How to achieve operational maturity in marketing with a multishoring talent approach

Marketing and creative teams today are under pressure to do more with fewer resources while ensuring consistent branding. To succeed, businesses must rethink resource management and strive for higher operational maturity — often through a multishoring approach.

A well-aligned talent strategy and streamlined operations are essential, as both directly impact the quality and performance of the final product.

Understanding talent requirements

The journey begins with identifying the pressures on your team, which may include:

Cutting costs

Your talent approach can significantly impact your marketing budget. While in-house creative teams are usually more cost-effective than external agencies, offshore or nearshore solutions can reduce expenses. However, each option has a role in meeting marketing needs, and the costs should include collaboration between onshore and offshore teams, especially during the briefing, reviewing and feedback stages.

Managing increasing work volumes

Optimizing your talent strategy to reduce expenses may help you redeploy funding to manage increased workloads. However, talent alone isn’t enough; aligning it with a well-planned operational strategy is essential for meeting business needs.

Driving innovation

Another area to consider when determining your talent strategy is the desire for more innovative creative work and ideas. While offshore teams are often tapped for production work, they can also assist in localization. Understanding the capabilities of your in-house team will help identify when external agencies are needed, whether for strategic creativity or channel-specific production work.

Localizing campaigns

Global campaigns often require offshore teams for effective localization, going beyond simple translation to ensure cultural relevance and resonance with local markets.

With a clear understanding of these needs, you can determine how your in-house and outsourced talent strategies contribute to meeting business needs and achieving operational maturity.

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Developing a talent strategy

A multishore talent strategy balances offshore, nearshore and onshore solutions and offers the flexibility to meet diverse business needs. Here’s a breakdown of each approach.

Offshoring

This is the practice of outsourcing business processes to a creative agency or creative resources in a country other than the country of your core business and team.

Benefits:

• Cost avoidance and savings.
• Access to a broader talent pool.
• Increased flexibility.
• Follow-the-sun approach for continuous workflow.
• Cultural understanding of local markets.

Challenges:

• Language barriers.
• Cultural differences, including:
  • How skill sets are defined.
  • Working arrangements and employment laws.
  • Varying interpretations of aesthetics, marketing and customer experience (especially for U.S. markets).
• Time zone differences.
• Managing quality expectations and control.
• Intellectual property and data security risks.

Nearshoring

This is similar to offshoring but involves outsourcing to countries closer in proximity to your core business, with fewer differences in time zones and culture.

Benefits:

• Access to additional talent and skill sets.
• Similar time zones.
• Some cultural understanding.
• Potentially reduced language barriers.
• Increased flexibility.
• Cultural understanding of local markets.

Challenges:

• Similar to offshoring, but issues may be easier to resolve due to closer alignment.

Onshoring

The practice of keeping outsourcing in-country using external agencies and contract talent resources.

Benefits:

• Complete control of the process.
• No language or cultural barriers.
• Few time zone challenges.
• High-quality control.

Challenges:

• Higher costs than offshore or nearshore options.
• Less flexibility.
• Difficulty finding in-demand talent and skill sets.

External agencies

With agency mergers and expansions comes more global talent and connections. External agencies may be used for various purposes, including:

• Supplementing the in-house talent and skill sets.
• Supporting overflow work. 

Your agency can be set up to also support your multishore work approach.

Many companies rely solely on onshore strategies, while others combine onshore and offshore efforts. A multishore strategy can provide the best of all worlds if carefully tailored to your company’s needs.

Along with talent, there are operational considerations to ensure work is done both effectively and efficiently in your multishore approach. Aligning operations for efficiency is crucial once the work volume, type and tiers are mapped to a talent strategy.

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Key operational considerations

Achieving efficiency in a multishore approach requires careful planning in these areas.

Effective communication

Establish regular communication routines and select the right tools for various communication needs. Negotiating overlapping work hours between nearshore/offshore and onshore teams can enhance collaboration and the ability to communicate effectively. 

Cultural appreciation

Offshore teams should understand the markets they serve and onshore teams should be aware of the culture of their offshore partners. Everything from food to holidays to measurements used will be different and attention should be paid to this to ensure teams are correctly aligned.

Shared purpose

A successful multishore approach hinges on a sense of shared purpose. Aligning team members with a shared mission, vision and value proposition and recognizing team achievements publicly can build unity across locations.

Training for consistency

Invest in onboarding and ongoing training to ensure alignment on work standards and expectations. Establishing mutually beneficial service level agreements and conducting regular retrospectives can drive continuous improvement.

Process management

Clearly defined processes, including handoff points and approval authority, ensure smooth operations across teams.

Time tracking

Accurate time tracking at job and task levels is essential for capacity planning and tracking operational performance for continuous improvement.

Collaboration

Multishore team collaboration is essential. Ensure local team management connects across locations.

Technology alignment

Use compatible systems for workflow, time tracking and sharing and archive work seamlessly, including consistent file naming and metadata practices.

Balancing business costs

When working with offshore or nearshore teams, it’s important to factor in the time needed for U.S.-based oversight, briefing and quality control. Investing time in building and maintaining multishore capabilities is crucial for long-term success.

Optimizing talent and operations for global growth with multishoring

Businesses must continually reassess their talent strategies to stay ahead in this competitive market. A well-executed multishoring approach allows organizations to maximize resources, adapt to shifting demands and foster global creative innovation. 

By understanding the benefits and challenges of different sourcing models — onshore, nearshore and offshore — you can design a strategy that uses each of their strengths. Aligning operational procedures and nurturing cross-region collaboration ensures these strategies deliver consistent, high-quality results. 

Success relies on understanding organizational needs, effective communication, consistent processes, cultural appreciation and a commitment to continuous improvement, enabling scalable growth in a changing business environment.

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