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Achievements in Offshore Outsourcing – The QMiS Story

Posted On: March 15, 2016

 

Learn More about the QMIS Story

For the past 25 years, QMS Llc headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee (in the Nashville metro area), USA, specializes in the U.S. residential mortgage banking sector. A few years ago, the founders of the company, Tommy Duncan and Claudia Duncan, were looking to improve their processes for better efficiency by reengineering and thereby to cut costs. To this end, they looked toward their long-time associates in India, Brito George and Boby Thomas. Brito and Boby were up for the challenge of starting and growing this IT/ITeS unit. Housed in GeoInfopark, close to Infopark in Kakkanad (suburbs of Kochi, India), the teams started working on the back office operations as well as the technology development.

In ideal global outsourcing ventures, the offshore team is able to fill the talent gaps where the onsite team lacks. In talking with Brito, I was intrigued to learn that the team at QMiS is a textbook example of cross-cultural business collaboration. Where the US team needed help and expertise, skilled professionals in India could fill in the gaps. While cost savings may have been one of the original reasons for offshoring to India, it actually just became the icing on the cake. Brito relays how the India team took to the technical side of the work with ease and passion. This combination of ease, passion and expertise helped the India team to achieve an incredible feat. Upon starting their work, the India team immediately saw an area they could improve. Before the India team started working on streamlining the data reconciliation process, it was a time-intensive job, and partly manual. Completing this process took about two business days. This process was not only streamlined, but automated by the team in India. The software they created to replace the process sped up processing time by 64 times, reducing the previous 2 business days to a mere 15 minutes! 

 

Jennifer Kumar, author of this post, with some of the QMiS team in 2016,

While this achievement should not be underplayed, it proved to the U.S. head office that the team in India could take a job and deliver beyond expectations. This collaborative effort was only one of the pros of setting up operations in India, according to Brito. Of course, the cost savings helped the head office tremendously along with less overhead and less resource management (office space, equipment, utilities, etc.), while providing a location that can provide 24X7 support as the situation demands. These factors alone helped the U.S. team to focus on their strengths- managing and growing the business and engaging with clients (sales and relationship building).

While these factors have built a well-oiled and efficient global team, a few factors may remain a challenge- including Mother Tongue Influence (MTI), cross-cultural conflict management and understanding the different client-service provider balance in the US. As the team and their leaders learn more about how to tackle and solve these challenges, Boby and Brito are looking forward to engaging with international clientele in Europe. As the team expand and grow, Authentic Journeys wishes them all the success ahead.

To get in touch with Boby Thomas and Brito George, visit the QMiS website.

Author, Jennifer Kumar, Managing Director of Authentic Journeys, helps teams like yours to bridge the US – India cultural gap for better returns on investment. Contact Authentic Journeys here.