Remote: Why a Blended onshore/offshore finance team works so well

Introduction: 

In the dynamic landscape of finance and accounting, CFOs and Finance Directors are constantly seeking innovative strategies to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, improve cash flow, and drive performance in their finance teams – particularly around month-end or quarter-end time! One approach gaining momentum is the adoption of a blended onshore and offshore finance team. 

I can speak first-hand to the benefits of this approach as, at flexhive, we adopted this model ourselves approximately three years ago with impressive results, which I’ll cover later on. 

Firstly though, what do we mean when we talk about a ‘blended’ finance team?

The Blended Team Defined 

A blended team combines the strengths of both onshore and offshore professionals to create a synergistic and high-performing finance team. Typically, the best way to structure the team is to allocate onshore team members to more critical or strategic finance functions, while offshore counterparts manage more routine and repetitive tasks, allowing for a more streamlined and cost-effective finance operation. 

Additionally, you can allocate effort and resourcing mix based on the value of the client or vendor to which the effort relates. For example, consider the level of interaction, difficulty, or value to the organisation associated with each. This can be particularly true in the Credit/AR function, where a useful strategy could be to entrust collection responsibilities for lower-value accounts to offshore team members and higher-value/higher-risk accounts to onshore team members. 

Finally, location also plays a part. Sometimes, due to local compliance and knowledge, it makes sense for certain functions to be carried out either onshore or offshore. 

At Tatopani, we apply a combination of all of the above to our resourcing mix in the early career teams. Below is our organisational chart that highlights both onshore and offshore resources across the early career teams: