Arrangements to offshore SMSF administration and compliance in countries with cheap labour must not skimp on comprehensive training and education in relation to staff, particularly accountants.
“Training is really important because some businesses get over there, employ staff and naturally think that they’re going to work,” Optimal Outsourcing president Paul Gorrie told the SMSF Conference convened by ARC Super, NowInfinity and WPIAS Training in Queenstown, New Zealand, on Friday.
“But the reality is you have to put the same amount of training in that you would for an Australian employee for a Filipino employee, [for example].
“If you’re going to employ someone cheap, but won’t give them the training, you shouldn’t do it because it will be a waste of time and money, so put in the investment and treat them like any other employee, especially for specialised roles, if you want them to be longer term.
“I’ve actually brought my staff over to Australia because you get a better result – my accountant sat with people one-on-one, was trained up, then went back and now she is training staff.”
Gorrie said starting off as an incubation model was a good way to establish a business overseas.
“You incubate from an office over there to give yourself as much time to set up your company and get all the employee registrations done,” he said.
“You should also hire a great pioneer employee, your first staff member, who has had experience.”
Unless businesses provided services that were very hands-on, specialised, entrepreneurial or offered specialised strategies, roles were destined to be offshored, he said.
“Our bread and butter work, our compliance work, is going to be commoditised. It’s coming and it’s coming fast,” he said.
“Offshoring is not for everyone, but you can see the issue with the wave of cheap labour coming and it’s accessible to the smallest groups of people now.
“We’re an expensive country in a very cheap region, and technology is just so cheap and affordable.”
