Despite the outsourcing and offshoring industry growing exponentially each year small offshore disrupter Teemcorp Inc has created a model to allow small business to compete with the ‘Big Boys’ and in a manner more suited to the SME market.
Outsourcing is sending work to another business to complete and is not suited to a lot of business’s who need control over the work and need it done using their methods and on their systems. Off-shoring typically involves dedicated staff of an offshore company working for a SME. The retention and engagement of new staff using the traditional offshore method, is proving to be the “new world” issue to SME’s as retention of staff is critical to guaranteeing quality of work and realising the significant cost savings that are eagerly being sought by CEO’s near and far.
Teemcorp Inc. A Philippines based Australian owned company managed by both Australian and Philippines personnel, provides a cost effective model that allows small business to employ and build their own team within and as part of their own on shore team. Put simply the goodwill with the offshore staff is with the SME and not with Teemcorp.
Teemcorp Chairman Michael Pedley explained that going through the offshoring process themselves with his accounting practice quickly showed that his staff prior to Teemcorp thought of them as the client as opposed to his employer or boss. We established Teemcorp to providethe exact service we were looking for as an Australian SME looking to reduce costs.
The cost savings are abundant and very much remain under this model, which is crucial, but we have found involving offshore staff in our business like we do with our on shore team helps train, engage and retain the staff. The Philippine staff participate infooty tipping competitions and Melbourne Cup Sweepstakes. They have an email location with the SME (not Teemcorp), they have the SME’smerchandise including clothing, compendiums and stationary giving them a real sense of belonging to the business rather than Teemcorp. For all intents and purposes though legally employed by Teemcorp but are the staff of the SME.
It works pretty simply where the Australian company will select an employee, set the salary and associated conditions and provision management of the staff member from Australia. Teemcorp merely provides a great work environment, desk, internet, security and a payroll function. Teemcorp will also help the SME make the best decisions on recruitment, remuneration and engagement and any other area requiring support.
The effect is that staff can and are rewarded more effectively eliminating additional costs that a traditional model demands.
Having a ‘no management model’ is unique even to the staff themselves who are used to strict levels of hierarchy. Treating them like professionals encourages them and with the exception of a small number of circumstances has worked significantly well. Managers from Perth have access to CCTV 24/7 and talk to staff many times a day over skype while sharing screens to review work. The offshore staff attend in house training via skype and team meetings are regularly held over skype. It is clearly better and cheaper than having a manager in the Philippines who has no idea of the work being completed. The staff only work on the SME’s network whether it is cloud based or logging in remotely.
Typically and back of house role is suited to this model including Personal Assistants, Accountants, Bookkeepers, Property Managers, settlement agents, to Engineers and Para legal staff but basically anyone that is not client facing. One Teemcorp Client SME claims he couldn’t survive without his PA who can do everything an onshore Personal Assistant can do except make him a coffee, physically pick-up the mail and scan source documents that arrive in the office. Taking advantage of technology helps make the PA so much more use full for our business.
Reducing cost is obviously the goal in offshoring staff. The saving equate to approximately 60-70% on a typical role outsourced, but the real benefits come when the employee is totally engaged and part of the team. Offshoring may not be for everyone but once you make the decision to outsource, the Teemcorp model is clearly the best way to go.
Most businesses outsource or offshore a component of their human resources, Teemcorp is the “disrupter” in this field re-inventing the offshore model to become a clear extension of your onshore team but located offshore.