Outsourcing is one of the most discussed IT trends. While it seems like a new idea, in fact, the premise for it has been around for a while. Starting from the 1800s, instead of doing a tough job themselves, people learned to give it over to someone who has been there and done that.
Obviously, outsourcing has been enormously supported by the growth of technology – telegraph, telephone, and the Internet and the spiking growth of transportation means.
Separated by literal and mental borders, the world has all of a sudden started getting on the same page. In America and Australia, Canada and India, South Africa and Russia, people were now listening to the same music, TV, and food tastes.
Why is outsourcing so exciting?
At the first glance, outsourcing your project to a distributed team might seem risky. Every business manager wants to have control and a say over his projects which is not exactly what you get while outsourcing.
However, the high apparently is worth the pain since so many remote IT jobs all over the world. What makes the option so effective for businesses? Let’s take a look at a few reasons:
1. Favorable tax environment
It’s no secret that the tax code of the United States somewhat encourages the export of IT-jobs. The effective tax in the US is give-or-take 40% which is a third higher than the one in developing countries. For instance, the tax rate in India and the Philippines, main locations for offshore jobs, is approximately 10-20% lower than the one in America.
Also, thanks to the loopholes in the current tax code, American businesses can lower their taxes by employing foreign employees.
2. Lower health care costs
While providing healthcare at work is quite a benefit for American employees, it’s at times hard to afford insurance for a big team. For that reason, an international remote team collaboration with no healthcare spendings can be a way to go.
3. Fewer litigation problems
Take what you will – hot coffee, fast food, or cigarettes, Americans are super-proactive when it comes to suing one another. Most of these allegations come from consumers, however, employers are often the ones to fight for their rights.
All of that creates no room for overstaffing since you have to provide severance packages for their staff and constantly watch out for lawsuits. The problem, however, no longer stands if you’re hiring a dedicated team abroad. Those will be temporary workers with a little-to-none risk of suing the company.
4. Lack of IT-staff in a home country
The demand for IT-specialists is huge right now. For that reason, limiting yourself to a particular location you risk missing out on foreign talent. Also, recruitment itself is a challenging process ruining team efficiency, with so much paperwork to fill, relocation to sponsor, and so on.
One solution companies use in such a case is hiring less staff. However, businesses that lack tech specialists are vulnerable to cyber attacks. A growing demand for in-house and remote software development talent has been confirmed by multiple surveys conducted across recruitment agents – over 80% predict the need for tech staff, and only 16 expect the demand to be satisfied.
To make sure you are winning the race over experienced staff, make sure you look out of the box that your home country sometimes is. Even if IT-specialists are super-expensive where you live, it’s not the case for nearshore outsourcing or offshoring. You can find cheap workforce as close as in the neighboring country – you could check here.
How to create the best remote jobs?
It is true that all the biggest corporation of our time are built by hiring in-house talent. At the first glance, it may seem that the project will be moving at a faster pace if everyone on your team is within a hand’s reach.
However, there are studies that disprove the efficiency of office work and stand in favor of remote collaboration. A research by Exeter University found that open-space jobs reduce productivity up to 15% and generally make employees less happy.
On the other hand, working remotely, even in places full of distraction (home, a coffee bar, etc.) boost up the productivity of an individual worker. Back in 2014, there was an experiment conducted by CTrip, Chinese travel company that allowed some of its employees to work remotely.
After a while, the team productivity of freelancers was compared to that of their office peers. Turned out, those with remote tech jobs ended up performing 13% more productively.
However, productive as freelance may be, the problem of how to manage remote teams is, at no doubt, pretty difficult to handle. What can a manager do to make sure his dedicated team is working at its full speed? Here are some tips:
1. Create the system of updates
To make sure work stays on point anytime and your distributed team is not blowing the deadline, discuss the communication pattern beforehand. For instance, you can implement a system of weekly or monthly updates depending on the running time of the project.
Having said that, tormenting a remote developer by demanding regular reports is not the best way to speed up the pace of the project. Make sure that the team you chose for outsourcing invests its time into working rather than writing pointless reports.
2. Use project management tools
Keeping track of assignments, deadlines, and current projects are extremely difficult if you’re doing it the old way – writing things down in a journal or a spreadsheet. Online project management tools can come in handy for both yourself and the team. Here are a few the managers use most frequently while working with a remote team.
- Trello – a user-friendly task board that your team will quickly get the hang of. Using the tool, your IT-specialists will be updating the project by themselves, hence, it’s less work for a manager.
- Google Suite. Thanks to a possibility of shared access, collective real-time editing, and accessing the data anytime, Google Suite has gained unbelievable traction. If you’re not using these team communication tools to manage your team yet, be sure to give them a try.
- Airtable. This project management software tool is helpful for those managers who are drowning in spreadsheets and databases. Combining the features of the two as well as super-intuitive interface, This remote team management software turns to get through your backlogs into a few-click job.
- Slack. Created specifically for those wondering how to manage a remote team, Slack is just the tool where everything is strictly business. By creating different threads, you won’t lose any important info. These days it’s by far the most famous communication tool for remote team management.
Conclusions
- Outsourcing has been around for a while now and remains a growing trend in today’s IT. Getting to save on taxes and healthcare, avoiding litigation issues, and having access to top international talents are all reasons enough to implement the practice in your business.
- Out of all the ways to work, freelance seems the most timely and logical one. Is remote work the future? With modern tools and fast Internet-connection almost everywhere in the world, there’s no point in gathering everyone at the office.
- In order to make sure you excel at managing a remote team, create a communication system with your staff. Also, make sure you use innovative project management tools to help you out. There is plenty of remote management software on the market so it’s easy to find a fit.
