Do you take offshoring services for granted? You shouldn’t—not if you’re an SMB. Offshoring tech support or customer service aren’t just conveniences for your customers. They’re business critical services you provide. They can boost customer satisfaction, differentiate you from your competitors and minimize downtime. They can also boost efficiency and increase productivity. Not many business strategies can do all that simultaneously. And when you’re an SMB, you need every edge you can find to survive and thrive.

Offshoring Services – What’s Holding You Back?

Despite these benefits, you may still be wrestling with the idea of offshoring. That’s not unusual. Uncertainty about key issues often holds SMBs back from exploring it.

Things like cost, data security, volume of work, management experience, and a lack of clearly defined processes are the key issues that typically hold SMBs back from unlocking offshoring’s potential.

A clear understanding about offshoring and its requirements are also issues that typically hold SMBs back from offshoring services.

Other things that can hold back SMBs are the common myths that pervade the marketplace—myths like:

“We’re too small”
“We cant’ afford it
“The ROI isn’t proven yet.”
“It means spending more time with vendors who don’t know our business.”

Action Point: Review your current situation. Note any issues or myths that may be holding you back from exploring offshoring. Jot down ways to overcome those issues or myths.

Experience Proves Otherwise

Whatever the issues, experience with offshoring has proven otherwise. Put simply, offshoring offers too many benefits for SMBs not to consider it seriously.

The cost savings alone from offshoring should get you to consider offshoring tech support and customer service. Worldwide, many SMBs employ an offshoring strategy highly effectively.

In fact, nearly 45% of what business spends on IT worldwide in 2014 will come from SMBs, according to Gartner. And Gartner expects SMBs to outlay more than $836 billion on IT in 2014.

In addition to cutting costs, the ability to re-allocate personnel to more strategic activities is also a popular driver of offshoring.

Shifting personnel to more strategic activities can transform your business and help you outgun larger competitors.

Offshoring Services: Not If – But When

For SMBs then, it’s not a question of if but when you’ll implement offshoring. When you do, expect to confront these challenges:

Alignment Of Focus

Alignment is a key element of fit when looking for a service provider. Providers come in all shapes and sizes. Size does matter in some cases but not always.

What matters more is the provider’s focus. Some providers offer services other than tech support and customer service that can cloud their focuses. Make sure your provider’s focus aligns with yours.

Lack Of Defined Processes

SMBs don’t always have well-defined processes. Things will go smoother if you have a well-defined process—whether it’s tech support or customer service.

Spend time nailing down your processes before bringing a provider on board. It will save both you and your provider headaches.

Commitment To The Relationship

Large providers often work with large clients. Small providers work with small clients. Make sure your provider—large or small—values the relationships. If it does, it will have a stake in the outcome of the engagement. That spurs performance.

Experience/Track Record

Examine not only a provider’s industry record but also its SMB record. Has it worked with SMBs before? Has it been effective in those situations?

Providers who have are often tuned into the nuances of offshoring projects. They’ll have the experience to anticipate problems unique to SMBs and advise you on effective solutions.

Poor Governance

Lack of structured governance strategy derails many offshoring projects. Many SMBs under-invest in time and money when it comes to governance.

Governance is too critical to an offshoring project’s success. Create a rock-solid governance plan and invest in it.

Make sure the plan defines the project’s objectives, provides a flexible, collaborative working model, features a detailed SLA, and offers an arbitration mechanism that’s fair.

Given the intense competition in today’s marketplace, it’s no longer a question of if you’ll offshoring key services but when.

Address the five challenges described above when implementing your offshoring project and you’ll unlock the potential of offshoring.

As an outsourcing service desk company, we are ready to leverage our proven experience in providing tech support for small and medium-sized companies, all to benefit you. Don’t hesitate to reach out to our sales team and request a quote. We are here to put our expertise to work for your business.