There are many types of outsourcing and offshoring. There is outsourcing where the clients outsource non-core functions like IT, finance, or HR. 

Offshoring is outsourcing that involves moving the work to another country. The Philippines offshore outsourcing industry took off when Y2K came around because it was an international issue likely to happen worldwide which created a demand for skilled personnel in the country.

One reason management is important in outsourcing or offshoring is because it helps companies reduce costs by limiting transportation expenses and time lost if workers have to travel from home office to a third party site regularly. Another reason is that outsourcing enables companies to focus more on customer service rather than business stability as they no longer need to be concerned with the outsourcing company and their outsourcing processes.

Offshoring is becoming more and more popular as technology advances and outsourcing trends shift due to potential cost savings, increased global competition, and the advancement of outsourcing providers. Offshoring has been around for a long time; however, outsourcing has become much easier thanks to the Internet. Now there are outsourcing companies that have websites where they list their available jobs so that businesses can find them easily through search engines or direct links on outsourcing provider sites.

Businesses can manage outsourcing teams online via email, online messaging applications like Skype, Facebook chat, Google Talk etc., video conferencing programs like Webex or GoToMeeting etc., VOIP - Voice over Internet Protocol calls which are making free phone calls over the Internet, and online collaboration tools like Sharepoint which allows for document sharing.

In this article, we’re going to talk about some of the best ways on how to manage an offshore team and why many businesses resort to outsourcing or offshoring as their business strategy.

The outsourcing phenomenon has managed to create outsourcing workforces that can be found in practically every country and industry.

This has created a trend of outsourcing companies outsourcing the outsourcing process itself to other outsourcing firms which employ workers from countries where outsourcing is less common, such as Romania or the Philippines.

Companies looking to outsource development projects will typically hire an offshore team instead of working with an outsourcing company. Their goals are fundamentally different: where outsourcing companies seek economies of scale, hiring an offshore team is more about having direct control over your project's development, since you'll have dedicated developers who will give your project their undivided attention.

As with all major decisions that involve spending money (or not spending it), before making up your mind you should ask yourself some questions. You'll want to pick the outsourcing team that best suits your needs and expectations, so you can get the most out of outsourcing.

But first, you have to know and identify the services you want to experience from your service provider.

1. How much outsourcing work is required?

Offshore teams come in all shapes and sizes, from small outsourcing firms to multinational outsourcing conglomerates. Look for a team that can handle your project without taking on unnecessary risks. If you only need a minor task done, go for a smaller outsourcing firm or an outsourcing freelancer instead of hiring an entire offshore team. This way you'll save money while having the same amount of control over the development process as with hiring a whole team.

2. What kind of outsourcing relationship do you want?

There are three major types of outsourcing relationships: dedicated outsourcing, time & materials and staff augmentation. You must decide which one best fits your needs before selecting an offshoring partner. 

Dedicated outsourcing. This outsourcing relationship is the most common, where you'll have a dedicated team working on your project. The outsourcing firm will assign a specific number of developers to work exclusively for you until your project is completed.

Time & materials. In this outsourcing relationship, you pay outsourcing firms based on the time they spend working on your projects and how many resources they use (labour hours). If your offshoring partner has a good system that allows them to track their productivity as well as the cost of every hour spent working for you, then this can be an ideal outsourcing relationship as it's simple and fair for both parties involved.

Staff augmentation. This outsourcing model offers its services by allocating just enough outsourcing team members to work for you full-time. It's suitable if your outsourcing firm doesn't have enough resources, or if outsourcing employees are too expensive for you. The outsourcing company will only allocate the number of outsourcing resources needed to complete your project, which means they'll be working on other projects at the same time.

3. How much control do you want over the outsourcing process?

The more control you have over your outsourcing partner, the better off you are - just as the saying goes "If You Have to Ask About Their Compensation Policy You Can't Afford Them". When it comes to selecting an outsourcing partner, there are plenty of factors that can give you this kind of control: 

 Use a dedicated development model where outsourcing team members will work on your project full-time.  Have direct contact with outsourcing employees so you can manage them as if they were a part of your team. Ability to communicate directly with outsourcing managers to solve any disagreements between outsourcing partners, without involving anybody else from either party. The ability to ask for outsourcing resources via an online portal or even the phone, and have those requests fulfilled within hours or days - depending on how dire your outsourcing need is. Having total transparency over the outsourcing process by being able to access real-time data about the outsourcing firm's activity and performance.

4. How much money are you willing to spend?

You should factor in both start-up costs as well as monthly fees when you're looking at outsourcing firms. Costs will depend on the outsourcing team model you want (time & materials, dedicated outsourcing or staff augmentation), whether you're outsourcing to individual outsourcing professional or an outsourcing company, and the average cost of outsourcing resources in your outsourcing partner's local economy. With that said, it can be difficult for small businesses to predict exact costs when dealing with offshoring partners since there are many variables involved in pricing - but one thing's for sure: The more control you have over your outsourcing partner, the better value you'll get for your money.

In this section, let’s talk about outsourcing to the Philippines.

When outsourcing to the Philippines, it may be necessary to know outsourcing Philippines benefits or outsourcing in the Philippines benefits.

There are many different outsourcing and offshoring companies in the Philippines. Some of these outsourcing and offshores services companies include: call centre outsourcing the Philippines, bpo outsourcing, bpo provider, business process outsourcing (bpo), medical transcription jobs the Philippines, health care transcription jobs in the Philippines, medical coder jobs in the Philippines, healthcare coder training program etc. Offshore outsourcing company usually provides such services as customer service outsourcing (customer service representative), data processing services, technical support outsourcing, IT helpdesk outsourcing, etc. These types of information technology BPO companies typically have a high degree of outsourcing availability, high outsourcing flexibility, outsourcing with low cost of services outsourcing.

Customer service bpo jobs the Philippines are the most popular outsourcing companies in the Philippines outsourcing industry today. Examples of these outsourcing jobs in the Philippines is offshore customer service jobs in the Philippines, call centre outsourcing in Manila etc. These types of customer service outsourcing have a higher demand in offices telemarketing outsourcing and are becoming more successful due to their experience working under pressure with different cultures outsourcing locations.

Many offshore BPOs perform business process outsourcing - bpo work varying from back-office processing activities such as data entry, database management, letters typing offshoring, literature review editing etc., to front office services such as customer care contact centres or online chat.

Offshore outsourcing bpo jobs in the Philippines outsourcing services is a term used to describe an outsourcing company in the Philippines that provides outsourcing services for companies and individuals seeking support with their transactions outsourcing.

Offshoring outsourcing companies can not only help you reduce cost, outsourcing but also simplify business processes outsourcing the Philippines. Outsourcing offshore is a natural option for organizations looking to lower costs without sacrificing revenues or productivity.

Outsourcing overseas give all kinds of benefits including: 

Offshore outsourcing is a viable option for many businesses in the outsourcing industry today. Through outsourcing, companies can benefit from cost savings, improved productivity, better quality services and increased flexibility share price. 

Outsourcing is a way to outsource or contract your company's non-core business functions to another service provider offshore outsourcing. Outsourcing allows you to focus on core competencies bpo outsourcing since it will allow your company to concentrate on its area of expertise while allowing other companies' experts to handle everything else. Outsourcing also helps you cut overhead costs by eliminating redundancies that are internal processes.

Managing a remote team can be challenging. You may not be an expert in outsourcing and offshoring, and you probably won't have direct exposure to outsourcing and offshoring companies. But many people who manage outsourcing teams say that it is more rewarding than working with an on-site team, or managing managers!

The common thread that binds outsourcing managers all over the world together is their belief in three things: empowerment of offshore employees, open communication, and common sense.

Remote workers are your eyes and ears out in the field. They're the boots on the ground for your business. They're doing jobs that would take too long to train someone to do properly if they had only worked with in-house resources. It is a critical part of outsourcing and offshoring management to empower developers, designers, content writers, marketers and more to solve problems for you on their own.

Your outsourcing employees are your business partners. Grant them access to tools that allow them to act like owners; including the ability to make decisions on behalf of the company without consulting with their managers, create technical or production documentation on their own (even if it's how they did it last time), integrate systems themselves (such as CRM) and report back about what works best for them (including new procedures).

If you don't give your outsourcing team the power they need to do their best work, they won't be able to provide anything beyond basic services.

Transparency is a critical part of outsourcing management. The more information you share with the outsourcing team, the better they will be able to provide value to your company. If it's a small outsourcing or offshoring operation that works directly under your supervision, then sharing data directly with them is easy enough. But for larger outsourcing companies managing large outsourcing forces, remote management can get tricky even if you have an intermediary between yourself and the outsourcing development team in India or the outsourcing marketing team in the Philippines.

So open communication isn't just about sharing data with your outsourcing development teams, it's also about empowering them to share information and updates directly with you and other stakeholders. How you communicate is important: weekly status reports, regular Skype meetings (if your outsourcing provider has a good video conferencing solution), and email newsletters are all great tools for outsourcing management. You could even consider outsourcing content publishing to the outsourcing company itself (on an as-needed basis) so that they can take care of messaging coordination.

Finally, success in outsourcing management requires a little common sense on the part of everyone involved. If there's anything else we've learned about remote workforces, it's that using common sense has never been more important.

Make sure outsourcing employees report to a single point of contact (a solid outsourcing program manager, outsourcing project manager or even outsourcing team lead will do) and let them know that they can always come to you if they have any questions or concerns about the work. Make sure outsourcing managers keep regular weekly meetings with their teams and take notes on all decisions and actions taken by each offshore worker (and ensure those notes are shared with the company).

Build relationships with your outsourcing development teams – don't just manage them remotely. Get out there and meet people at outsourcing conferences, send over some food from your hometown, build rapport with somebody who lives near them so you can learn about regional news as it affects your offshoring outsourcing team.

Do you want to make outsourcing management easy? Do you want outsourcing to be profitable? Then avoid outsourcing management mistakes and put the power of your outsourcing and offshoring teams into the hands of your employees where it belongs: on the ground, working for you in their very own time zone.

Having regular meetings with your employees is something that has to happen even if it feels unnecessary at first. From my experience, there's no better way to keep the whole team on track than having a one-hour meeting once or twice per week. You can discuss problems that arose, share discoveries and point out new challenges that need to be addressed. The best part is this type of discussion helps build team spirit as everyone feels like they're working together towards some common goal instead of doing their own thing in complete isolation.

Remote management isn't for everyone, especially if you like micromanaging the people working under you. You may feel like giving certain team members more freedom will make things worse but in most cases when delegated with tasks they'll thrive and deliver amazing results. But only when your instructions are clear and when team members know when their deliverables need to be completed. Don't be afraid to give additional motivation such as bonuses or sabbaticals once in a while - many of my employees have taken month-long vacations just because we've done well at work and there was no pressing deadline to meet.

It takes time to build up trust between employee and employer so don't expect immediate results after hiring. You'll have to invest in team members before they start trusting you and only then will employees deliver outstanding results all the time.