Helpful tips for off-shoring

I may do a longer post about my experiences with my team in India, but for now, here are somethings you should keep in mind if you are thinking about off-shoring reporting and to a lesser extent, analytics. Here are some practical things you can do to help the effort be a success.

1. Put process in place. By this I mean that you need to have a documented process (and process maps) for each report that is being run. Documentation includes things like data sources, business owners for the reports, how to run a report, what to do in cases of failure (with each type of failure enumerated), etc. This should be a living document that gets updated as reports find new ways to fail to run (we keep ours on a wiki). And the process of updating should be part of the process documentation. I have a recommended book, Business Process Management: Practical Guidelines to Successful Implementations that is a good reference. By putting process in place, you make the responsibilities of both the US and off-shoring side very clear. This clarity is critical. In fact, we won't start producing a report in India until the US side does documentation for an existing report. Trying to do off-shore reporting on an ad hoc basis will be very difficult.
2. Be very careful about checking skills. We have not had a hard time finding qualified candidates on paper. We have had a very hard time finding qualified candidates in life. We have had a number of instances where candidates have grossly misrepresented their skills. Worse than anything I have seen in the US. Each candidate now has to pass through multiple screening tests of their skills. The tests are both oral, given during the phone screens and interviews, as well as written (given on site for candidates who have made it to an in-person interview). The tests are not hard, but you can't fake knowing what a proc freq is during an interview. We tried to give a pretty comprehensive written test to prospective candidates after the phone screen to be completed before they came in for an in-person interview, but we found significant cheating. Lesson learned.
3. Check the references. Nuff said.
4. Don't hire job hoppers. In the India market, anyway, there is some job hopping going on. It is not uncommon to find candidates who have taken several jobs and moved on. Don't think that they are going to treat you any different. We invest a significant amount in hiring and training and we need to make that training pay off. Also, I want people to become part of the culture. We won't even look at hoppers resumes.
   
5. Make sure that the US side is invested in success of the off-shoring efforts. In my case, we track utilization and report quality of the team at our weekly staff meetings. I am the person on the US side who is ultimately responsible for the India's team success and sharing metrics with the rest of the leadership team ensures that both me and my staff stay focused. Also, if I find that someone is not using their India resource effectively, I will take the resource away.
6. Use the off-shored staff for project based work where they can be fairly self sufficient. The original vision for the India staff was to be the equivalent of a US analyst. These were unrealistic expectations. The US staff works with their clients everyday and are much more able to solve problems both proactively and on an ad hoc basis. The time differences makes it much more difficult for the off-shore staff to find the people they need to speak with and they are, by the nature of the distance, more removed from the day to day needs of the business. In our case, production reporting was a perfect thing to move. Reports are produced on a regular basis, allowing the analyst time to get familiar with the infrastructure needed to run the reports and learn what the results mean. Processes can be documented and, in the case of staff turn over, be easily transitioned to someone else We kept ad hoc reporting stays in the US. Maybe over time it will move to India, but for now, we are staying put.
7. Travel! Both you and your senior off-shore staff need to travel to each others locations, at bare minimum, a couple of times a year for a week. Also, think about bringing your more junior folks over once a year for 5-6 weeks. That will given them an opportunity to meet their US counterparts and build relationships that they need to do their job effectively. I went to India recently and found the experience invaluable. the trip gave me a first hand appreciation on how difficult managing the time zone differences are. I also got to play cricket. Make sure you get your shots and carry a small pharmacy with you. I got a very small cut that turned into a bad infection in about 8 hours. Thankfully, I had Cipro and Bacitracin with me. I treated the cut myself and it turned out fine, but it was touch and go for a while. Just to reiterate, the trip was invaluable.
8. Meet the staff regularly and use video. I have a weekly pull up with my manager in India and a monthly round table with the whole team. I also hold a bi-weekly "office hours:" where folks in the US can stop by and give the manager and I feedback on how things are going. I just got tired of all the complaining about things not working right and now people not addressing their challenges in a forthright way. By having these forums, people have no excuses. Another tings. I found that when I was in India it was impossible for the off-shored staff to understand what was being said on speaker phone. The phones cut in and out. And no one said anything. We now try to use video for meetings whenever possible.
9. Ask other folks what has worked for them. I got good counsel from a number of sources. Some of what I have listed above is redundant with that advice, but I agree with their advice.
   

I would not say that we have off-shoring nailed, but I think we are making good progress. Our next step is to actually offshore advanced analytic work, but we have just started. Once we get our feet wet, I'll put up a lessons learned for advanced analytics. Are their other things people have learned that should get added to the list?