Being into outsourcing from decades, I strongly believe that active communication and flawless coordination of tasks are the main factor of successful outsourcing. Companies have learned this by hard way and now they do not hesitate improve this process. Trend shows that in order to improve the quality of communication between offshore teams and client, companies have started assigning a dedicated person known as offshore manager or onsite coordinator, who can coordinate the tasks and can oversee different activities.
The role of this offshore manager or onsite coordinator is to ensure active communication between client and development team, act as a liaison and present/translate the information without losing its meaning and in a lingo that is best understandable by client and offshore teams. This person should have mix skills of business analyst, project manager, and knowledge of software development life cycle, sales and marketing.
Main expectation from this person is to maintain transparency in the process, keep client updated on development progress and issues faced by team along with managing client expectations with offshore team. This person needs to multi task and required to work for long and odd hours. Irrespective of size of engagement, vendors are required to put a full time coordinator in the team. Marketers are selling offshore coordinator as an add-on and it is getting heavy attraction.
One of the biggest challenge which this outsourcing coordinator needs to be face is being unbiased. S/he has biggest responsibility on their shoulder to make justice. Their mind-set plays crucial role in a situation where they need to take side. They need to decide whether they take side of the company, which pays them salary, or take side of the client. No matter how proactive they are or how well they have maintained the transparency between client and offshore team they will always require to justify their work, loyalty and interest to the management.
It is not easy to find good and ethical offshore managers and they are not very cheap as well, however they are real value to your money. Typically, their onsite rate ranges in between USD 60-90 an hour (inclusive of per Diem, hotel, car etc.), which is quite high when compared to offshore rate, which ranges in between USD 25-40 an hour.
Offshore managers or outsourcing coordinators at Globality consulting have solid experience in supporting companies and delivering quality solutions and products while maintaining transparency between clients and offshore teams. Get in touch with one of your consultant at hello@globalityconsulting.com for more details.