In this Q and A we’re going to answer :

  • What’s the difference between outsourcing and offshoring?
  • Is outsourcing always the answer?
  • What do I do if I decide outsourcing is not right for me once I’ve started?

Transcript of the video:


David Judge from Affordable Staff and welcome to our RAW Q&A session around outsourcing.

We’ve created these series of videos for businesses that have considered outsourcing and they have genuine questions or concerns that need answering.

The format? 3 questions and 3 answers based on over 275,000 hours of outsourcing experience.

Let’s get into it

What’s the difference between outsourcing and offshoring?


Outsourcing refers to to contracting work out to a 3rd party (like us) while offshoring is where you have work done in a different country.

So you can outsource to another company whilst not actually getting the work done in another country, like if you outsource your printing to a printing business in your local area.

Now, you can offshore by setting up another office in a different country to get the work done, like if you have a separate office in the Philippines to complete data processing for example.

So our business is essentially an outsourcing and offshoring company as our clients work with us to outsource their work to our overseas office in the Philippines.

Is outsourcing always the answer?


Certainly not.

I see outsourcing as a way to grow your business (profits and people) and/ or to free up resources (your local staff for example).

There are a number of tasks I don’t think you should look at outsourcing dependant on the industry.

Cold calling for real estate agents for example I think is a no no, especially when you’re talking about a high dollar sale item with the first point of contact asking if you would like to sell your $800,000 property if from a person overseas. In this case the agent needs to be making the calls and the Outsourced team member is the ‘support person’.

Like many industries you identify the tasks that help the local person to develop the relationship with the clients and the outsourced team to perform the tasks that allow them to do that.

What do I do if I decide outsourcing is not right for me once I’ve started?


This is a really good question, as I’ve found when we take over clients from other outsourcing companies that it’s not really because outsourcing isn’t right for you, but more that you don’t understand how it’s supposed to work.

You don’t get how much time you need to invest, whether you had the right person for the job and/or if you had the right infrastructure.

We’ve turned people that have totally bombed at outsourcing come to us and we’ve found them the right people and guided them on how to integrate the staff into their business.

In my opinion you need a person here that has the experience of your industry, combined with actual outsourcing experience on the do’s and don’ts for it to work.


Ok, that’s it


If you’d like to find out more about how outsourcing can work within your business you can call us anywhere within Australia on 1300 139 482.

This is David Judge from Affordable Staff showing Australian businesses how to achieve business efficiency through outsourcing.