Functional Service Provider (FSP) models are widely used to deliver biometrics services in the biopharmaceutical industry. Traditionally, these teams have been based in the United States and Western Europe, but with a globally recognized talent pool and the need to deliver more value within confined budgets, sponsors are now interested in offshore locations, such as India, South Africa, and Eastern Europe.

Here, I detail best practices for sponsors looking to incorporate offshore FSP teams.

Best practices for building offshore FSP teams

Best practices for building offshore teams from scratch include:

1. Developing a detailed recruitment plan

Creating a comprehensive recruitment plan that outlines timelines and mutually agreed-upon milestones is key to effectively launching offshore teams. The recruitment plan should be viewed as a living document that is reviewed regularly and updated as needed. The focus should be on “planned vs actual” metrics and ensuring that all roadblocks to recruitment are removed in a timely manner.Finally, this document must be based on hard data, acknowledging where the talent pool is and the track record in recruiting that population.

2. Focusing on early risk identification and mitigation

Obstacles to recruitment will occur, and anticipating and planning for these challenges early on will do much to support recruitment success. Common risks to recruitment include lengthy country-specific notice periods, changing economic conditions, and competition from other vendors and sponsors. The FSP vendor should have active plans to implement mitigation strategies to minimize any impacts due to these risks.

3. Identifying quality resources that fit the sponsor’s culture

Detailed and complete job descriptions are central to recruitment success, but beyond the pure technical skills, FSP recruitment must incorporate an assessment of overall “fit” within the sponsor’s organization. For example, does the role require working as part of a team or is an individual performer more likely to find success? All of this should be supported by a dedicated global talent acquisition team that understands where to find talent to increase the probability of recruitment success.

4. Accelerating onboarding

Strong onboarding is highly correlated to employee retention; it must be timely, practical, and clear. Ideally, new FSP hires should start one week prior to their first day with the sponsor, to allow time to complete internal training at the FSP provider, and to understand the sponsor’s expectations before starting from other team members or the FSP Lead. Finally, pairing up new hires with an already established “buddy” to which they can seek day to day advice on the role contributes greatly to new employee satisfaction.

5. Prioritizing retention

Tenets of effective retention planning start with a positive and seamless onboarding experience and progress to garnering employee feedback and establishing a continuous feedback loop. Other strategies include employee recognitions and rewards and offering creative professional development opportunities. Additionally, while salary and bonus are indeed important to employees, these should be supplemented with other important benefits, such as flexible work hours, to demonstrate employee value.

Considerations for sponsors

Many sponsors with already established onshore FSP teams are interested in offshoring options, essentially replacing these resources with resources in more cost-effective countries. In these cases, business continuity is the utmost priority and transition timings must work around the needs of the business and required portfolio deliverables. This requires a fair amount of upfront planning with the sponsor, based on the following questions:

• Assuming that timeline slippage is not permissible and that all key deliverables are of equal priority, what are the key deliverables due this calendar year, mapped out by month?
• Which FSP personnel to be transitioned are involved in these deliverables?
• Within each FSP personnel assigned to a key deliverable, which are most critical (transitioned later), and which are less critical (transitioned earlier)?
• For replacement headcount, what geographies are preferred (if any)?
• What are the notice periods for these preferred geographies?
• Finally, how do we reconcile the time required to transition off with the time required to transition on, while minimizing any work process disruptions?

This is an iterative process that requires close collaboration with the sponsor.

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