When our CEO, Peter Bell first turned to offshoring, he was trying to solve a hiring problem.
It was 2010, and his Australian MSP was struggling to find skilled staff. He opened an office in the Philippines and hired two people to handle work at night.
Fifteen years later, his view of offshoring has changed.
At CanITCon, 2025, Peter shared what he learned from building teams across the Philippines and Sri Lanka. His main point was simple. Offshoring can start as a way to fill a gap, but it can quickly become much more than that.
It can change how a business uses its people, serves its clients, and creates room to grow.
Here is a summary of the 7 lessons he shared:
1. Be open to new ways of solving business challenges
More than 15 years ago, Peter’s Australian MSP was struggling to find the skilled people it needed.
Skilled engineers were hard to find. Mining companies in Western Australia were offering far more than Peter could afford to pay in Melbourne. At the same time, his own staff had young families and no longer wanted to work nights or weekends.
So Peter looked elsewhere.
After a visit to the Philippines, he made a quick choice.
“Within 48 hours of being in the country, I decided that I was going to open up an office in the Philippines.”
The first team had a clear job. They would handle back-end work at night, including server, firewall, and switch patching.
Then something unexpected happened.
The two staff began answering customer calls.
Peter noticed that his phone answer rates had improved. Then his customers started asking for the Manila staff by name.
“They were more chatty, and more fun.”
What began as an alternative to traditional hiring eventually opened the door to an entirely new way of operating.
When the usual approach is no longer working, it may be time to look somewhere new. For Peter, being open to a different solution led him to offshoring – and gave his business access to the people and support it needed to keep moving forward.
2. Look at the work nobody wants
One of Peter’s most useful lessons came from a simple exercise he ran with his team. He asked every person in his MSP to write down tasks that met three rules.
The task had to be necessary. It had to add little value to the person or the business. And it had to be something nobody wanted to do.
The answers covered almost every part of the business. Peter then looked at which tasks could be moved offshore. The result was not just lower costs.
It took work off the plates of his Australian staff. Peter says he only understood the full effect years later.
“The average tenure of the 16 people now that are in my MSP in Melbourne is 18 years.”
That is a useful way to look at offshoring. Instead of asking which jobs can be moved to another country, leaders can ask a better question:
Which tasks are stopping my best people from doing higher-value work?
Moving those tasks can free people to focus on clients, training, sales, planning, and other work that can help the business grow.
3. Culture comes before skills
Building a team in another country brings a common concern. How do you make sure the offshore team fits the business?
Peter’s answer is to start with culture.
“You can teach people skills. You can’t teach somebody to be a good person.”
For Peter, this is not just about finding people with the right skills. It is about finding people who fit the way the business works.
Every MSP has its own way of dealing with customers, managing tickets, using tools, and working as a team.
An offshore employee needs to understand that way of working.
When the fit is right, Peter believes knowledge can move more easily between the teams. Staff can work well together. Customers can also get a more consistent experience.
But there is another part that matters just as much. The offshore team has to feel like they belong.
4.Do not build a team on the side
Peter shared a story about an MSP owner who had tried offshoring and decided it was not working. The owner had even flown to the Philippines to train the new staff.
He asked who trains new staff back in Australia. The answer was the service delivery manager or another technician. That was the problem.
The offshore team was being treated differently from the local team.
Peter’s advice is to bring offshore staff into the same team huddles, rewards, and day-to-day culture. Even small things can help, from company shirts to team events and shared team goals.
His point was blunt:
“Make them human beings, not a support tool.”
That approach matters for more than morale.
When people feel part of the company, they are more likely to build strong ties with the people they work with. They know who they are working for and why their work matters.
For leaders building offshore teams, that can make the difference between adding remote headcount and building a team that lasts.
5. The goal is not just to save money
Cost is one of the first reasons many businesses look at offshoring. Peter does not deny the financial benefit. But he argues that it should not be the end goal.
His advice is to use the savings and additional capacity to do something with the business.
That could mean hiring more people. Taking on more work. Training the team. Improving margins. Or investing in growth.
Peter has used the margin created by his offshore model to help grow his own business, including acquiring other MSPs.
That changes the question.
Instead of asking:
“How much can I save?”
Ask:
“What can I do with the capacity I gain?”
That shift can lead to a very different business plan.
6. Start with two people
Peter also shared a practical lesson from his early days. When starting an offshore team, he recommends hiring two people rather than one.
The reason is simple.
If your only offshore employee leaves, you have to start again. You lose knowledge, team rhythm, and time. With two people, there is already some shared knowledge in place.
He saw this firsthand when one of his early engineers had to leave work to care for his father. The second person stayed, the business kept moving, and Peter hired another team member. It is a small decision that can reduce a big potential risk.
For a business that relies on an offshore team, having some depth from the start can help protect the work and the knowledge that comes with it.
7. Create room for higher-value work
One of the strongest themes from Peter’s CanITCon session was that an offshore team should not be treated as a place to send “unwanted” work.
The bigger opportunity is to give the wider business more room.
One day each week could be spent on training, customer work, sales, or tasks that add more value to the business. That is where offshoring can have an effect beyond the offshore team itself.
The goal is not simply to make work cheaper. It is to change how your people spend their time.
Fifteen years changed the question
Peter started offshoring because he could not find enough people in Australia.
Fifteen years later, the reason matters less than what the model has made possible.
What began as a way to fill a staffing gap became a way to build a stronger team, give people better work, support customers for longer hours, and create more room to grow.
That is perhaps the biggest lesson from his experiences. An offshore team should not sit on the edge of the business, treated as a way to get work done for less. When it is built into the way a company works, it becomes part of the team, part of the culture, and part of the growth plan.
Offshoring changed more than where the work was done. It changed what the business could do with the people and time it had.
TGT Global returns to CanITCon 2026
Following his standing room only session in September 2025, this year, TGT Global is returning to CanITCon ’26 to continue the conversation with Canadian MSP owners.
Peter will take the stage on Thursday, September 10, 2026, 2:00 PM – 2:40 PM to share his experiences and explore the human advantage that businesses can create when the right people, culture and opportunities come together.
Make sure you attend the RIGHT breakout 😊
Attending CanITCon 2026? Visit the TGT Global team at Booth 308 to talk about your staffing challenges and discover what an offshore team could make possible for your MSP.
Don’t forget to ask for your free copy of Peter’s book – Offshoring Secrets Revealed!
