“Outsourcing with Deployed has allowed us to triple the size of our Engineering team. It has provided us with a scalable solution to meet our development requirements at a lower cost than we could have produced in-house.”

CASE STUDY: BACK PADDOCK AND DEPLOYED

Background: introducing Back Paddock

Back Paddock Company has a proud legacy of serving the Australian agricultural industry. Based in Brisbane, their software solutions enable quick and accurate farm planning, recording, reporting, and mapping. These farm management tools assist in production planning and agronomic decision-making, at the business, farm, paddock and management zone levels.

Innovation is one of Back Paddock’s core values; “in everything we do, we challenge our ideas to better meet the needs of our customers”, says Brett Pollard, Operations Manager at Back Paddock. “It’s imperative in a technology led industry to stay on top of trends and customer requirements.”

To constantly update their software solutions, agricultural knowledge and training services, the business requires a very technically competent team of software engineers, web and front-end developers, GIS engineers, and QA specialists, supported by customer support and training experts.

What led Back Paddock to outsource? 

Back Paddock needed to increase development resources so it could focus more on its core business and become more industry competitive. A limited talent pool meant local developers were too expensive or very difficult to locate.

“The more we researched the benefits of outsourcing the more it made sense to us as a company and our bottom line. Deciding to proceed with this model for our engineering team was a ‘no- brainer’ in the end… we wouldn’t have been able to expand our team otherwise”, says Brett. 

Why Deployed?

After speaking with several outsourcing companies, Back Paddock approached Deployed based on the organisation’s values – they closely matched Back Paddock’s business plan.

“It was our first experience with outsourcing staff, so it was important we were given the necessary information to make an informed decision”, says Brett. “Deployed described the entire recruitment process and were open with all related costs for their services, and we found them professional, friendly, and easy to deal with.”

Deployed asked a lot of the right questions, demonstrating their breadth of experience and understanding. This open, upfront, and honest communication style helped build confidence in their ability to recruit and manage an outsourced team for Back Paddock and set the foundations for a symbiotic professional relationship.

“We chose Deployed because their pricing structure was better than most other companies we had spoken to, but more importantly they made us feel confident in their ability to recruit the right staff”, says Brett. 

The solution

Starting off with two positions, both parties worked hard to define the business priorities for each role and create the right role descriptions. Doing this groundwork paid dividends, giving Back Paddock a high caliber of applicants, whose experience closely matched each of the positions.

“The overall recruitment process was surprisingly smooth”, says Brett. “Only qualified candidates were sent our way, reducing the amount of time to find the right employee for our team”, he adds.

Having a great base of skilled and capable talent to choose from meant they could afford to be selective about secondary preferences, such as the team location. This was an exciting opportunity for Back Paddock to expand their team in the Philippines, providing their Brisbane-based Filipino lead developer the satisfying opportunity of respectfully supporting and onboarding new team members from his home country.

“We’re a small business with limited HR resources, so having Deployed’s HR team complete the administration and introduction stages of onboarding simplified the process of our first team member. This meant we were able to spend more time focusing on getting our recruit up to speed with development projects and procedures”, says Brett.

Back Paddock have had team members working remotely in Australia for many years before contacting Deployed, so it was a natural and easy progression for the Tech Wizards team to virtually ‘cross the water’ to support and guide new team members in Deployed’s Manila office. This was simplified by their choice of team location, with Manila having similar ‘office hours’ – no midnight Zoom calls to get things done!

It was an exciting and monumental time for Back Paddock with their first outsourced team, and a journey the whole team followed every step of the way from initial contact to welcoming the new team members. Back Paddock’s lead developer jumped at the first opportunity to travel to Manila to visit his new team at the Deployed office – invaluable time that forged stronger connectivity and a clearer understanding from both sides.

Working in partnership

“Through trust, good communication, and mutual respect over the past three and half years we have established a solid working relationship with the team at Deployed”, says Brett.

The collaborative approach and a clear focus on delivering Back Paddock’s business goals, meant Back Paddock got the time and support from Deployed that they needed, when they needed it. “Deployed’s expertise and honest advice helped us stay on track and save time”, says Brett.

Deployed’s support didn’t stop there. Ongoing monitoring and care of the Manila team has ensured their engagement levels and outputs remained high. Back Paddock don’t need to speak to Deployed as often now as they did during recruitment and onboarding, but they know there are eyes and ears on the ground they can trust. Deployed help Back Paddock stay ahead of possible issues, and they have been able to build a very loyal, engaged team who feel highly valued.

“Deployed and our outsourced team are part of our Back Paddock family”, says Brett. “We know our team in Manila are in safe hands with Deployed – you should see the Christmas videos! It’s great to see valued members of our team being so well looked after.”

The outcome

An increased level of innovation and technical competency has enabled Back Paddock to compete against bigger companies. “Having a team that works well together has increased our productivity and innovation which has had a positive impact on the company’s performance”, says Brett.

Within the first year, Back Paddock were seeing all the right results for their business and the team of two in Manilla grew to include five software engineers, expanding further since to include more specialist and hybrid roles such as QA specialists, front-end developers, and website developers.

What’s more, as Back Paddock have embraced the outsourcing model, their newfound confidence gives them the flexibility to ramp up quickly and meet the demands of new customers or marketplace changes. 

“Outsourcing has allowed us to triple the size of our Engineering team. It has provided us with a scalable solution to meet our development requirements at a lower cost than we could have produced in-house”, says Brett.