booking is an Australian company providing sole traders the ability to add their customers and take automated follow-ups via SMS, reminding them that their service is due. These reminders sent on a yearly or half-yearly basis, provide customers with ease to re-book services.

Challenge

Repeat Booking needed a fully functional user-friendly website with a secure dashboard, wherein the traders could import the list of users to whom the reminders were needed to be sent. They wanted us to create a framework where the customers were able to select between 3 different plans with different price specifications. Additionally, they expected the system to be completely secure and extendable, wherein the admin can view/delete/edit customer’s data safely.

Solution

Dedicated technology experts
Data security
Time-Zone Flexibility
Reliability
Use Case Testing
On-Time Delivery

Result

A dedicated team of experts helped fulfill Repeat Booking’s vision by helping to turn their idea into reality and worked from scratch to provide them with the desired results. The company was able to achieve a significant user base within a short period of time with the help of a dedicated team that worked in their time-zone and providing them with complete flexibility.

Check out the entire development timeline of how Uplers helped Repeat Booking build a system from scratch in just 180 days- here.

Get The Uplers Advantage!

Uplers will help you make your offshoring experience seamless and without any hiccups. After 9+ years in the field, we have helped more than 7000+ clients with their digital, web development, marketing automation and design needs. At Uplers,we provide smart, focused and passionate teams dedicated to your business.

Our process is simple

Tell us your requirements, we’ll help you pick the right talent and create an ideal dedicated remote team.

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Top 10 Facts About Offshore Development Centers Across the World

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Rampant globalization and raging competition due to the accelerated digital proliferation has promoted an era of outsourcing the world over. Offshore Development Centers or ODCs lie at the heart of this practice, helping companies get instant access to talent pools.

It is empowering to do so since, more often than not, offshore remote teams are hand-picked in a way that they complement the client’s culture and requirements. If you are thinking about offshoring anytime soon, here are 10 important facts to give you a gist of the industry:

1. India Remains as the Best Offshore Development Center Location

According to the Global Services Location Index (GSLI) of 2019, India remains the top offshoring destination for organizations around the world, especially for web development services. In fact, a study from IT giant Deloitte claimed that around 59% of the participating companies in its survey outsource to India, with a further 22% planning to do so soon.

This seems to driven by a rich and growing pool of engineers and web developers in India that can bring a variety of talents in technologies such as ASP.NET, ZenCart, Joomla, AngularJS, WordPress, Magento, and ReactJS.

2. India Clocks the Lowest Operating Costs Amongst ODCs

If we compare the average cost of developer salaries around the world, India again emerges as the frontrunner with the lowest costs (refer to the graph below).

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This is even less than the average developer salary in the Philippines, which stands at USD 8,138.32. Combining all statistics, the top 3 offshore development centers in terms of costs come down to be: India, Philippines, and Columbia.

3. China and India Remain the Biggest Seas of Talent Pool

A study from the Institution of Engineering and Technology has found that the shortage of engineers in the US has constantly been growing. On the other hand, there is a profound availability of talented engineers and STEM graduates (science, technology, engineering, and maths) at the other end of the world.

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China leads the way with the biggest talent pool, followed by India as a close second. Throw in the fact that India gives more importance to the English language than China and India, again, emerges as the preferred choice for most organizations.

4. China Leads the Way With the Highest Growth in the Past Decade

Over the past 10 years, China has seen an increase in revenue from $1.38 billion to $106.46 billion. This pegs it as the ODC that has clocked the most growth. In the same time period, the technology service industry of India has grown from a revenue of $4 billion to $58 billion. Alternatively, the valuation of Ukraine’s offshore development centers stands at $5 billion today.

Although it is also important to note that the majority of China’s growth is contributed by manufacturing offshoring.

5. India Holds a Major Chunk of Global Technology Sourcing Market

As reported by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, India is responsible for 7% of the global technology sourcing market. This includes both software and hardware shares in the industry. One of the major driving forces for this is the average hourly wage for Indian developers, which is $15 as compared to $100 for an American Developer. All this and more means that India remains the top outsourcing destination for some of the greatest technology companies around the world. This also brings us to our next point…

6. Major Technological Organizations That Are Outsourcing to India and China

India remains home to some of the largest tech companies around the world, including Microsoft, Oracle, Dell Cisco, Alphabet, and IBM. In fact, more than 15,000 of the foreign companies are outsourcing to India today. Out of these, 1000 are large organizations.

Contrastingly, China remains as the outsourcing hub for companies such as Apple and Google, with a manufacturing capacity of 500,000 iPhones per day.

Also Read: Top 5 Things To Consider Before You Hire Offshore Developers

7. ODCs Save Companies Tremendous Amounts of Money

It is a well-known fact that ODCs save outsourcing organizations a lot of money. To put this into perspective, Offshore Development Centers in India alone have helped to save organizations an estimated $200 Billion. In costs in the past 5 years itself (cost-reduction of around 60%).

Other ODC locations have also been known to bring down their development costs by up to 60%. In terms of overhead salaries, employee benefits, and infrastructure.

8. Increasing Focus on Data Security is Putting China at a Disadvantage

Data security has been a long-standing concern for offshore development processes. This has been one of the biggest challenges being faced by China today. Intellectual property (IP) protection remains an issue with as many as 61% of the companies that are outsourcing to China. To consider software piracy as the leading issue, following by unauthorized usage, rebranding, or redistribution. This primarily due to the poor enforcement of IP rights in China, which is lagging behind Its enactment of laws.

9. Poland and Philippines Remain Lucrative Alternatives

As per industry reports, Poland remains the 4th and Philippines as the 5th best country to outsource software development requirements (behind India, Ukraine, and China, respectively). Developers in Poland have been known to be skilled in project management along with proficiency in languages databases and security.

The Philippines is known for its programming skills with proficiency such as PHP, .NET, Ruby, HTML.ASP, Java, C++, and Python.

10. India Leads the Way As a Global Innovation Leader in its Region

If we look at the top 3 innovation economies by region, India regained its position as the leader. This is followed by Iran and Kazakhstan. As published by the Global Innovation Index of 2019 report, this is regardless of the economic slowdown which seemed to have no effect on the innovation scale.

Rounding It Up

Major factors to analyze the best offshoring country for you include Time zone differences, cost of outsourcing and innovation index. When we look at all of these, India naturally emerges as the best outsourcing destination. At Uplers, we can help you successfully outsource both web development and digital marketing services in India. Get in touch with us for a free consultation today.

Top 3 Outsourcing Business Models for Digital Agencies

The Deloitte Global Outsourcing Survey 2018 claims that traditional outsourcing has already yielded to disruptive outsourcing. Cloud computing, robotic process automation, and cognitive automation are driving the disruptive IT outsourcing market. An increasing number of companies across industries are adopting different outsourcing business models as a strategy for competitive advantages.

No data is readily available about the total volume of outsourced digital marketing services. However, the global trends in information technology outsourcing (ITO) offer some insights. Digital services outsourcing falls within this larger market.

What’s in this for you?

Well, we begin by providing market facts about the ITO and the risks associated with the various types of outsourcing business models. We’ll also present an overview of different outsourcing business models to outsource digital marketing services, complete with their comparative advantages and disadvantages.

The Global ITO Market

ITO constitutes the largest component of the wider outsourcing market. In 2017, 727 ITO deals were signed globally for the total value of US$ 137.2 billion, according to a KPMG report. Another 220 deals worth US$ 94.2 million combined ITO and BPO (business process outsourcing).

ITO Market: Australia

Australia tops the country ranking in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of the total contract value of ITO deals. It signed 39 ITO deals in 2017, with an additional 3 deals that combined ITO and BPO.

The total value of the ITO deals was US$ 3,562 million, and that of the combined deals was US$ 57 million.

ITO Market: UK

The UK was second in 2017 in terms of total ITO and BPO deals generated, contributing 5.2% to the global value of deals, informs the KPMG report. The country signed 90 ITO deals in 2017 for the total value of US$ 8,359 million.

The country also signed an additional 30 deals that combine BPO and ITO for the total value of US$ 338 million.

ITO Market: USA

The KPMG report informs that the USA generated 84.2% of the ITO-BPO contracts in 2017. The country signed 320 ITO deals that year, the total contract value of which was US$ 102,817. The country also signed 178 ITO-BPO combined deals for the total value of US$ 94,343.

IT talent shortage is the major factor driving the high ITO rate in the USA. The prediction is that US universities will be able to cater to only 30% of the specialist IT jobs that will be available in the country in 2020.

Risks Involved in ITO

Even while the ITO market is growing, it is not free of risks. The following diagram presents the risk perceptions by firms practicing ITO, as captured by the Deloitte report. The diagram also depicts how companies that outsource their digital services are addressing the risks associated with the practice.

It becomes clear from the diagram that data security breach is the highest concern of major firms practicing ITO. While some companies emerge as not yet focused on addressing this risk, most players have adopted different measures to minimize their concern in this area.

The 3 Most Popular IT Outsourcing Business Models

1. Project-Based Outsourcing

The project-based outsourcing model of digital services implies that there is a predetermined goal that the outsourced partner must achieve within a mutually agreed time frame. This model works best when the project requirements are clearly defined and the development time is short.

Advantages:

This model makes the service provider responsible for the major part of the goals to be achieved.
This approach is also suitable for smaller companies since no long-term investments are necessary.

Disadvantages:

The hiring company has little control over the team formation and the management of the entire project.
Project-based outsourcing business model usually costs higher than other models.

2. Outsourcing to Freelancers

It is possible to use individual freelancers to outsource white label digital marketing services instead of partnering with a company. The decision to hire a company or a freelancer usually depends on the project size. For low-scale projects, hiring freelancers may prove to be more cost-effective.

Advantages:

Freelancers are less expensive if the project is small, for a limited time, and does not need a wide skills-set.
It is easier to terminate a freelancing contract than a contract with a company in case the freelancer cannot match up to the needs of the project.
It is possible to hire different freelancers for several small projects with a short time limit.
Experienced freelancers with a good project completion record need little time for understanding project needs.

Disadvantages:

References for freelancers are more difficult to secure than for established companies.
A freelancer’s goals may not align with the goals of the hiring company.
If a freelancer asks for a rate revision mid-project, it may cause serious problems for the hiring company.
A freelancer is the only contact point, which may become a challenge in the case of differing time zones between the hiring company and the freelancer.
There could be a language barrier problem.

3. Dedicated Team Model

This model means hiring remote service providers who remain dedicated to the provider company but report directly to the hiring company. The remote digital marketing service providers may constitute the full digital marketing team of the hiring company.

Also known as the IT team augmentation model, the remote digital marketing service providers may also work in collaboration with an in-house team of the hiring company. The dedicated team approach works best for long-term needs with changing needs.

Advantages:

Full control over team members and project management.
There is scope for changing the project priorities whenever necessary.
Ensures dedicated service without the need for micromanaging employees.
A point person is always available for any kind of urgent communication.

Disadvantages:

The providing company can decide on shifting remote team members without informing the hiring company first. The solution is to make the process the superstar, so that there’s no ‘indispensable superstar’ that everyone has to rely on.
In the case of any failure, the responsibilities have to be shared by the hiring company and the company providing the digital marketing service.
Time zone differences and language barriers could be challenging. The solution is to design work shifts such that the client gets 24 x 7 support.

In a Nutshell

Each of the three outsourcing business models is applicable to both onshore and offshore outsourcing. Onshore outsourcing means hiring the services of a white label agency situated in the same country as the hiring company. Offshore outsourcing means hiring a company beyond the national borders of the hiring company.

Increasingly, however, more companies in the global North are moving towards offshore outsourcing business model, for their digital marketing needs. Cost-saving and access to talent are the factors driving this trend. The dedicated team model works best for the medium and long term, because it allows everyone the time and motivation to build robust and quality-focused processes.

Security Precaution to Take While Dealing with Offshore Development Teams

81 percent of businesses are concerned about any mismanagement of their vital data when outsourcing a project. Are you one of those?

Outsourcing services to an offshore development partner often chip in for top-tier talent across the globe and lower operational costs, but the concept isn’t as sound as a bell. Offshore development comes with various risks like lack of control, time-zone differences, cultural barriers, and the most crucial of all is the risk of a security breach.

Each time a business wishes to bring offshore development into play, it allows its offshore partner to access the company’s sensitive customer data, intellectual business data and trade secrets. According to the PWC survey, 31% of the total companies that were surveyed reported a security breach attempt while leveraging outsourcing.

Vulnerabilities Peeking from Behind the Curtain

Risk of Network Breaches
Disclosure or Leak of Intellectual Property
Physical Access to Unlocked Data
Hacking and Theft of Sensitive Data

These are the 4 main security vulnerabilities when dealing with offshore development teams. So, let us drop light on each of these vulnerabilities and comprehend points to avoid these security risks.

Security Precaution to Take While Dealing with Offshore Development Teams

1. Risk of Network Breaches

Outsourcing to an offshore development team requires a transfer of sensitive business data and access credentials over the network. A large amount of sensitive data moves to and fro over the network and increases the potential risk of hacking. Moreover, in the project-based model, companies lack complete awareness of the individuals having access to their data at the offshore development centre.

There are risks associated with server hacks post the release of a software application. So, what would be the right precautions to take in order to mitigate the risks of network threats?

Precaution 1: Secure Network Monitoring

While screening through possible outsourcing partners, businesses need to analyse the sensitive data involved in a project. Along with this, there is a list of questions a business should ask their offshore development partner:

Do you have an active network monitoring setup to guard against any potential network threat?
Does the business has enterprise-level firewall security?
What are the data access policies followed by the vendor internally?
What kind of anti-virus protection does the vendor employ?
Is there a regular security audit to see the access policies are not violated?
A better clearance on these queries can help you scrutinize the security standards followed by a vendor.

Precaution 2: Plan Security for the Entire Project Life Cycle

A software solution is more prone to a security breach in the initial phase of its release and therefore the offshore development team is accountable for the security of the project post its launch as well.

As a project is released it is more visible and that means a great target for hackers who can now get access to a huge customer data including sensitive credit card information. You need to ask your offshore development team to make project security a priority and find ways to make sure it is safe against breaches. Some important precautions include:

Latest encryption standards need to be followed for the project
Patch any security holes or data leaks
Create backups to respond to any breach
Active post-release support services from the offshore development team

When it comes to fixing any breach attempt or preparing a backup, the offshore development team that has worked upon the project will be the best positioned to do so. Businesses can be sure about the security of a project by hiring support services from the offshore team for the entire project cycle.

Also Read: How to Manage Time Zone Differences when Working with Offshore Dedicated Teams

2. Disclosure or Leak of Intellectual Property

Better known as ‘IP theft’, there is a decisive risk of the leak of a project idea or a secret execution strategy. It may be considered as old-fashioned plagiarism and may not even be considered illegal in various circumstances. There are cases, where freelancers and third-party contractors sell or roll away with your project idea. Freelancers often juggle between multiple clients and as a result of opportunism they can sell your idea to another client. And the solution to this vulnerability boils down to choosing a reliable and reputable offshore development partner.

Precaution 1: Establish A Strong NDA Policy

Protecting your intellectual property needs to be a priority and therefore it is better to bound your outsourcing provider with a strong legal reason.

Sign a legal NDA with the vendor
The NDA needs to be vetted with a local attorney that can help you with the law of the country where the vendor resides
One can also retain a specific attorney in a specific outsourcing country

No company wishes to encounter such situations, but preparations cannot be counted better.

Precaution 2: Ink A Full Ownership Contract

Leave no stone unturned. Though a reputable vendor understands the usage right with every outsourced project, you need to be careful.

Ink a full ownership contract
Create a contract of full ownership over any code developed, or any data created for your project
Get the contract checked by a local attorney
Mention the legal laws related to a breach in the contract

Your offshore development team is legally liable to follow the NDA and respect the ownership contract.

3. Physical Access to Unlocked Data

The last ten years have witnessed some of the largest data breaches as a result of physical access to unlocked data. A popular example is the Sony Pictures breach of 2014.

You might develop the best of network security systems and it may all go down to vein if someone has physical access to your data without your knowledge. You need to discuss the vulnerability in detail with your offshore development team and be ready to pivot any such attempt and prevent it at the first point.

Precaution 1: A Secure Offshore Center

Every office has its own security rules and own culture. You cannot expect it to be something close to FBI quarters as in movies. But, there are measures that make it safe against any physical breach. Some of these measures are:

Authorized bio-metric access control
Monitored CCTV cameras
Deployed security personnel
Defined and private credentials for all systems

Before inking a contract with an offshore development team, you need to be sure about the physical security measures followed.

Precaution 2: No Remote Access to Sensitive Data

Imagine someone getting access to your staff’s laptop while he works remotely. It can be the easiest access to your sensitive data. What could be done?

There should be no off-site access to crucial or sensitive data
The hard drives, cloud storage or other storage devices should have limited access
There should be clear policies about the handling of data across the outsourcing company

Clear policies, verified standards, and multi-level security checks can safeguard your data against physical threats.

Conclusion

Though statistics say, no reputed outsourcing provider has never been involved in a security breach intentionally, 18% of them have breached it by accident.

Here is a brief of the Top 10 Security Precautions a Business Needs to Consider while Outsourcing:

Deploy advanced network monitoring
Choose a reputed white label service provider
Plan security post-project development and launch
Sign a legal NDA notified by a local attorney
Create a full ownership contract
Deploy authorised bio-metric access to systems
Deploy security cameras that are actively monitored
No remote or off-site access to sensitive client data
Create standard data protection policies to be shared with the offshore team
Dictate strict penalties on the violation of any data protection policy

Why it Makes Sense for Startups to Outsource Digital Marketing Services?

Approximately over 543,000 startups are launched every single month. On the contrary, 90% of the startups are likely to fail within 10 years of their journey. You might have the greatest startup idea, but you need the right digital marketing strategy to break out of this high-risk phase.

58% of startups invest about 75% of their total yearly marketing budget to digital marketing, so to break out of the high business competition in the early phase. But, does it help them succeed?

Well, 37% of startups try to manage their digital marketing strategies themselves despite having no background experience. And this is one of the most crucial reasons why new businesses fail.

What is a Possible Solution?

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Outsourcing digital marketing to a specialized digital marketing agency for startups.

But, does it make sense for startups to outsource their digital marketing services? Here are the reasons for the same:

Top 7 Reasons for Startups to Outsource Digital Marketing Services

1. Minimizing the Risk of Campaign Failure

65% of new businesses have never had a defined digital marketing training and are absolute amateurs to the ever-changing paid marketing landscape. While a specialized outsourcing agency is backed by paid marketing experts have years of experience in the domain.

From defining the right target audience, planning the right campaign strategy, to executing a strategically planned campaign, a specialized agency minimizes the risk of campaign failure. Outsourcing digital marketing services to an agency or business makes them accountable to draw you return from paid campaigns and measure the success of your business and campaigns.

2. Defining the Right Roles for Your Digital Marketing Team

Most startups lead with an incompetent or poorly-structured in-house digital marketing team that consists of a paid marketer, SEO copywriter and a graphic designer. But, this small team may fail to meet the aggressive marketing goals a startup may need in its initial phase. On the other end, a specialized digital marketing agency for startups can help you build a well-structured marketing team. This includes an SEO specialist, a PPC manager, a graphic designer, a front-end developer, a social media specialist, a content marketer, and a marketing strategist. A self-sufficient marketing team means boosted marketing efforts.

3. Drawing Evident Results in Rankings & Conversions

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63% of startups have their primary goal to acquire new customers and business opportunities through their digital marketing strategies. But on the contrary, 71% of startups lead without a documented digital strategy. Outsourcing digital marketing services to a specialized agency can help startups lead with a result-focused strategy. Further, the agency is responsible for tracking and reporting the results and conversions, to better analyze your ROIs.

4. Employing Efficient Multi-channel Marketing

A common flaw in the marketing strategy of startups is that they either use too many digital channels or stick to a single channel. In the wake of attracting traffic and raising brand awareness over different platforms, new businesses employ directionless strategies. While outsourcing to experts can help startups utilize the perks of multi-channel marketing. E-commerce startups leverage multi-channel marketing to multiply their sales by up to 3 times. Multi-channel marketing campaigns can help you reach a larger audience in a more effective way.

5. Focus on Core Business Activities

Time-management is a critical factor when it comes to deciding the success of a startup business. Outsourcing digital marketing services to an agency helps you focus on your core business activities. The agency manages your strategy, execution, analytics, and conversions. You just have to take a look at reports and plan on your future goals. You do not have to worry about the monthly marketing plans, campaign performance, rankings, and website traffic.

6. Better Budget Control

When startups decide to do their digital marketing themselves, they need to plan and hire a marketing team in-house. This means long-term budget planning including considerations like payroll, employee benefits, and investment on infrastructure. Moreover, a startup business has a lower investment potential and outsourcing can be a better budget control option. Furthermore, outsourcing can help startups minimize the risk of loss of investment.

7. Leveraging Offshoring Benefits

Startups based in tier 1 countries like the US, UK, and Australia, find it hard to invest in a dedicated in-house marketing team because of the high resource hiring cost. Here, if the startups find a reliable outsourcing partner in tier 2 or tier 3 countries they could save a great deal of money in their digital marketing investments.

Closing Thoughts

Today, almost 34% of small businesses outsource their digital marketing services and this rate is rising each year. Further, there are various other alternatives to outsourcing, one of which is hiring a dedicated digital marketing team. This model can give you better control over your digital marketing activities than project-based outsourcing. A startup business witnesses the highest risk of business failure due to lower investment potential and low brand awareness. This is the reason why most startups spend above 50% of their total budget on sales and marketing.

Top Factors that Hint Your Agency Needs a Dedicated Team Offshore

Right now, your digital agency might be losing 20-30% revenue every year, just by missing out on the benefits of offshore development.

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The business outlook has changed and it welcomes outsourcing as a possible alternative to the in-house team model. But, does outsourcing promises the same quality as your in-house team? Survey says, 50% of employers still doubt the quality of the services outsourcing offers.

Here, the solution is ‘dedicated team model’, it represents a perfect harmony between the benefits of in-house team model and outsourcing.

What is a Dedicated Team Model?

It is a kind of outsourcing where you hire a team of experts from a specialized IT outsourcing agency and the team is dedicated to working on your project. This model fits ideal for long-term projects and business goals. You as a client can train your team and manage them to follow your work processes, while the resource provider confirms the reliability of their resources.

A dedicated offshore team can help businesses save their overhead costs, meet their scalability goals and grant offshore development benefits. But, does your digital agency need a dedicated team?

Top Factors that Hint Your Agency Needs a Dedicated Team

1. In-house Resource Hiring Cost Exceeds Your Budget

59% of businesses use outsourcing to reduce the cost of their operations. In tier 1 countries like US, UK and Europe, the cost of hiring resources in-house is way high. A better bet is to build a dedicated development team in tier 2 or tier 3 countries.

An average cost of hiring a developer in the US is $70 – $80 per hour, while you can find a resource with commendable expertise at the cost of $20- $30 per hour in India. If you plan to scale your digital agency in terms of resources, the dedicated team model can help you with faster scalability along with saving on the CAPEX and overhead cost per employee.

2. You Need a Backup for “Oh Shit” Situations

A dedicated development team can be a faster backup to your ‘oh shit’ situations. In case, you wish to expand and meet the bulking project requirements, a dedicated development team can act as an extension to your in-house team. 80% of Fortune 500 companies utilize offshore teams as a backup to their in-house teams.

Also Read: In-house Team Vs Remote Team Vs Dedicated Team: Which Is The Best Choice?

3. Freelancing and Remote Team Lacks Reliability

Hiring freelancers can be the most uncertain bet when it comes to outsourcing. The model lacks reliability and can cost you a project failure.

Hiring a dedicated offshore team from a trusted IT outsourcing agency gives you a sense of reliability and stability.

4. Long-term Projects with Constant Workload

The dedicated team model can be the right choice when you have long-term projects and business goals. Unlike outsourcing, you can manage and train the dedicated development team to work according to your business processes. Having an offshore team for long-term helps business owners avoid issues related to resource transition.

5. You Need a Team As Efficient As Your In-house Team

As said earlier, the dedicated model makes up as an extension to your in-house team. You can roll-out your agency-wide standards to be followed by your dedicated team. Moreover, the model gives you the freedom to manage your team as per your work processes and maintain the quality standards as your in-house team.

The graph shows the advantages of the dedicated team model over a remote team and in-house team.

Factors to Consider as You Add a Dedicated Team to Your Arsenal

So, as you realize the need to hire a dedicated offshore team, what should be the next step. Below are the factors that guide your decisions while you hire a dedicated development team for your distal agency:

1. Define Your Goals and Project Scope:

A dedicated team befits for long-term projects and you need to have a clear vision about how you are going to utilize your team. A defined project-scope helps you analyze the experience and expertise you need. Team strength is another factor to be added to your list of considerations.

2. Sort Your Priorities:

Think upon whether you need a PM to coordinate and manage your dedicated development team or you need to manage the team yourself. Further, you might need a professional consultation to get into the nitty-gritty of the dedicated team model.

3. Search the Right Vendor:

Check which country would be the right place to set up a dedicated development team. According to a survey, India is the top offshoring destination across the globe.

In the A T Kearney Preferred Location list of 2019 also, India ranks first with a total index score of 7.06.

Shortlist the potential vendors and check who could offer you access to the right talent pool. You need to negotiate between the shortlisted vendors based on their experience, specialization, and strength.

4. Choose Your Team:

Many vendors give you access to the resumes of the dedicated resources and you could simply build your team through a series of checks. Or the IT outsourcing agency could help you build your team based on the level of expertise of each resource.

Summing Up

The dedicated team model renders businesses a backup to their in-house team at an affordable price. Moreover, businesses can easily manage their team structure, create on-demand additions in the team and count on its team as a reliable asset. However, the cross-cultural gap between the in-house team and the offshore team can be evident for some time. Further, if you require any assistance in building your dedicated remote team for web development or digital marketing services, connect with us.

5 Indicators That You Must Begin Outsourcing

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You may be a long-time proponent of the traditional in-house development strategy. But it may be this very same in-house development strategy that is restricting the growth of your business. Outsourcing, on the other hand, is an extremely beneficial project management strategy – it is cost-effective, has high-profit returns, and allows for enhanced expertise. So, if you are still thinking ‘why outsource’, below is some statistics that show how outsourcing companies can help you grow.

In 2016, revenue from the outsourcing industry amounted to approximately $97.8 billion AUS. Additionally, 30% of IT companies that outsource believe that the strategy is responsible for reducing the cost of project development. Similarly, could your business leverage the benefits of outsourcing?

If the following scenarios seem all too familiar, outsourcing companies can be a viable solution for you and your business.

1. Are You Paying Dead Wages?

Is your business bearing the cost of retaining an employee during downtime, when there are no current projects that need attending to? By outsourcing as and when you have projects, you pay for expert skills in a cost-effective manner. This reduces your company’s overall outgoing costs and assists you in generating substantial profit returns per project.

2. Are You Lacking the In-House Expertise?

Are you lacking the required skills to complete a project in-house? One of the greatest benefits of Outsourcing is that it lets you access the required expertise at the right cost. Studies show that 36% of innovators and 37% of entrepreneurs use outsourcing to increase their business capabilities. Skype as we know it was once a disruptive app, once further development was outsourced to three Estonian developers, these issues were resolved, and Skype finally possessed the functionality we are familiar with today.

3. Are You Unimpressed by Your Profit Margins?

As a project manager, are you consistently comparing total investment in a project with a total return, and finding your profit margins are less than desirable? 27% of companies that outsource do so to avoid the costs of in-house development and to gain better returns instead.

4. Are You Losing Clients?

As competition in industry sectors increases, client retention becomes more crucial than ever. Can businesses lose clients due to lack of in-house expertise resulting in client dissatisfaction? Outsourcing companies, with their enhanced expertise, can help you avoid this situation altogether.

5. Are You Falling Behind on Deadlines?

Meeting project deadlines is a major challenge faced by many businesses. Statistically, less than a third of all the projects in the IT industry was completed on time in 2015. If lack of expertise, lack of resources and in-house development challenges are consistently putting your business behind schedule, it’s time to outsource.

So..

If these scenarios ring true for you and your business, you should consider changing your strategies. Be it cost-cutting, searching for specific skill sets, or retaining clients, outsourcing can be an effective project management solution for your business.

Five Reasons Why You Get Disappointed By Outsourcing Companies

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Whether you had a close brush with the SEO company from hell or realized that the firm handling your social media may have unwittingly helped your competitors, you could be feeling pretty disillusioned about outsourcing companies. This is natural, but the remaining alternatives – doing nothing or attempting SEO and SEM in-house – are not feasible either. In this conundrum, it is best to rethink the reasons why your outsourcing experience didn’t go as planned, and avoid the same mistakes during your search for a new digital marketing partner.

1. You went with a really young firm

Not to be ageist, but a firm that has little experience helping local businesses with their SEO may not deliver the results you seek, at least not with the agility you expect. They may not have a playbook to refer to and very little by way of insights from previous experiences. It is one thing to have worked on an SEO team, and another to have managed a company’s SEO account from scratch as part of a long-term contract.

If the agency’s professionals had little or no experience working with businesses in your industry, it may have taken them longer to come to grips with your audience and the technicalities of your service/product. And in the event that they couldn’t connect to your audience or the major developments in your industry on your Facebook or Twitter page, your investment return would have been pretty meagre.

Stick to an SEO/SEM agency with at least five years of experience and preferably one with a good familiarity with your industry. It will save you time, effort, confusion and frustration.

2. You didn’t enquire about their SEO practices

So you forget to ask the agency if they followed Google’s best practices and ended up being penalized. It happens more often than you may imagine, in spite of Google’s algorithm changes attempting to provide better results for search engine users. Black hat methods still work but only for a short while before leaving your website in the lurch. No matter how effectively a ‘churn and burn’ campaign or a private blog network (PBN) may generate traffic initially, you are safe only until Google catches you.

For sustained results from SEO, you need to invest in ethical practices endorsed and rewarded by search engines. But beyond rankings, you want your website – your brand’s online identity – to build trust and encourage the kind of engagement that spills over to your social media pages and boosts newsletter sign-ups.

As a best practice from your side, make it a point to question prospective SEO outsourcing companies what are their most important SEO techniques and the technical SEO, research and link-building tools they use. Read up about the common tools used in white hat SEO campaigns – a little research can go a long way in filtering out agencies that seem iffy.

3. The proposal wasn’t detailed

You signed the contract without being absolutely clear about all the services and assistance the agency would provide and what you would need to arrange separately on your own. Perhaps they needed you to be more involved than what you could promise or maybe their autonomous decisions didn’t work out very well.

It is not rare for important messages to get misinterpreted or lost in translation, especially if you have no idea about how optimization works. For example, will the agency be handling the technical changes to your website or will you need to hire a developer to implement the changes they recommend? Will they need assistance from your content writers or marketing team? Are you fine signing off a contract allowing an experienced agency to make changes without your consent?

These are important questions to ask and get clear answers for. What works for one business may not work for another. Understand how much time you can commit to collaborating with the agency as well as all the services they will provide as part of the contract.

4. You overpaid

Some outsourcing companies will estimate a greater number of hours than what is actually required each month on your project. This is a risk-control strategy but mostly it is about fleecing gullible clients. Sort of like Parkinson’s law – work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

One way to ensure that your SEO partner is transparent about costs is to understand in advance if the ‘quantity of work’ in hours and monthly deliverables align reasonably with how much they are charging. Ask around and do a bit of research to approximate to a fair cost that you wouldn’t want to exceed.

5. An intern worked on your campaign

It is possible that you didn’t meet the team or professional assigned to your campaign. The risk with not knowing who is managing your baby is that the SEO agency can easily shift it to a newbie or an intern. Again, this occurs more often than you may believe, so it is better to be safe than sorry.

Insist on meeting the individual/team responsible for your project. If you cannot have a face-to-face conversation, connect via Skype to enjoy peace of mind knowing that your website and reputation are in good hands.

A reliable SEO agency can be an invaluable partner, supporting your business goals in a meaningful way. In an era of collaboration and synergies, it is in your best interest to form an ecosystem of useful business relationships, regardless of your industry or size.