A multi-office firm used a combination of outsourcing, offshoring and Podsourcing to drive a step-change in how they service their clients.
Describe your practice to us
We’re a multi-office firm based in the North-West of England, serving clients nationwide - mainly OMBs. In particular we support companies through funding and growth lifecycles, investment through to exit.
Staff-wise we have 14 on the UK side and 11 based in India with Advancetrack – the latter of whom are very much part of the team. We post multi-million pounds of revenue annually.
What was the issue you were initially looking to solve?
If we go back a couple of years, then we were constantly struggling to keep up with deadlines – we just didn’t have the capacity to do the work.
I would describe our model and structure as fairly traditional; we had layers of team members and would have trainees undertaking the processing and production work.
The problem arose because the work was becoming increasingly complex – it was high-end compliance. Changing that model was therefore the aim, but switching out less experienced staff for more experienced was going to be difficult and expensive.
The aim was to work with Advancetrack to build a team that could undertake the work quickly and at great value.
How did you find out about Advancetrack?
I’ve felt like I’ve known about Advancetrack forever! We were in the same orbit at events. What attracted me to their offering was it combined a people focus with an excellent tech foundation; this felt different to me compared with others in the market.
We worked together on a few outsourcing projects to ‘firefight’ - where I needed some capacity in my firm quickly for a short period of time.
It built up my knowledge even further of their team and how they work.
How did the working relationship progress?
An offshore team was created by Advancetrack in India for us. However, this comes under the Podsourcing offering, which I describe as ‘offshoring with benefits’. Typical offshore offerings are effectively a ‘one-in’ recruitment – if that person leaves then a whole new recruitment process begins. With Podsourcing, a team is built that works for us; but if people move on or don’t quite fit then Advancetrack can bring in someone else seamlessly. The team structure also creates a management hierarchy, which is so important.
Having this team made a massive difference to our ability to produce from day one. However, it’s been a couple of years working through because of the amount of change we’ve had as a firm. Some people left as part of the process, and so it then becomes a case of integrating a new team – with those based with us in England also having to adapt. It’s a time that was emotional as well as head-scratching for all. But as I said, there were immediate benefits.
What does the future look like?
Nothing stands still. We’re now bringing trainees into the firm but developing them in a different way. They still learn the basics but are not chugging through swathes of difficult work. They will work with client managers, shadowing them, to understand how they develop relationships and provide support when required.
The team, including our members in India, are spending more time directly with clients – and providing more support. We have a real framework and it’s clear what our people can achieve with them.
We’ve now had 18 months with the current structure. So, the next step is a year-long plan to take everything up a level – a round of improvements to systems and processes.
