We Optimise Tasks,

Not Just Fill Roles

While competitors hire for job titles and hope for the best, we measure and improve specific workflows - delivering guaranteed productivity gains backed by 90,000+ monthly data points.

Why traditional offshore fails 70% of the time

Here's how most offshore staffing works:

You tell an agency you need a "customer service representative" or a "bookkeeper." They find someone with that job title on their CV. You pay. You hope it works out.

The problem? Job titles tell you nothing about productivity.

Two bookkeepers with identical qualifications can have wildly different completion times for bank reconciliation. One might take 2.5 hours. Another might take 90 minutes. Traditional agencies have no way to know, and no mechanism to improve.

This is why 70-85% of offshore relationships fail to meet expectations. It's not that offshore doesn't work. It's that the industry measures the wrong things.

Includes:

  • Tasks take longer than they should, but you can't prove it

  • Quality is inconsistent, but you can't pinpoint why

  • You're paying for hours worked, not work completed

  • When something goes wrong, nobody knows how to fix it

  • You end up managing more, not less

The root cause is simple: When you hire for roles instead of optimising for tasks, you're building on sand.

How we think differently about offshore staffing

Task-based optimisation starts with a simple question: What specific work needs to be done?

Not "what role do you need to fill?" Not "how many hours do you want?" But: what are the actual tasks, how long should they take, and how can we make them better?

This shift in thinking changes everything.

The Five-Step Framework

Our methodology in practice

STEP 1

Break Work Into Measurable Tasks

Every role is actually a collection of tasks. A "customer service representative" might handle ticket triage, response drafting, escalation routing, and satisfaction follow-ups. Each task has different requirements, different tools, and different optimisation potential.

We work with you to decompose roles into their component tasks. This gives us something we can actually measure and improve.

STEP 2

Benchmark Against 90,000+ Data Points

Here's where our approach becomes impossible to replicate quickly.

We track task performance across our entire staff base: 90,000+ task completions every month. We know how long bank reconciliation should take. We know the accuracy rate to expect from data entry. We know which tasks benefit from AI assistance and which don't.

When we onboard your work, we're not guessing. We're comparing against a dataset no competitor has.

STEP 3

Apply AI Where It Delivers Results

Not every task benefits from AI. Our data shows that approximately 77% of business tasks still require human judgment: context, relationships, exceptions, creativity.

But for the 23% where AI accelerates work? The gains are substantial. Invoice categorisation becomes 45% faster. First-draft responses write themselves. Data extraction that took hours takes minutes.

We don't apply AI everywhere. We apply it precisely where our data proves it works.

STEP 4

Measure, Report, Improve

Every month, you receive task-level performance data. Not timesheets → actual productivity metrics.

  • How long did each task type take?

  • How does that compare to benchmark?

  • Where are the improvement opportunities?

  • What's the trend over time?

This transparency creates accountability. It also creates a continuous improvement cycle that compounds over time.

STEP 5

Guarantee the Outcomes

Because we measure at task level, we can guarantee at task level.

Our 180-day guarantee isn't just "we'll replace someone if you're unhappy." It's backed by data. If task performance doesn't meet agreed benchmarks, we make it right with specific improvements, not vague promises.

The numbers behind the methodology

We don't make claims without data. Here's what task optimisation actually delivers, drawn from our work across multiple industries and thousands of monthly task performances.

Task Category Specific Task Improvement What This Means
Accounting & Finance Bank reconciliation 40% faster 2.5 hours → 1.5 hours per reconciliation
Invoice processing 35% reduction 8 minutes → 5.2 minutes per invoice
Expense categorisation 45% faster With 99% accuracy maintained
Month-end close 50% faster Systematic process optimisation
Customer Service Ticket resolution 45% faster 18 minutes → 10 minutes average
Customer onboarding 35% reduction Streamlined workflows
Query categorisation 70% faster AI-assisted routing
Administrative Data entry 50% more accurate 97% → 98.5% accuracy
Calendar management 60% fewer conflicts Systematic scheduling
Email processing 45% faster Triage and response
Marketing Social media scheduling 60% more efficient Batch processing optimisation
Content formatting 50% faster Template-driven workflows
Campaign setup 40% time reduction Repeatable processes

These figures represent averages across our client base. Your specific results will depend on your current baseline, task complexity, and volume. The Calculator provides a personalised estimate based on your situation.

AI where it accelerates.

Humans where it matters.

The AI conversation in business has become polarised. One camp says AI will automate everything. The other dismisses it as hype. Both are wrong.

Our data tells a more nuanced story.

What AI does well (the 23%):

  • Pattern recognition at scale: Categorising invoices, routing tickets, flagging anomalies

  • First-draft generation: Email responses, report templates, meeting summaries

  • Data extraction: Pulling figures from documents, standardising formats

  • Repetitive calculations: Reconciliation matching, variance identification

For these tasks, AI augmentation delivers 35-70% efficiency gains. We train every staff member on the right tools for their specific task mix.

What AI can't replace (the 77%):

  • Relationship judgment: When to escalate, how to handle a frustrated client

  • Context understanding: Why this invoice is unusual, what this exception means

  • Creative problem-solving: Novel situations, edge cases, strategic thinking

  • Quality assurance: Catching what automation misses, ensuring accuracy

This is why the 70-85% AI project failure rate exists. Organisations implement AI expecting broad productivity gains, only to find it struggles with tasks that require human judgment. Then they're surprised when quality collapses.

We don't ask "can AI do this?" We ask "does AI improve this task's outcome, based on our data?"

Sometimes the answer is yes. Often it's no. Always, it's evidence-based.

The result: AI augmentation that actually works, because it's applied precisely - not everywhere.

9,000 projects. 25 years. One system.

This methodology wasn't invented in a strategy document. It was forged in the operational reality of managing 400+ concurrent projects over a decade.

Outrun's parent company, Zeald, has delivered digital services to New Zealand businesses for 25 years. At peak, the team managed more than 400 active client projects simultaneously - each with deadlines, dependencies, and quality requirements.

That environment demanded systematisation.

You can't manage that volume with informal processes and hope. You need:

  • Clear task definitions

  • Measurable performance standards

  • Predictable workflows

  • Continuous improvement mechanisms

Over 9,000+ projects, patterns emerged. We learned which tasks benefited from specialisation. Which tools accelerated specific workflows. How to identify improvement opportunities before they became problems.

When we built Outrun, we systematised those learnings into a repeatable methodology. Every client benefits from a decade of operational refinement - not a theoretical framework designed by consultants who've never run a business.

This is the experience gap that takes years to build.

An offshore provider could start collecting task data tomorrow. They'd be 12-18 months away from having enough to be useful. And the institutional knowledge of what those patterns mean comes from a decade of operational learning, not a dataset alone.

Getting better every month

Task optimisation isn't a one-time event. It's a continuous cycle.

Monthly Optimisation Process

Week 1-2

Task performance data collected automatically through our systems.

Week 3

Analysis identifies improvement opportunities - tasks taking longer than benchmark, accuracy variations, tool utilisation gaps.

Week 4

Recommendations implemented - additional training, workflow adjustments, tool updates. Your performance report delivered.

The compounding effect

A 5% monthly improvement might seem modest. But compounded over 12 months, that's 80%+ cumulative gains. Small, consistent optimisations add up to transformation.

This is why our longest-standing clients see the biggest improvements. They've had time for the cycle to compound.

From methodology to results

If you've read this far, you understand why task optimisation matters. The question is what it could mean for your specific business.

That depends on:

  • Which tasks consume the most time in your operation

  • What your current baseline looks like

  • Which tasks have the highest optimisation potential

  • How much volume you're dealing with

The fastest way to find out is our Task Savings Calculator.

In two minutes, you'll see personalised estimates based on your tasks, your hours, and benchmarks from businesses like yours.

No consultation required. No commitment. Just clarity on what's possible.

Ready to see the numbers?

Calculate Your Task Optimisation Savings

Select your tasks, input your hours, see what businesses in your industry typically save with Outrun. Based on 90,000+ monthly task benchmarks.

2 minutes. Instant results. No consultation required.

Prefer to talk through your situation?

Our team can help you identify which tasks have the highest optimisation potential - and whether Outrun is the right fit.

Common questions about task optimisation

How is this different from just hiring offshore staff?

Traditional offshore staffing focuses on filling a role. You get a person, you hope they're good, and you manage them like any employee. Task optimisation focuses on specific workflows. We measure performance at task level, apply AI where it helps, and guarantee outcomes - not just presence.

What if my business is too small for this approach?

Our methodology scales down effectively. Even a single offshore team member performs dozens of distinct tasks. The question isn't size: it's whether you want to measure and improve, or hope for the best.

How long before I see results?

Most clients see measurable improvement within the first 60 days. The full benefit of continuous optimisation compounds over 6-12 months as we refine workflows and identify additional opportunities.

Can I apply this methodology with my existing offshore staff?

The methodology requires our systems, training, and data infrastructure. If you have existing offshore staff elsewhere, we'd typically recommend running a comparison. Bring one role to Outrun and measure the difference.

Book an appointment with a business strategist