How to Communicate with your Outsourcing Provider: Client’s Guide

Have you ever wondered how to outsource effectively? Outsourcing your tasks and duties can save you significant time and money. More significantly, it will relieve your workers of the pressure of executing low-level duties, enabling them to concentrate more on their primary business responsibilities. So although outsourcing provides all of these advantages and many more, you will have to carefully establish relationships within your organization and with the outsourcing provider to prevent future outsource communications complications.

Here, we’d like to give some advice on how to communicate with an outsourcing firm so that you may prevent some of the frequent outsourcing communication issues that many organizations face.

Why is Communication Significant in Outsourcing?

Because of the accessibility of a comfortable work schedule, you may easily scale your company’s objectives, either adding or decreasing employment. When the firm needs to expand, the availability of employees will always be on hand to assist with this expansion.

Maintaining work-related ties with both internal and outsourced staff reflects the credibility and reputation of a company.

Outsourcing also entails interacting with individuals from different cultures, traditions, and work settings. Developing mutually beneficial relationships with other businesses and supporting remote workers can help a brand’s image reach a wider audience.

Communication Problems When Outsourcing

During the process of outsourcing, definition of which is a business activity in which a firm contracts a vendor to do work, manage operations, or offer services on its behalf, organizations frequently confront outsource communication issues, particularly when the spoken language is not native to one of the firms. Miscommunications, in turn, cause problems, defects, and flaws in the project.

Some of the most common problems are:

1. Language barrier.

Typically, companies use one international language, but you may find linguistic problems in this case. Always remember that you and the outsourcing team should establish a simple and comfortable method to share project specifics. That is why language plays a vital role. Nonetheless, most worldwide firms, including DeshDevs, communicate in English.

2. The terms are not properly agreed upon.

For instance, if the client talks about the navigation menu and calls it the “Nav bar,” it will be challenging for you to grasp what is intended. Similarly, the partner will only be able to comprehend you if the words were agreed upon before the start of the development process.

3. Desire to save money and time.

Since everyone wants to spend as little time and money as possible on a detailed project description, developers attempt to use the minimum description supplied by the customer and make educated guesses about the client’s objectives, wants, and needs. The problem is that developers’ educated estimates often contradict the customer’s viewpoint. This results in more modifications and adjustments, which result in increased effort and cost investment.

4. Tasks are assigned by incompetent people.

Very frequently, the customer’s manager does not know to code, assigns work activities from a business standpoint, and does not comprehend that some criteria cannot be satisfied or that fulfilling them would result in the total redesign of the project or substantial improvements to it. On the contrary, the manager of an offshoring firm may not be a business professional. Still, he or she may think like a developer and recommend ideas that are useless in business to the client.

6 tips for effective communication with an outsourced development company

Business outsourcing communication between the organization and the IT firm is critical to ensuring that the two sides can collaborate effectively. Good communication strategies ensure that intended outcomes are provided, and difficulties are addressed promptly, minimized, or restricted.

Establish Clear and Attainable Goals

Have clear and reasonable expectations when you and your potential outsourcing partner begin the project.

The more specific and complicated things are, the easier and more engaged group members will be. There will also be clarity, which, as everyone knows, may lead to a stressed environment and, consequently, a decrease in productivity.

You’ll need to set basic and project-specific goals for your employees.

• Completing work attentively and on time.
• Communication that is open and truthful.
• Professional performance.
• Observe established norms and regulations.

Plans for the project’s development may vary depending on the project’s uniqueness and the functions of the new employees.

Once you’ve finished drawing them, it’s time to put them into action!

Plan a conference call, a video session, or, if feasible, a face-to-face meeting with the team to go through all of the development’s specifications and goals. Share your goals and objectives as a presentation or by text shortly after the meeting. Feel free to state again that you welcome inquiries and criticism.

You’ll have to examine your team’s advancement and performance later in the project. The objectives you’ve established might be a fantastic reference for whether or not the project is progressing as planned.

It may take some time to get the details right, but with fair and clearly defined requirements, your team and you can produce an excellent result.

Choose the Most Effective Communication Tools

Because the internet is brimming with free and low-cost communication tools, it’s easy to set up a phone number… and then never use it.

To prevent this disaster, prioritize those that make routine software communication strategy easy and smooth. This could require some time to test each of them and evaluate which ones fit perfectly, but the effort will be worthwhile in the end.

Here are some communication channels that our team recommends and uses:

• Slack
• Google Doc
• Google Meet

Take Cultural Diversity into Account

Collaborating with individuals from various cultures is a common aspect of outsourcing. Many people dismiss this minor but critical aspect as an afterthought.

The results can be disastrous. Outsourced initiatives frequently fail due to cultural misalignment.

There might be several concerns, the most prevalent of which are:

• Difficulties with the language
• Different time zones
• Various development approaches

Of course, some of these, such as time zones, must be resolved before finalizing the deal. Assume you are in California, USA, and your prospective team is in Kyiv, Ukraine.

That’s a 12-hour time difference. Consider all the difficulties it may cause unless you don’t mind sacrificing sleep.

Nowadays, the majority of coders are fluent in English. However, this does not rule out the possibility of language issues creeping in at any stage of the development process. Misconceptions that occur during the implementation stage might be difficult to address.

Keep this in mind if your outsourcing company comes from a diverse nation. Establish attainable and quantifiable goals that every member of the group can grasp. Also, always go through the project’s needs clearly and openly.

Language is never an issue for our partners at DeshDevs. Our developers and other specialists speak English fluently, making employee communications outsourcing a breeze.

We utilize project management platforms such as Jira and others, which helps our clients observe the process and give feedback on our performance.

Stay updated on these minor nuances. Notwithstanding cultural differences, working with outsourced employees will be much easier.

Show Critical Information Visually

It might be difficult to communicate thoughts orally, especially complicated ones. It is made much more challenging by the presence of non-native speakers on the opposite side of the screen. A poorly presented concept may only lead to misconceptions and, eventually, negative outcomes.

As a result, pictures might help you convey your message more successfully.

It’s all about the visuals when it comes to app development. How can the team construct your application if they can’t understand your concept?

This is the reason you must always create a basic blueprint for your app, often known as a wireframe.

It will make it easier for your team to visualize the finished outcome. The wireframe will eventually be used as a template for integrating more features.

Most significantly, it will cut down on time you spend describing the complexities of your program and eliminate misperceptions.

Wireframing is one of many powerful tools that may help you communicate ideas, strategies, or issues to your colleagues.

Always use:

• Tables and Graphics
• Presentations
• Videos

When working with outsourced development teams, visual tools are essential. They will not only improve the logic, recall, and comprehension of your thoughts. They will also make the development process easier for programmers.

Be Wary of Micromanagement

It’s easy to slip into the trap of micromanagement while outsourcing. You’re not working at the same location, and, of course, that may cause anxiety. You don’t want the employees to make bad decisions, so you need greater control over them. That desire is normal, but micromanaging may ruin a project if not managed properly.

Furthermore, as time passes, team members feel unmotivated, cease caring about the project, and finally depart.

That is why you should give your team more autonomy. This does not imply that you should allow them to do everything they wish. It simply entails leaving them alone to do their responsibilities as they see fit.

They will build trust in their abilities, and they will be able to solve difficulties on their own. It will also help you save time by enabling you to concentrate on other crucial project areas.

Remember the main rule: provide feedback and request suggestions.

When providing and receiving proper criticism becomes a habit, you will realize how much more effective your team is.

Establish Trust Among your Team Members

With trust, your employees will be more at ease sharing their business outsourcing communication issues, concerns, and recommendations.

A trustworthy team:

• Is more driven
• Has more intimate interpersonal interactions
• Is goal-oriented
• Is more inventive than teams that don’t get along.

Sure, building trust from the other side of the globe is challenging, but it is achievable.

Faith and confidence are the most critical factors in developing partnerships in personal life and on the job. Only by communicating outsourcing to employees honestly and candidly can you gain the trust of your coworkers.

Conclusion

Always keep your outsourcing communication plan in mind and share it with your outsourcing partner, since this will save you a lot of time later.

DeshDevs, as previously said, has extensive expertise in outsourcing, both as a partner and as a client. And we saw it as our responsibility to ensure our customers’ success.

That is why we highly value specific information, communication, openness, and supporting documents. We apply best practices and develop systems to help us reach our objectives.

FAQ

Why is communication important in outsourcing?

Interaction between the organization and the IT outsourcing firm is critical to ensuring that the two sides can collaborate effectively. Good communication ensures that intended outcomes are provided, difficulties are addressed promptly, and issues are prevented or restricted.

How to communicate outsourcing?

1. Maintain team motivation.
2. Decide on a communication frequency.
3. Determine suitable communication options as soon as possible.
4. Consider your outsourcing business a partnership.
5. Maintain team motivation.
6. Take into account cultural variances.
7. Consider planning carefully.
8. Make good use of communication tools.