Cameron Herold, our founder, has a saying: if you don’t have an executive assistant, you are the executive assistant. Calendar management and routine emails belong to someone, and when nobody else owns them, they belong to the leader.

Offshore hiring is one way to hand that work off. Outsource Access, a Strategic Partner of the COO Alliance, builds offshore teams in the Philippines to handle it.

Why Look Beyond Local Hiring

When a company grows, the default move is to hire more people locally. A local hire brings proximity and company context.

There are also costs beyond salary. Benefits account for 30% of private employers’ compensation costs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (June 2026).

Repeatable work can be done from anywhere. A leader’s hours, however, are much harder to replace.

What to Delegate Offshore

Cameron’s rule of thumb: if you can document it, train someone to do it, and measure the results, ask why you still do it yourself.

Leaders keep:

• Strategic decisions and business growth
• High-value client relationships
• Leading and developing people
• Problems that require judgment and company context

Offshore teams can handle:

• Executive assistance and calendar management
• Customer service and administrative support
• Bookkeeping and financial administration
• Data entry, reporting, and research

How Outsource Access Works

The Atlanta-based firm has worked with more than 300 clients and ranked #326 on the Inc. 5000. Each client gets an account manager who understands the industry and a team lead who oversees the work daily. Backup team members provide coverage when someone is unavailable.

The company also creates an OA Playbook that documents every process in written and video formats. The client owns it from day one.

At Stablegold Hospitality, a virtual team member automated a significant function within two weeks. CEO Ali Jamal says the change saves the company $50,000 a year.

Bottom Line

A leader’s hours are the hardest to replace, and documented tasks can be delegated to a team equipped to handle them.

The guide from Outsource Access, The Strategic COO’s Blueprint for Offshore Scaling, includes an outsourcing matrix showing which roles to move offshore and which to keep in-house, plus ten questions to ask any staffing provider. Download it at outsourceaccess.com/cooalliance.