Unlocking growth through offshoring: An anonymous success story
How A Shortage Of Accountants Led One Company To Gain Unexpected Competitive Advantages With EVES
Case studies are one way that a vendor tells the world how a client used their product or service to solve a problem, and the benefits realized as a result.
Most case studies proudly trumpet the company name of the client being featured. That allows the vendor to do a little name dropping, in addition to highlighting how their product or service succeeded in solving that client’s problem.
Not this case study, though. We’re not mentioning our client’s name. Because we can’t.
You see, the client being featured in this case study insists on remaining anonymous. You’ll understand why when we explain more in a little bit.
First though, a little background about the client. We’ll simply refer to them as Company X.
Company X is a successful accounting and technology services firm that’s growing rapidly. So rapidly in fact, that the pace of their growth was exceeding their ability to recruit & onboard accounting talent.
The challenge of recruiting accountants wasn’t unique to Company X. Bloomberg News reported in March 2024 that there were 340,000 fewer accountants available in the US than in 2019. Consequently, the dwindling number of CPAs in the US labor pool has reached a crisis level.
Crisis or not, Company X still needed to hire more accounting talent to maintain its dizzying growth. Frustrated with the difficulties of finding staff in the US, Company X decided to cast their recruiting gaze elsewhere – to the Philippines.
They discovered that the Philippines is surprisingly compatible with US businesses.
English is one of 2 official languages, ranking the Philippines among the world’s largest English-speaking nations. The country’s literacy rate (97.95%) is the highest in Southeast Asia.
Furthermore, the Philippines and US have a shared history, with the Philippines modeling its government institutions on those of the US, including its constitution.
Company X also learned that the labor pool in the Philippines is characterized by workers who are grateful, hard-working, dedicated, efficient, detail-oriented, and quality conscious. Filipinos have a reputation for positive attitudes, and meeting deadlines without compromising on deliverables.
Best of all, there were plenty of highly qualified, budget-friendly accountants in the Philippines ready and eager to work for American companies.
So Company X contracted with EVES to start offshoring to the Philippines for the roles they were having so much trouble filling in the US. Very quickly, they found staff for all their open positions, including Accounting Managers, Senior/Junior Accountants, Accounts Payable Supervisors, Payroll Specialists, Excel Specialists, Financial Analysts, and more.
Company X not only solved their recruiting problem with EVES, they also saved 70% on their labor costs, and 50% on their overhead.
Additionally, they mitigated many of the regulatory burdens they had to comply with in the US, and were able to realize additional savings on office space they no longer needed.
EVES manages the entire onboarding process for Company X‘s new recruits, including the employment agreement and other paperwork required by the Philippines government. The employees are then set up in a comfortable, air conditioned, blackout-free, Western-standards office. The work environment is located in a modern building with emergency power generators, and redundant internet connections with speeds up to 3Gbps.
Speaking anonymously (of course), the COO of Company X says, “EVES has been a game changer for our business. They provide us with high-quality talent at a labor cost savings that’s just unimaginable in the US. EVES also handles the entire HR and operations aspect of our offshoring arrangement, making it completely seamless for our team. We currently have 20 people offshored, but plan to grow to at least 60. Initially we started out with basic accountants, but now we’re looking to build an entire A/P department through EVES.”
When calculating what 20 staff members would’ve cost based on US labor rates, Company X saved an average of $50k – 75k on each employee. The total savings, just on direct labor costs, adds up to $1,000,000 – $1,500,000 annually! All of which flows directly instead now to Company X’s bottom line.
As a bonus, thanks to the time zone differential, Company X has become highly efficient operations-wise. While US staff are winding down for their day, the Philippines staff are just starting theirs. This allows for a 24×7 “follow the sun” operations model, ensuring work gets done around the clock.
And now we circle back to why Company X insists on remaining anonymous. Offshoring with EVES has given them a cost edge they don’t want publicly revealed. By using EVES to source accounting talent, Company X has saved so much on labor, overhead, and other expenses their profit margins have ballooned. That’s a competitive advantage they’re keen to retain for as long as possible.
