 A Case Study: Small-Scale Outsourcing to the Philippines
Second in a Series of Articles on Business in the Philippines
When you think of outsourcing, large-scale operations such as call centers may come to mind. But even small companies can benefit from outsourcing some projects or functions to the Philippines. Here’s the experience of one of remithome’s business customers:
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As a small U.S. company that sells consumer products over the Internet, we have always needed to watch our expenses. But cost cutting became a matter of survival when the recession hit us in 2008.
One of our staff members, who was from the Philippines, suggested that we could save money by doing some of our work in the Philippines. At first, we weren’t sure, but then we outsourced some projects just to try it out. Now we have 5 employees in the Philippines who do copywriting, website maintenance, and telephone sales and 3 independent contractors who do one-off projects for us. We use remithome to pay the employees twice a month and we pay the contractors on a phase-completion basis.
Outsourcing has been a good move for us. It has really increased our productivity and lowered our costs. Most importantly, it has helped us weather the severe economic downturn over the last three years.
Based on our experience, here are some tips for small businesses considering outsourcing:
- Assess your operations to see which functions can be outsourced – Not everything can be outsourced. The easiest functions to outsource are those that are less integrated with other functions. For us it was telephone sales, copywriting, and website maintenance. You might also consider outsourcing lead generation or online research.
- Start slowly – Don’t try to outsource everything right away. There is a learning curve to working with outsourced staff across time zones.
- Hire carefully – You want to make sure that the people you hire can work independently and have a work style that’s compatible with yours. It helps if they have already had experience working independently for an international employer. To check for compatibility, ask about what hours they prefer to work, how instructions should be conveyed, how often they should check-in, etc. To help with your evaluation, you can set a trial period for employees or a short test project if you are hiring contract workers.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate – Communication is very important when you have outsourced employees because you don’t have face-to-face contact. They are also in a different time zone and come from a different work culture. Be sure to set expectations up front. We use a combination of email and Skype. The email (with attachments) lays out the expectations for the project or duties. Following this up with a Skype call helps confirm understanding and we can make adjustments, if necessary.
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Ask remithome: Making it Easy to Pay Multiple Recipients
Question: My business needs to pay 50 employees in the Philippines each month. How can I set up my remithome account to make it easier?
Answer: For most businesses, paying multiple employees is easiest if the employees are listed in your remithome account in the same order as they are in your payroll records (which usually means alphabetically by last name). Since remithome’s Send Money page orders recipients alphabetically by Nickname, you can affect the order of the recipient listing by carefully choosing the Nickname you use in the Recipient Profile.
CREATING RECIPIENT PROFILES
To set up your remithome account, you need to create a Recipient Profile for each of your employees. You will only need to enter the information once. After the recipient profile is created, the information is stored on our secure servers for future use. This is comparable to entering payees for online banking. Major components of the Recipient Profile are
- Recipient Contact Information – Name, Address, Contact Phone Number.
- Nickname – A short name to uniquely identify the recipient. (As explained below, creating appropriate Nicknames is important for simplifying your payroll payment process.)
- Delivery Method – There are three delivery methods (Bank Deposit, Cash Pick-Up, and Door-to-Door Delivery), so recipients can select which is most convenient for them. We can also arrange to issue a Cash Card (an ATM/Debit Card) if that is preferred.
HOW TO CHOOSE NICKNAMES FOR RECIPIENTS
Careful choice of Nicknames can help you organize your recipients and make it easy to pay multiple employees. Here are important factors to consider:
- Recipients are Alphabetized by Nickname – So if your payroll list is alphabetical by last name, start the Nickname with the employee’s last name.
- Other Information can be Included in Nickname – Sometimes you may want to include the delivery method, delivery currency, and/or bank name in the Nickname. Click here for examples of how to include additional information in the Nickname.
- Nicknames can be as long as 40 characters – Short Nicknames can be easier to use, but longer Nicknames can include more information.
NICKNAMES IN MULTIPLE RECIPIENT TRANSACTIONS
When you login to your remithome account and go to the Send Money page, your recipients will be in alphabetical order by Nickname. To send money to multiple recipients, just enter the amounts you want to send to each recipient. Click here for a general description of Multiple Recipient Transactions.
If you have any questions about recipient profiles, nicknames, or multiple recipient transactions, please contact remithome Customer Service during California business hours at 1-800-919-0787, Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Pacific Time, or email us at customerservice@remithome.com.
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