4 Ways To Streamline Your Workflow Using Offshore Staff
Written by Nicholas Hastings, CEO and Founder
Considering the cost pressures at play, workflow efficiency is imperative for Australian businesses. Rising overheads have wreaked havoc on profit margins and staff workloads. We know that budgets are tight. However, as a business owner, you simply cannot assume each and every responsibility. You run the risk of burning out, with the business soon to follow. So, let’s explore four ways we’ve been able to assist our clients in improving their efficiency and workflow management with the help of our qualified, highly skilled offshore personnel.
#1 Using Offshore Staff As Virtual Assistants
If you’re in ownership or upper management, you will know that wearing too many hats means you can only devote a meagre percentage of your attention to any given task. The day gets cluttered with administrative tasks: managing diaries, replying to emails, and organising workplace events. While distracted by these items, the big picture can fade into the background. This must not be allowed to happen. You need to create space to be creative as a business leader – space to explore brave new ideas.
There are so many applications for a Virtual Assistant within your operation. These staff might best assist you in managing your meetings or performing a customer service role. Perhaps they can provide support for the creation of branding or marketing collateral. Our skilled offshore professionals can even take care of those data entry tasks that can take up so much of your time and enthusiasm. They are a support resource, ready to fill in the gaps so that you can streamline your workload and devote yourself to the highest-priority agenda items.
If you’re unsure which areas of the business an OVA can add the most value, we’ve got that covered. With a free consultation, an Australian-based hammerjack account manager can review your operation and help identify the areas where one of our superstar assistants can apply their skills. Leverage our experience – our Outsourced Personal Assistants have helped streamline the workflow in hairdressers, law firms, accounting & bookkeeping firms, construction, marketing agencies, retail, financial services, and real estate. We often pinpoint areas an offshore team member might add value that the client didn’t even consider. Our willingness to deep-dive your business and accurately assess its staffing needs truly sets us apart.
#2 Using Offshore Creative Staff To Reinforce The Marketing Team
Let’s face it: Australian-based graphic designers, web designers, videographers, photographers and other creatives are expensive. The rates for onshore third-party skill providers have gone through the roof as they attempt to pass their own cost pressures on to you. You need the content and collateral, but not at the expense of a profitable business. Your core marketing team needs the assistance of low-cost offshore experts with the necessary skills to maintain quality.
Our offshore marketing personnel are highly dedicated content gurus, qualified and experienced in all manner of marketing tasks. It’s not a matter of replacing the core team; it’s a matter of freeing them. Your team needs freedom from those menial creative tasks that you would otherwise outsource to local subcontractors but can’t because their rates are extreme. It’s often too hard for those key players to be part-writer, part-designer, and part-brand strategist simultaneously
While you might think you’re saving money by leaning on the in-house team, you may be doing the business a disservice. Core marketing team members require space – breathing room to stimulate their minds and come up with new and exciting directions to take the brand. They simply can’t put enough energy towards the brand direction as a whole if they always have yet another piece of content on their desk for which they are responsible. The select implementation of offshore creative personnel can create this space.
For example: if your in-house marketing team spends all of their time populating and designing a website, they cannot simultaneously devote themselves to the overall brand development and strategy. Focussing on the collateral delivery prevents them from being able to move the brand forwards. With the benefit of a qualified, low-cost web designer from hammerjack, this juggling act becomes less strenuous. Your core team members can act as quality control for the content produced and focus on the bolder creative ideas for your business.
#3 Using Offshore Staff To Assist The Accounts/Bookkeeping Team
The accounts and bookkeeping teams are in practically the same boat as marketing. How can they focus on the big picture financial transformation of the business when they are forever plugged into Xero or MYOB, focused on tax compliance, wage payment and data maintenance? Perhaps you think that offshore personnel might not have the necessary knowledge of the intricacies of Australian regulations to provide meaningful assistance.
You might not realise that our offshore hammerjack accounts specialists are trained specifically to work within the Australian, New Zealand, UK and US tax and business infrastructure. This training also extends to all of the major accounting software systems used by these businesses. With highly qualified options from graduate up to Senior Accountant, these role players can eliminate the clutter on the desk of your CFO or accounts team. If they remove the time pressures of wage payments and the like, then who knows what other savings within the business your core accounts team will be able to identify.
Your onshore accounts or bookkeeping team can only tackle areas of misspending, waste and inefficiency when they have time and resources to comprehensively review all departments within the business. Giving them the gift of offshore support personnel will allow them to paint a fully transparent picture of the company’s financial situation, and create the space necessary to formulate a response to any issues raised. If they get caught up in day-to-day minutiae and clutter, then these areas of cost inefficiency may lie unchecked for months or years. Thinking that you’re creating savings by keeping it all in-house, you may in fact be preventing the business from unleashing its true potential.
#4 Working With Our Hammerjack Advisors
Improving efficiency involves more than simply locating any given low-cost offshore team member and plonking them in a chair. There are too many staffing providers who simply set-and-forget offshore personnel, which doesn’t adequately serve your interests. Streamlining your workflow is about integrating and onboarding offshore staff seamlessly into your operation. It’s about leveraging all of the software and technology that you pay for to create synergy and cohesion between team members. It’s about ensuring that the lines of communication are open and accessible.
This extra level of customer care is where the hammerjack team truly distinguishes itself from our competitors. We want you to get the absolute best out of both the offshore and onshore team members over the long-term, leveraging all of the tools available to your business to maximise performance and workload efficiency. Our customers are our partners, and we’re invested in their success and the continuity of their Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) program. For us, it’s not enough to put a backside in a seat and walk away.
Our hammerjack consultants will pour over the areas of your business that we know can be transformed with some key offshore personnel and select infrastructure. We’ll manage the relationship and ensure that you’re satisfied with everything including the quality of work, delivery time and team-player attitude. We want to see your team succeed, supported by the seamless implementation of our qualified roleplayers.
A simple consultation might be all that it takes to propel your business to the next level. Our experience in implementing offshore team members extends across practically every sector. Take advantage of our know-how and our ability to pinpoint the ideal offshore team member to suit any given scenario. With the benefit of our expertise and experience, you can remove the risk factor that so many owners think accompanies the use of offshore professionals.
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While the above details some general areas to consider in improving workflow, the real devil is in the details. Commencing a discussion with one of our experienced team members will allow us to form a comprehensive understanding of your operation, what you hope to achieve, and what your future vision of the business looks like. We can then tailor the offshore solutions that best suit your needs, culture and values as a business in order to maximise the results of the relationship. Your success is our success. We’re in this for the long haul, in partnership with your business to deliver the quality offshore personnel that you require, at a cost that will create sustainability for the business.
Speak to one of our expert team members today to get started.