Offshoring at scale
Offshoring has given us a commercially strong way to support our business operations at scale.
Case Study - BDR Group
How BDR Group scaled operations, controlled costs, and future‑proofed growth with the offshore model that ChannelCore Solutions now offers its partners.
Customer Overview
BDR Group is a growing, multi‑entity organisation pursuing both organic expansion and an active M&A strategy. As the business scaled, leadership faced increasing pressure to expand capacity across core operational functions while maintaining cost discipline, governance, and service quality.
From a CFO perspective, the challenge was clear: how to support rapid growth without escalating fixed costs, operational risk, or organisational complexity.
The Challenge
Before building its offshore team, BDR Group was experiencing strain across multiple business functions, including:
- Day to day operational support
- Finance operations and billing
- IT and systems support
- Marketing execution
Growth had outpaced internal capacity, and reliance on onshore recruitment was becoming slow, expensive, and inflexible. This created mounting pressure around cost escalation, hiring delays, and operational bottlenecks.
The challenge intensified further following the introduction of the Labour government budget, which increased National Insurance and minimum wage costs, placing immediate strain on margins and cost control.
From a finance leadership standpoint, this environment increased risk across:
- Budget predictability
- Operational resilience
- Responsiveness to internal stakeholders and end customers
BDR Group needed a scalable solution that could support growth without compromising governance or control.
Why an Offshore Model
An offshore model stood out because it could support multiple business functions under a single, flexible structure.
Key factors behind the decision included:
- The ability to support IT and operations, marketing, finance and billing from one team
- A South Africa delivery model offering skilled talent, cost efficiency, and strong cultural alignment
- A clear understanding of financial governance, controls, and senior leadership expectations
Crucially, the model gave the business flexibility without sacrificing transparency, accountability, or quality.
Implementation Experience
Implementation was structured, pragmatic, and low risk.
The specific requirements of each function were mapped first, and teams were onboarded function by function rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach.
This ensured:
- Strong alignment with existing workflows
- Minimal disruption to operations
- Faster realisation of value
From a leadership perspective, this approach significantly reduced execution risk while embedding offshore teams effectively into the business.
The Impact
The most significant impact of the offshore model has been the ability to scale capacity quickly and cost‑effectively while maintaining financial predictability.
Key improvements include:
Stronger operational resilience across finance, billing, IT, marketing, and operations
More responsive IT support, enhancing system reliability
Improved processing efficiency and consistency within finance and billing
Greater continuity in marketing execution
Reduced pressure on internal teams across the business
Leadership teams are now able to focus on strategy and growth, rather than firefighting resource constraints.
Measurable Results
BDR Group has achieved clear and consistent benefits:
- Significantly reduced recruitment lead times compared to onshore hiring
- Meaningful salary cost savings on a like for like basis
- Flexibility to scale team size up or down without over hiring or under resourcing
- Strong ROI across finance, billing, IT, marketing, and operational roles
Importantly, these savings and efficiencies were achieved without compromising continuity, quality, or output.
Day to Day Business & Customer Impact
By alleviating internal operational pressure, teams are now able to focus more on customer facing and value adding activities.
Day to day operations have become more stable and predictable:
- IT support responsiveness has improved with a 25% increase in first time resolution rates
- Operational support ensures customer facing teams are better equipped
- Finance and billing processes run more smoothly, reducing customer impacting delays and errors. Monthly billing queries were reduced from 250 to 20.
- Marketing teams execute campaigns more consistently
Collectively, this has delivered a better end customer experience while maintaining strong internal controls and oversight.
What Makes the Model Work
The model combines commercial awareness with operational delivery. Unlike traditional outsourcing, it is built on a deep understanding of:
- The MSP and telecoms industry
- Financial governance and controls
- Billing accuracy
- IT and cyber reliability
- Marketing execution discipline
- Operational accountability
They operate as a true extension of the business, aligning their delivery with long term strategic objectives rather than short term resourcing needs - an approach that resonates strongly at senior leadership and board level.
Unexpected Benefits
A positive surprise was how quickly the offshore team integrated into existing culture, ethos and ways of working and the level of ownership and accountability they demonstrated.
The dedicated Cape Town office improved performance by 20 - 30% through better governance, collaboration, and security.
From a finance perspective, the predictability and clarity of costs across all supported functions has significantly improved financial planning, forecasting, and confidence in long term decision making.
Supporting Future Growth & Advanced Capabilities
Beyond traditional support roles, the offshore model has enabled BDR Group to expand into high growth, strategic capability areas, including:
- Network Operations Centre (NOC)
- Security Operations Centre (SOC) and broader cyber security services
This allowed the business to enter and scale a strategically important market without the cost, risk, or lead time of building these teams onshore. The operations grew revenue from £25,000 to £150,000 monthly, driving cyber revenue up by 150%.
The availability of specialised skills has strengthened the group's service proposition, supported organic revenue growth, and reinforced operational resilience and risk management - key priorities for customers.
Enabling M&A at Scale
As BDR Group continues to grow through acquisitions, scalability and integration speed are critical.
The flexible, multi-disciplinary offshore model enables BDR Group to:
- Rapidly extend IT, marketing, cyber security, finance, billing and operational capacity
- Standardise and centralise key support services where appropriate
- Reduce integration risk and accelerate post-acquisition stabilisation
- Avoid duplicating roles and inflating fixed cost bases
This creates a more efficient, scalable group operating model and allows leadership teams to remain focused on strategic integration and growth.
A Foundation for Sustainable Growth
By establishing a scalable and resilient operational backbone, the offshore model enables both inorganic and organic growth.
This model:
- Protects margins
- Improves governance and predictability
- educes execution risk
- Supports expansion across geographies, functions, and service lines
From a CFO perspective, it provides confidence that growth, however it is achieved, is supported by a commercially sustainable and future proof operating model.
In Our CFO's Words
"Offshoring has given us a commercially strong way to support finance, billing, IT support, marketing, and operations at scale. From a CFO perspective, it enables sustainable growth, delivers cost efficiency, and maintains the governance and transparency expected by senior leadership and boards."