Is Time-zone Difference Really an Invisible Advantage in Offshoring?

Offshoring has spurred the business world to change the norms and turn challenges into top-grade solutions. Organizations are now looking for web app development solutions and mobile app services that are powered by seasoned teams at affordable charges. With more and more businesses considering setting up their remote development team, they are forced to make an entire host of decisions. How to manage and overcome time-zone differences is one of them!

 Yes, having an in-house team looks a lot more comforting and safer. The physical presence of all team members, active meetings, and real-time collaboration carries an excellent value. However, the internet revolution, other virtual mediums, and not forgetting this pandemic have inspired us to think, 'With all the modern work models like offshoring, are real-time personal meetings and connections paramount?

If you ask us, the answer will be NO, not anymore. Hiring a remote team presupposes collaboration across multiple time zones, and it doesn't matter if it's two hours or ten hours.

Organizational Challenges

Over the years we have learned that having an in-house team is not always a recipe for success.

It doesn’t magically enhance efficiency, nor does it improve your firm’s capacity. In contradiction, it might burn a hole in your pocket as you cannot scale up and scale down the team as per the requirements. It means, irrespective of the work, you will have to pay salaries to your team every month.

Besides, there is zero scope of cultural thoroughfare that limits the way you work and even get the results. So, can you afford to overpay and yet not get innovative and top-grade solutions?

A champion is one who mastered the art of unity.

Every time we think about the global tech giants like IBM, Google, Microsoft, one thing that fascinates us is the way they are practicing the offshoring model for so long. How they approached this route and became world leaders, despite managing not one or two but multiple time-zone differences?

Here are a few proven techniques that every big name in the offshore market follows.

While we always relate offshoring with challenges, this blog showcases the flip side of the story. Something that you never heard of before.

Note: You can check out the blog ‘Easy way to set up an offshore development team in India, for a detailed perspective.

Unpredicted Benefits of time-zone Difference

As offshoring and significant time zone differences are two sides of the same coin, neither your time will remotely coincide, nor effective collaboration will be as easy as the breeze. In offshore IT cooperation, it is essential to spot the exponential opportunities and utilize them to the fullest.

Now, let us dive deep and learn the most unpredicted benefits of time-zone difference.

• Flexibility and diversity in abundance

In the current times, approximately 16% of global companies indulge in some offshoring. Either they have a dedicated partner, or they have teams spread across the world. It is anticipated that 73% of the units will be remote workers by the end of 2028.

When you have millennials and Gen-Z working for you with their ultimate potential, you are bound to experience diversity in the organization. It eliminates the chances of a one-dimensional approach. As a perk, you will receive various perspectives, views, and top-grade solutions to one issue.

• Better Productivity

The most celebrated benefit of time-zone difference in offshoring is that your remote team can solely work on tasks without taking time off for meetings and calls. Yes, meetings are a great way to align. However, it is also known to have a significant side-effect as it can create intrusion at the primary working hours of developers.

On the other hand, in offshoring, the developers can sort through the priority work, get done with the tasks, and then discuss the next steps in meetings. Besides, here lies a huge opportunity to control your business 24*7. How? Because there is a remote team working for your business even after your shift.

• Proficiency in retention and recruitment

It is safe to say that the synonyms of offshoring are time-effective and cost-effective. Since you can hire developers faster and better from the talent pool spread across the world, you cut down the expenditures spent on resources. It gives you a golden chance to use those saved resources on core business responsibilities.

Another notable thing is that developers are eager to work with a company that values diversity and offers an opportunity to work for a foreign client. This results in improved retention levels.

• Optimized budget

Cost-cutting is the number one reason for businesses to go offshoring. This is possible because offshoring allows companies to optimize their budget. For instance, it is up to you to choose the country for your offshoring partner. Hence, you can opt for the one that has a favorable tax system, minimum insurance cost, or a country with a low living cost.

When you decide to hire developers from India, you get equally seasoned, vetted, and skilled professionals at relatively minor charges.

Therefore, you can officially say that a good developer need not be expensive to hire.

How to manage the time-zone difference in offshoring?

• Daily communications

Do you know what can bring invaluable benefits out of offshoring? It's consistent communication between both parties. When employees and clients are constantly in touch, it sets a strong foundation and leaves employees feeling solidarity. It unknowingly builds an impression that 'I= company.' This calls for team strengthening and the pursuit of common goals.

Daily calls and communications permit compliance with manager reports that are later shared with the team members. This eventually sets up a process that solves the problems caused by misunderstanding. All you have to do is follow a proven old-school method of building a universal schedule for calls.

• Keep your time-zone visual handy.

One thing to get right out of the way is to have a crystal-clear image of the one you are dealing with. Knowing a team is one thing and being aware of its geographies is another. We understand you are not a clock genius who remembers everything. But there is a way to keep a tab on it. Always have the time-zone information in a readable visual form.  

It can be a map on the clock, a picture on your computer, or an electronic version. Once this is achieved, you can keep things like calls, reports, and events coherent.

• Follow efficient collaboration methodologies like Agile.

An organization can try but cannot succeed in having better communication without Agile methodology. Communication frequency with the partners differs based on the development stage. Too much and even too little can dent your hopes of having a perfect outcome.

Refer to the following table to understand the details.

A normal agile process includes,

• Daily scrum meetings
• Sending logs to a management
• Deploy code daily (some organizations do it on even a regular basis)
• Test it frequently
• Held a thorough discussion

Well, in the pre-pandemic world, in-person meetings were a big thing while partnering with an offshore team. But since that is quite impossible now, try to fill that void with virtual video meetings. This allows us to build trust and make our partners aware of your unique corporate culture.

• Say no to micromanagement.

We understand your urge to know everything about the development process, but obsessing over it and intervening in the process by asking too many details can have detrimental results. Let alone the time and cost loss. Remember when you decided to offshore, you aimed to cut the cost and focus on your core business. It is why you went ahead and hired the professionals, right? So, you do you and let the offshore developers take care of everything else.

From Think Tank:

Significant time zone differences ignite fear in business owners of losing control over their teams. However, we proved that intelligent management and the right people could change the tables upside down. Believing in the positive side of offshoring and a remote technical team will bestow your business with astounding benefits like greater productivity, better employee satisfaction, cost-effectiveness, an edge over your competitors, and much more.

Are you looking for one such reliable offshoring partner that makes the process easy for you? Then Clarion Technologies could be your destination.