DIH offers Offshore Data Support to help firms reduce the pain (and cost) of troubleshooting data issues.

THE PROBLEM — Each day firms process large amounts of data. Typically everything works just fine, but often data exceptions occur. This causes everyone to stop what they are doing, and work to resolve these exceptions. Such exceptions may take only a few moments to resolve, but often they can take days or even weeks to resolve. They can require contacting the sources of the data, who can be notorious for their unresponsiveness and lack of customer support. So your in-house data people can burn a lot of man-hours trying to resolve data issues.

Add to this the fact that data consumption by most firms is increasing, but their data support solutions are not scalable.

Good, experienced data support analysts are very hard to find. Human beings with an aptitude for such tedious work are hard to find, and frankly they can be very difficult to manage and retain.

Plus, most data support teams are isolated to one time zone, even though the firm is trading globally. So when the data support team goes home at night, no one is working to resolve any outstanding issues, or available to address any new issues.

Finally, as firms expand their trading into more markets abroad, there is a growing need for foreign language skills for data analysts who often need to review source documents in their native languages.

OUR SOLUTION — To address these pain points, DIH offers Offshore Data Support to supplement your existing data operations with a dedicated team of detail-oriented, multilingual data analysts. DIH works with its India-based partner who has been providing such data support services for about a decade now. They are ISO 9001:2008 certified for Quality Management Systems and 27001 compliant for Information Security Management Systems. They currently have about 100 data analysts on staff helping roughly a half dozen clients, the largest being a national certification body with ~80,000 customers of its own. There is current capacity to ramp up to a total of 160 data analysts.

SECURITY — As you might imagine, security is very important to us and our clients, so…

  • You have dedicated analysts who work for you only, and are not shared with any other clients.
  • All of the analysts go through stringent pre-employment screening & background checks, and if hired, are bound by confidentiality agreements.
  • Your analysts are Chinese walled off, with strict physical access controls and camera surveillance of the working area.
  • There are regular audits of processes to confirm compliance, and mandatory employee leaves to test “bench strength” & dependencies in the system.

OUR ANALYSTS — Our data analysts come from a variety of backgrounds, with some being Chartered Financial Analysts, and others with degrees in Business, Economics, and Accounting. Language skills include neutral English, as well as French, Spanish, German, Italian, Mandarin and Japanese. We test all candidates to identify detail-oriented individuals.

HOW WE’D WORK WITH YOU — If you were decide to engage with us, the first step would be to carefully define & document the scope of the service we’ll be providing you. That is…

  • What exactly are you outsourcing — what is the work to be done?
  • In what time frame?
  • With what turnarounds?
  • Considering which specials factors?

We then create step-by-step documentation & manuals to transfer the knowledge from your expert’s head to a written document. In outsourcing, we’ve found that verbal communication simply does NOT work. You must document everything.

Next, we’ll setup a trial to help you & us get comfortable. Such a trial:

  • Helps you ascertain our abilities.
  • Helps us confirm we accurately documented the work to be done.
  • Both parties can test systems & processes.
  • Helps confirm estimates vs. actuals.

To ensure a quicker & more successful launch, your experts will come to India to participate in the training You will see our operations, and meet the analysts dedicated to you. We’ve found that training via phone, web, or only manuals is not as effective or affordable, and can lead to failure. We’ll also work with you to determine the technologies to be used in troubleshooting your data issues.

We manage quality, risk and compliance via:

  • Performance & conformance metrics
  • Reports & dashboards
  • Internal user feedback & analysis
  • Risk & compliance functions

And of course you can provide feedback, and can control on what your analysts are working. Both parties will nominate one contact person, and we’ll have a mutually agreed upon system for reporting, feedback, control and exchange of information. We’ll also have regular conference calls to ensure quality.

PRICING — So how much does it cost? For Offshore Data Support we charge an annual fee based on the number of analysts dedicated to you, and the rate may vary based on the skills & experience of the individual analysts, and the volume of issues you submit. We can give you a more precise price quote after we have a quick conversation. You can ask questions, we can explain the service more, and then we can quote you a price for exactly what you want.​