Offshoring Isn’t the Problem—How You Do It Is

You’ve heard the horror stories.

• “They promised savings, but quality dropped.”
• “Deadlines got missed.”
• “The team offshore just didn’t get it.”

But here’s the truth: the problem isn’t offshoring—it’s bad offshoring.

Done right, offshoring doesn’t just save money. It frees up your core team, boosts delivery speed, and increases resilience. I’ve led the offshoring of more than 20 FTEs across functions like HR, payroll, and customer support—with zero service disruption and measurable quality gains.

Here’s how.

Why Offshoring Fails for Most Companies

Most businesses treat offshoring like a cost-cutting quick fix. But if you take broken processes and drop them in a cheaper location, all you get is broken work at a lower hourly rate.

Here’s what usually goes wrong:

• No process standardization
• Missing documentation
• Dump-and-run mindset
• No governance
• Poor fit between task and location

A 2023 Deloitte study found 47% of offshoring efforts fail to deliver expected value—mainly due to bad planning, not bad people.

Step 1: Fix the Process Before You Move It

This is rule #1: never offshore a mess.

In one payroll project, we reduced manual workload by 5 FTEs. But only after:

• Mapping every process with BPMN 2.0
• Fixing time sinks and rework
• Automating where needed
• Documenting the new workflows in SOPs

“You don’t outsource confusion—you clean it first.”

Once the process worked onshore, we moved it offshore—and scaled it without pain.

Step 2: Choose the Right Work to Move

Not every task belongs offshore. That’s where many companies go wrong.

Here’s the offshoring sweet spot:

• High volume
• Rules-based
• Measurable outcomes
• Clear documentation

Avoid sending:

• Escalations
• Judgment-heavy work
• Anything client-facing without context

We moved back-office payroll operations to India and transitioned HR support from London to Warsaw with this strategy. No quality drop. Just better focus.

Step 3: Train Like You’re Launching a Product

Too many companies treat training as a single handover call. You didn’t.

Your training plan included:

• Role-specific training guides
• Live sessions and site visits (India, Warsaw, Manila)
• Shadowing and coaching weeks
• Dashboards for live performance tracking

“Don’t train people once. Equip them daily.”

In the Manila helpdesk project, this approach helped us launch 24/5 support, transfer knowledge from Dublin, and hit SLA targets from week one.

Step 4: Build Local Ownership, Not Remote Dependency

Offshoring doesn’t work if everything is still controlled by HQ.

We built:

• Local champions who owned outcomes
• Global scorecards to track metrics
• Shared escalation paths
• Weekly cross-region reviews

This model helped us shut down legacy HRSS sites and move support to new regions—without dropping the ball on delivery.

Step 5: Track the Wins and Prove the Value

Measurement is key.

In your offshoring projects, we tracked:

• Accuracy rates
• Turnaround time
• FTE impact
• User satisfaction
• Complaint volumes

One key result: a 90% reduction in payroll defects after the offshoring of work to India—because we improved the process first and trained the team right.

Final Thought: Done Right, Offshoring Improves Quality

“Offshoring isn’t about cheap labour. It’s about building smart, global operations that scale.”

If your goal is to simply cut costs, you’ll fail.
If your goal is to build a better, faster, more resilient team—offshoring becomes a powerful tool.

But only if you lead it the right way.

Want to offshore business processes without burning down quality?
I help companies plan, structure, and execute offshoring strategies that actually work. Let’s talk.
👉 improvewithrobert.com | Schedule a meeting below.