Two years ago, after returning from trips to our India and Bangladesh offices, I wrote a series of posts on Offshore Outsourcing, from an agency perspective. Those posts are here if you want to browse them:
- A Contribution to the Offshore Outsourcing Debate: Part 1
- On Offshore Outsourcing: Part 2
- On Offshore Outsourcing: Part 3
Blueliner was also featured in Crain’s Magazine for being one of the first US web development companies to outsource to Bangladesh.
Presently, as I write this post, I’m sitting in Blueliner India’s air-conditioned office in Hyderabad, complete with high-speed Internet and power generators to support electricity outages. Conditions have vastly improved over my last trip here, for businesses as well as the local people of Hyderabad. If you’ve read The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman, you’ve got the sense. The Hi-Tech City area, where we are located, really feels like Silicon Valley, with all the big companies, from Microsoft to Dell to Oracle to Google, right down the block. I’ll be documenting the trip with video as well as pictures, which you can follow on Blueliner’s YouTube Channel.
Phase 1 of building an offshore company was about infrastructure. The reason for the title of this post being “Phase 2″ is that we’ve just passed five years in the agency outsourcing model, and with infrastructure now well in place, I feel that it’s time for something different. Phase 2 is all about team building. Team building is always important, right from the get go in any new location. If you can’t find those first one or two good local leaders, the whole venture becomes that much harder. I was fortunate enough to find two good leaders – one in India, one in Bangladesh – who have helped Blueliner build great SEO, social media and web development teams. I’m using this opportunity to get to know our staff on a personal level. It’s amazing to meet people, like Siva Dosakaya, who have worked for me for almost three years, for the first time. He and fellow SEO Specialist Satya Dev (1.5 years with Blueliner)
Several days later, I presented Prasad Sistla, Blueliner India’s fearless leader and General Manager, with a small token of my gratitude for what he has done to put us on firm footing in an ultra-competitive and very exciting city. As Blueliner continues to build its reputation globally as one of the top SEO, Social Media and Web Design agencies, I want to see those who have been through the tough times with us be properly rewarded. Prasad is one of those special people. See this interaction (video) as well as a welcoming of our first operational staff member to Blueliner India – MVN Guptha, a very experienced bookkeeper.
I cannot stress enough the importance of these moments. Building personal relationships with your co-workers that live half way around the world is as important as those relationships with your local, day-to-day co-workers. The reason being that there is a tendency to treat “off-shore workers” as if they are just user names on a Skype interface. Since you don’t see each other, the work connection is generally less personal and completely results-oriented. There is no personal touch or real connection unless you make the effort. That is why it’s important to travel and experience what it is like to work in their offices, eat their food (even if it gives you an occasional stomach ache, like the one I had yesterday) and spend time together, both in and out of the office. I’m not a subscriber to the “work is work” or “business is business” philosophy; to me that is a convenient way of detaching from the realities of life and importance of human relationships.
The Art of Outsourcing is akin to The Art of Living. Treat people well, work hard, listen consciously and learn from your observations and experiences.