Offshoring in Asia and the Importance of Literacy

With the increase in labor and operational costs in most western nations, more and more businesses have been turning to both outsourcing and offshoring solutions to continue their operations. While both processes are viable ways for businesses to reduce cost and increase productivity, they each require a different set of considerations before they’re implemented.?

Take a look at some of their differences below:?

Outsourcing vs. Offshoring

Choosing one approach over the other requires businesses to take a closer look at their existing processes. What’s the most profitable product or service they have to offer? How are they currently delivering this item to the market? How else can they improve their processes to better deliver the product or service??

Only then will they be able to choose whether they should outsource or offshore their teams.?

Why Businesses Choose to Offshore

While offshoring comes with greater risk – the logistics of moving from one country to another, the prospect of having to communicate with teams from other parts of the globe, etc. – it’s an approach that should greatly benefit businesses looking to boost productivity, increase efficiency, and reduce costs all at the same time.

Offshoring allows businesses to tap into the experiences, talent, and resources their chosen location has to offer. This doesn’t only expand their reach – this also grants them direct access to the foreign teams they’ll be working with.?

With offshoring comes the opportunity to work with and within another culture. That’s why for companies looking to invest in offshoring solutions, it’s become more important, now more than ever, to recognize the value of investing in literacy and effective communication.?

Why Literacy Matters in Offshoring

For good offshoring businesses to flourish, excellent literacy that goes beyond mere understanding of a language, is crucial.?

Here’s why.?

1. You’ll want to be more hands-on with your team.?

When businesses go the offshoring route, they choose to do so already wanting to have direct control over the foreign team they will handle. This covers processes from candidate screening to hiring successful applicants, and finally to their regularization.?

For a business to be this involved in their offshored teams’ career journeys, it’s not enough that both parties know how to speak the same language. Instead, their level of understanding with each other must be so crystal clear that it leaves no room for misinterpretation.?

1. You’ll want to place your team in a better position to aid your clients.?

Clear communication between companies and their offshored teams leads to better processes: there is reduced back and forth between team members and their leaders, clients will no longer be redirected to multiple sources just to get the help they need, and there will be little room for error or fuzziness once the proper announcements are relayed.?

Once the rules have been set and the expectations have been made clear, team members become more confident in their ability to give your clients the service they deserve.?

1. You’ll want to make sure your team is performing at their peak levels.?

A more confident team leads to better performance and more efficient processes. When a team is working with all the information they need, they become more empowered to do their job well.?

For any offshored business to do their job exceptionally well, teams and leaders must not stop at the most basic literacy levels. Smooth communication has to be achieved, where both parties can enjoy the rewards brought about by making the real effort to understand each other well and fill in the gaps well when something remains unclear.?

Offshoring in Asia

In its 2023 Global Services Location Index (GSLI), global management consultancy Kearney reported that Asian countries have become the leading destination for companies looking to offshore their services.

Labor costs in Asia are decidedly lower than anywhere else, and with most of Asia already catching up to the rest of the world in terms of technical expertise, businesses won’t run out of options if they’re looking to offshore teams within the continent.?

Yet as far as outsourcing goes, the Philippines has long presented itself as Southeast Asia’s capital for business process outsourcing (BPO). Data from the IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) in 2022 showed that the Philippine market revenue in this sector saw a 10.3% boost, leading to a total income of $32.5 billion.?

This is a number that extends to the jump in local employee headcount: the IBPAP also reported that the Philippine outsourcing industry saw an 8.4% boost in terms of headcount, or an additional 121, 000 full-time employees.?

Put side by side with Kearney’s 2023 GSLI results which ranked the Philippines as the 12th top offshoring destination out of 78 countries, it’s no wonder the local BPO industry continues to benefit from government support.?

The Philippines and Its Great Offshoring Potential

With offshoring, literacy and excellent communication skills are a must. For businesses looking to work with teams based in the Philippines, filling in these requirements won’t be much of a problem.?

Compared to its competitors in Southeast Asia, the Philippines boasts a multilingual upbringing: besides Filipino, the national language, and the hundred-plus native dialects spoken across 7, 640 islands, Filipinos are also very fluent in English.

According to the EF English Proficiency Index, the Philippines ranks #20 out of 113 countries – or #2 only to Singapore in Asia – in English language proficiency. Similarly, The World Bank reported a high 98.3% literacy rate for the Philippines in 2019.?

The Philippines has also fully adopted the K-12 education system, which means that more and more Filipinos will be learning how to speak and understand English at the primary education level. Once these students graduate and go on to find jobs, they will have been properly trained to express themselves well in the English language.?

When it comes to the needs that offshored businesses have to meet, the Philippines has got every base covered. From English language proficiency to the technical know-how required to get specific jobs done, foreign clients will find that Filipino employees are not just capable of meeting their needs – they’re incredibly well-equipped to go above and beyond to do what’s asked of them.

Know more about your offshoring and outsourcing opportunities with ZigZag Global today. Visit https://zigzagoffshoring.com/pricing/ to know more about your potential savings while increasing your business results and output.