As early as 1990, India was selling its call centre and IT services to the US, which gave birth to the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry. It’s estimated that the global BPO market will break through the 400 billion USD p.a. mark this year (Statista), and it is still growing at high single-digit growth into the foreseeable future.

This traditional outsourcing industry primarily served large enterprise organisations. In the early 2000s, the outsourcing engagement model changed to serve better the needs of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

Over the past twenty years, this evolved form of SMB outsourcing has been called many things. First, it was called managed operations, then virtual employees or staff leasing, and now Talent as a Service (TaaS). Finally, the SMB outsourcing industry has created a label that makes sense: TaaS. You can access highly skilled and experienced offshore talent, but certain “services” are wrapped around that talent so they can do their best work and better leverage your time.

After sending work to the Philippines since 2009, I learned that not all offshore outsourcing providers are created equal. Boutique Premium vs. Low-Cost Scaled vs. Do It Yourself (DIY) providers exist.

If you are intoxicated with doing things as cheaply as possible, you will easily find the bottom of the market with a DIY provider. Also, a low-cost scaled operator could be the best fit if you want to scale your Filipino team to twenty to thirty-plus team members. However, if you only plan to hire a few Filipino team members and want a provider who will be super invested in your offshore success, then a Boutique Premium provider would be best.

Our view is that the most expensive part of the total cost of ownership (TCO) is you and your Australian team managing your Filipino team. Thus, you are better off paying a small premium for “good old-fashioned” service to leverage your time more effectively, thus reducing the TCO.