In an increasingly global professional world where enterprises transcend countries and barriers, it’s crucial to adapt your business model to work across different regions. To do so effectively, our team at PQE Group, which has international offices and serves a wide range of customers, adopted the “Follow the Sun” model that aims to satisfy customers regardless of time or place. We found this model to be the most effective for our company due to demand from some of our global clients for 24-hour seven-days-a-week support – which we can successfully provide across our regional offices. 

Our PQE Group family extends to almost every corner of the world and every time zone. To serve our customers most effectively and keep our company culture healthy and happy, we ensure that our team members don’t have to accommodate several timeframes or work overnight. Instead, we use this model to have someone on the team available no matter where customers are calling from, creating a more sustainable and effective service and cost optimization process. Thanks to the “Follow the Sun” model, we have also been able to deliver faster and shorter deadlines for project turnaround. Having teams across time zones allows for improved care and the ability to rotate duties while a central project management office controls results and maintains synergy. 

Managing the Model 

The pros of this modern global business model are straightforward –  organizations can have teams working 24 hours without an increase in cost while keeping comparable levels of compliance deficiency by following the same methodology. PQE Group has done an excellent job of collaborating with our regional teams to ensure the quality of our work remains very high and that we meet the same standards and objectives regardless of location. 

Clients also receive positive results and service regardless of the time or their country of origin. At one point, our team was handling projects in the US with more than 100 people working 24 hours to deliver high-speed services. Even on Excel projects, there have been instances when global team members work on 10+ pages cohesively to produce the best possible results -– which is incredibly impressive.

The negative aspects of “following the sun” are more related to individual company aspects, such as how our team handles efforts toward project management. When managing various projects worldwide, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with tasks. PQE Group’s project management office, usually based out of Europe, is the only region that operates across both the eastern and the western side of the world, causing an increased workload. However, as long as our team effectively communicates and follows proper procedures, our functions run smoothly and with minimal issues. 

Ensuring Successful Implementation 

For our team at PQE Group, digitalization is the key to this model’s success and ensuring all of our global offices work collaboratively and effectively. Digitizing information makes it available to everybody instantly, regardless of location, and eliminates issues where people do not have access to crucial data. This also helps everyone stay on the same page with specific approval processes through automation, like on SharePoint and Teams, where there are many optimization tools available. PQE Group uses software for project management, reporting, communications, and our CRM.

The most important element is to map the process and have all employees trained on necessary procedures. Once mapped, ensure all tools and approaches are understood from an automation and approval point of view. Once people learn how to work the systems, it lessens the probability of mistakes and risk of error, which is often the biggest challenge. It is also vital to have a good IT department that can integrate the different processes and systems so that teams can utilize them seamlessly throughout our offices. 

The Secret to Sustainable Results

Working with our international PQE Group teams has been an exciting experience and enlightening learning process. Successfully leading regional offices while expanding our operations is a testament to our organization’s ability to provide excellent services to our clients and effectively integrate methods and digital tools into our processes to maximize procedures, all while developing a company atmosphere of inclusion and prosperity. The one secret to operating a sustainable and efficient company is knowing how to manage people from all walks of life and be comfortable interacting with people from all over the world.