The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a massive hit in the functioning of business across the world. Irrespective of any natural disasters, the impact of this pandemic is not localized to some regions, and it will not resume its normal at ease. Pandemic has global level consequences, and it isn’t easy to handle for any booming industry sector. All developed and developing countries start facing an enormous economic crisis.
The Disruption In IT Industry
Many companies have considered various alternative strategies to continue their business as before. Some have temporarily closed and waiting for the normalcy. But the new normal need much more planning than expected to get the company going. It is not easy to resume business with in-house resources when a pandemic is hit, and the life of the employees are in jeopardy.
Experiencing a pandemic crisis can be a once in a lifetime occurrence. Repercussions of such turmoil are hard to accept and foresee. It will not be an easy task for any business to be equipped with a perfect business continuity plan.
The Mitigation Plan
In the scenario of a pandemic, getting help or hiring in-house engineers seems extremely hard. Relying only upon in-house resources can completely disrupt the output of the business. Consequently, the company will face a significant financial crisis which will lead to high job cuts.
How IT companies mitigate this problem? Is offshore development a helping hand?
The best mitigation plan would be a remote offshore set up in the least affected country or given to a company where the employees can deliver equal productivity from home. This is a much cost-effective and controlled plan for a pandemic. Usually offshore development services are acquired from countries like Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and China. The development cost in these countries is much lower when compared to other countries.
Remote Offshore Set-up
There are multiple factors to be taken into account while you set up a remote offshore development center:
- Right business model – Implementing the right business model catering to any pandemic or crisis can help business continuity. When the process and plan are in place, the companies need not have to worry much about the smooth running of the existing business as well as a new business. The model must also address the safety of employees while building a standard business model for offshore development.
- Train to work remotely – The resources have already been trained and equipped to work remotely. Hence no extra cost or training is required at the time of a crisis. The business will continue to give the same output without disruption. Also, virtual training and knowledge transfer will help in case of any new requirement or skill demands.
- Office space – The office space and region must be selected after considering various parameters. The area should be less affected by any crisis or pandemic. Even it is affected, the employees must be able to deliver work without compromising their safety or well-being. The region must be very cost-effective and promising.
- Online collaborative platforms – Implementing online collaborative platforms is significant for sharing data, communication, and management. This will help employees to work and collaborate with global team members easily without affecting their work.
- Policies and benefits – The HR policies and benefits are set at the worldwide level favoring employees as well as the company goals. A remote payroll and accounting platform can help HR as well as employees to benefit equally.
- Remote hiring process – Set up a completely remote recruitment process which can help talent acquisition to pool resources catering to all functions of the business. Online tests and interviews with the help of various portals and web-conferencing platforms will be convenient for hiring managers and candidates. This will help the entire hiring process smooth and hassle-free.
- Virtual knowledge transfer – Virtual knowledge transfer facilities with collaborative tools allow easy replacement of the resources as well as decrease the turnaround time for new employees to deliver the results as expected.
- Save the most critical business functions – The most affected and vital areas of a project such as DevOps, Data Centre Services, and QA are safeguarded with the help of secured cloud technologies administered at offshore locations.
Advantages Of Offshore Development
There are many advantages to the offshore development center. In that a few are listed below:
- On-time delivery of the project focussing only on core business functions.
- A cost-effective development center is available in terms of salaries and office space set-up.
- No extra training required for employees at the time of crisis, only upskilling is needed.
- A well-designed business continuity plan is in place for an undisrupted business model.
- The difference in time zone can help the teams across the globe to support the business round the clock.
- Gives the flexibility to choose the resources with the required skillset for any critical project. The team can use auto-scale resources when a new project comes in.
- Global level recruitment and hiring process. Wide range of candidate pool for each skill requirement.
- Responsibilities are shared across the teams at global locations. Hence the workload is balanced with improved productivity.
Summary
In this age of unpredictability, the offshore model always comes as a helping hand for the IT industry. The global contribution and support of a project have always helped for the top- class results. With the help of collaborative platforms and virtual portals, the communication and sharing of data made much easier for the teams across the globe.
Offshore development set up is always the best choice for a cost-effective and profitable business model at the time of the pandemic.