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Dear Reader,
If you are reading this article, most probably you have faced some
communication problem
with your offshore team or you are considering to offshore your project work
and
want to learn effective ways to communicate to the team which is thousands
miles away.
Being CEO of outsourcing company (<a
href="http://www.infotrex.com/">Infotrex Services Pvt. Ltd.<a>),
I deal with many clients(based in USA,
UK, Italy, Ireland,
France etc.) & our team here in India. I will share some of my insights
and day-to-day observations, so that you can get benefited.
Lets try to understand the basics of communication and possible ways to make
mistakes when communicating with your offshore team in India. There are 3 entities
involved in any communication - 1. Sender, 2. Receiver & 3. Channel between
Sender-Receiver.
Now, try to understand Sender (its you yourself!!!). Mostly you are born &
brought up in western country, having some cultural inclination and English
language knowledge. Receiver is mostly the person in India, who knows English, but finds
it hard to understand American English accent as well as having different
cultural & geographical understanding. Channels of Communication can be
phone, email & chat most of the time.
Now, lets try to accept the fact that - when messages(technically communication
signals) are sent from sender to receiver through any communication channels,
then some sort of noise or distortion will happen and because of that
communication will be broken. These kind of communication gaps can become
critical for long term success or failure of the project or relationship
between you and off the shore team.
So, here are best 7 tips:
1. Start initial communication on Phone It is easy to pick up a phone and start
talking with someone who is ready to listen to your ideas or project
requirements. If you can find someone from offshore company who can understand
your English accent, that's a very good first start. Nowadays many offshore companies
have US phone numbers or Skype ID, so just find it out if any phone
communication channel is available to offshore team and start using it first. If
any offshore company is not providing phone support, then either they are not
capable to understand western English or do not understand the importance of
this communication channel. Beware of these kind of companies because in long
run, you will find it very problematic to communicate because of time difference
& cultural differences.
2. Start Email communication to extend initial Phone Communication If you have
passed the first phase of phone communication, then next phase is to have some
written text via email. Do not expect that the receiver (offshore team) will
remember & understand 100% whatever you have discussed on phone. Nobody is
100% perfect, so accept this fact and try to fill-up the gaps of phone
communication by writing email. This 2nd phase will crystallize your
thoughts/ideas or project requirements and will provide written evidences for future
use.
3. Start Chat Communication to extend Phone & Email Communication
Once you have passed first & second phase, then you should start feeling
better if the offshore team is good at communication & understanding your
project requirements. Now, you can have some chat communication with CEO or
Project manager if still there are communications gaps exist. Chat
communication is useful for quick confirmation, clarifications and project
updates. Make sure to send all chat communication through email to all
concerned people, so that everyone can be in a loop.
4. Have some central Storage of All Communication Once you have started
communicating with offshore team through combination of channels (phone, email,
chat), then it is very easy to get lost in the pile of digital papers. So, use Google
Docs or some central web-enabled storage systems (Box.net, Microsoft One Note
etc.) and collaborate with team members of offshore team. You may consider developing
your own customized central storage for all communication.
5. Send same message through Phone/Email/Chat You may experience that many
times the messages may get lost on other end. For example, many people just leave
chat message or only voicemail or only send email and then expect timely response
from the offshore team. Offshore team might be busy and the message can get
lost (in bulk email or voicemail or chat) which exist in only 1 communication
channel. So, make sure to send same message to multiple communication channels,
when something is urgent and important. If important & urgent messages are
passed more than one time, there are more chances that it will be received or
heard on other end.
6. Be ready with emergency communication strategies We all live in the world
where anything may happen at any time. Offshore team may face power outage,
internet connection outage, social problems, riots, traffic jam, computer
virus, network problem etc. So, you need to have some emergency communication
strategies with offshore team. You have to accept the facts that - people live
in other globe of the earth are also humans and nobody anticipate failure of
communication channels in advance. So, be calm and patient when something goes
out of control. This tip will help a lot once in a blue moon, but very
important for overall success or failure of the project or relationship.
7. Make sure to close the communication loop this is the last and essential
point for any communication. In very simple words, sender say something to receiver
and then ask for receiver to re-iterate same thing to sender in their own words
or own ways. If both messages from sender to receiver & receiver to sender
are almost same, then it is considered that the communication loop is closed.
For clarity of all communication messages, closing the communication loop is
very essential. Sometimes, this seems wastage of time & efforts, but
believe me - in long run this last tip will make the big impact.
Use these 7 basic tips for successful communication with your offshore team in India
or any offshore team through the world.
Use all simple 7 tips above and share your stories with us. We would be happy
to learn further from you. If you are interested further on this topic, you may
read other similar article at:http://www.sourcingmag.com/content/c051201a.asp Article Source: http://www.ArticleBlast.com |
