--- title: "Offshore Development Center Checklist: 5 Floor Checks" description: "Before a team works from an offshore delivery hub, verify five things on the floor: people, access, data, continuity and onboarding. Free checklist." image: https://ontracsolutions.net/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/offshore-dev-center-five-floor-checks-featured-2to1.jpg --- [Skip to Content](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/offshore-development-center-checklist#body) [![Link](https://ontracsolutions.net/hubfs/Ontrac%20Solution%20Landing%20Page/Link.svg "Link")](https://ontracsolutions.net/) Toggle Menu - [Home](https://ontracsolutions.net) - [Services](https://ontracsolutions.net/services) Toggle children for Services - [Agentic AI & Autonomous Systems](https://ontracsolutions.net/agentic-ai-and-autonomous-systems) - [Cloud Architecture & Automation](https://ontracsolutions.net/cloud-architecture-and-automation) - [Staff Augmentation](https://ontracsolutions.net/staff-augmentation) - [Product Design & Engineering](https://ontracsolutions.net/product-design-engineering) - [Elite Technical Talent](https://ontracsolutions.net/elite-technical-talent) - [Engineering Talent](https://ontracsolutions.net/engineering-talent) - [HubSpot Services](https://ontracsolutions.net/hubspot-services) - [Professional Services](https://ontracsolutions.net/professional-services) - [Innovation Hub](https://ontracsolutions.net/innovation-hub) - [Solutions](https://ontracsolutions.net/solutions) Toggle children for Solutions - [Scout | Remote Hiring Defense](https://ontracsolutions.net/scout-remote-hiring-defense) - [AI](https://ontracsolutions.net/genai) - [Cloud Solutions](https://ontracsolutions.net/cloud-solutions) - [Data Analytics](https://ontracsolutions.net/data-analytics) - [FinOps](https://ontracsolutions.net/finops) - [Product Design & Development](https://ontracsolutions.net/product-design-development) - [About](https://ontracsolutions.net/about-us) - [News](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news) - [Careers](https://ontracsolutions.net/careers) - [Contact us](https://ontracsolutions.net/contact-us) [back to blog](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news) [Innovation Hub](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/topic/innovation-hub) # Offshore Development Center Checklist: What to Verify Before Your Team Moves In Read Time **14 mins** | Written by: Vinayak Bhagat [mailto:?subject=Offshore%20Development%20Center%20Checklist%3A%205%20Floor%20Checks&body=https%3A%2F%2Fontracsolutions.net%2Fen%2Fnews%2Foffshore-development-center-checklist](mailto:?subject=Offshore%20Development%20Center%20Checklist%3A%205%20Floor%20Checks&body=https%3A%2F%2Fontracsolutions.net%2Fen%2Fnews%2Foffshore-development-center-checklist) ![Delivery manager presenting a wall screen titled The Five Floor Checks, the checklist for verifying an offshore development center before your team moves in](https://ontracsolutions.net/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/offshore-dev-center-five-floor-checks-featured-2to1.jpg) Innovation Hub · Delivery · Offshore Teams An offshore development center, or a nearshore one, is a simple idea: the people building your software work from a provider's facility instead of your office or their homes. The provider runs the building, the equipment, the network and the people's day-to-day employment. You direct the work. Most proposals for one read the same: modern workspace, secure access, reliable connectivity, a structured first week. The words are nearly always true and nearly never enough, because the difference between a delivery hub that protects your work and one that only describes protection is in the details nobody puts in a proposal. So check the floor, not the brochure. **Five things decide whether a delivery hub is safe and productive for your team: the people, the access, the network and data, the continuity, and the onboarding.** Each one has evidence you can ask to see. We call them the Five Floor Checks, and they apply to any hub in any country, [including ours](https://ontracsolutions.net/innovation-hub). Quick Answer What should you check before using an offshore development center? Verify five things with evidence, not assurances: who the people are and how their identity and background were checked; who can physically enter the floor and who can reach your systems; where your data can and cannot go; what happens when power, connectivity or a team member is lost; and how the first week works on the provider's side and yours. Then make sure the agreement answers the same questions in writing. The Framework ## The Five Floor Checks Run them in order. The first two are about who can touch your work, the third about where it can go, and the last two about whether the team keeps delivering when something changes. | Check | The question | Evidence to ask for | | --- | --- | --- | | 1. People | Who is on the floor, and how were they checked? | The screening steps, who ran them, and who employs each person | | 2. Access | Who can enter the floor, and who can reach your systems? | The entry log, the visitor process, and how your access is granted and removed | | 3. Network and data | Where can your data go, and where can it not? | Device setup, the network design, and the rule for local copies | | 4. Continuity | What happens when power, connectivity or a person is lost? | The backup arrangements, and the replacement and handover terms | | 5. Onboarding | How does the first week work, on their side and yours? | The first-week plan, the overlap hours, and the named liaison | ### Check 1: People — who is on the floor Ask how every person who will work on your account was checked before they started: identity, background, and the references or work history the provider verified. Ask who ran each step, the provider itself or a third party, and whether the checks are repeated for replacements. Ask who employs the people, because a provider that subcontracts some of its seats is a different risk from one that employs everyone on the floor. Remote and hybrid work have made identity the first thing to confirm, not the last. Our [candidate fraud playbook](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/detecting-candidate-fraud-remote-hiring) explains how to verify that the person doing the work is the person you interviewed, and the same chain applies to anyone a provider places on your account. **Red flag:** the provider cannot say who will be on your team until after you sign. ### Check 2: Access — to the floor and to your systems Physical access is the easy half to see: how people get onto the floor, how visitors are logged and escorted, and whether entry is recorded in a way someone actually reviews. Ask to see the process, not a description of it. Access to your systems is the half that matters more, and it should stay in your hands. The cleanest setup is that people on the hub floor reach your environment through your own sign-in and your own permissions, given the least access their work needs. Then the most important question is a simple one: when someone leaves the account, how fast is their access removed, and who confirms it? **Red flag:** shared logins, or access to your systems that only the provider can switch off. ### Check 3: Network and data — where your work can go Ask how the devices on the floor are set up and managed, whether they can save your data locally, whether removable storage and personal email are blocked, and how the network separates your work from other clients'. Ask how data is protected in transit and where backups of anything on the provider's side are kept. Then write down the rule that matters most for your business: which data may be worked on from the hub, and which must never leave your own environment. If some of your data is contractually bound to stay in a particular country, that rule decides whether an offshore hub can touch it at all. **Red flag:** nobody can tell you where a copy of your data would sit after someone leaves. ### Check 4: Continuity — when something is lost Three things get lost in any delivery setup: power, connectivity and people. Ask what backs up the power supply and for how long, whether there is more than one internet connection from more than one supplier, and what the team does if the building itself is unavailable for a day. People are the loss that costs the most. Ask how quickly a departing team member is replaced, whether the replacement goes through the same Check 1 steps, and how knowledge is handed over: documentation standards, overlap with the replacement, and who owns the handover. **Red flag:** replacement terms that start the clock only when the provider finds someone, with no limit on how long that takes. ### Check 5: Onboarding — their first week and yours A good hub runs a structured first week on its side: equipment, accounts, the provider's own policies, and an introduction to how your account works. Ask to see that plan. Then ask how it connects to yours, because the provider can only onboard people to the provider. Your side is the work that decides whether the team is productive in week two or week ten: a named liaison who answers questions the same day, agreed overlap hours with your core team, and a first piece of real work small enough to finish. Our guide to [onboarding augmented staff without disrupting your core team](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/onboard-augmented-staff-without-disrupting-core-team) sets out that side in three gates. **Red flag:** a first-week plan that ends at "equipment issued". Free Checklist The Delivery Hub Site Visit Checklist This article explains the five checks. The checklist is what you take on the visit or the video walk-through: a page per check with the evidence to ask for, a box to write down what you were shown and by whom, the red flag to watch for, the questions the agreement must answer, and a sign-off page for whoever approves the move. In Writing ## What the Agreement Should Answer Everything you verified on the floor should also be written down, so it survives a change of account manager. The agreement does not need to be long, but it should answer these questions plainly: - **Named people or a pool?** Whether you get specific people, and what happens if the provider wants to move one of them. - **Replacement and handover.** How fast a departure is replaced, and what the handover must include. - **Data handling.** Which data may be worked on from the hub, where it may be stored, and what is deleted when the work ends. - **Ownership of the work.** That code, documents and anything else produced for you belong to you. - **Exit.** How you leave: notice, the final handover, and how access and data are removed on the last day. A delivery hub is a place, not an engagement model. The people on the floor might be augmented staff working under your direction, or a managed team delivering an agreed outcome. Settle that choice first, using our comparison of [staff augmentation, managed services and consulting](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/staff-augmentation-vs-managed-services-vs-consulting), and then run the five checks on wherever the people will sit. What Goes Wrong ## Three Mistakes When Choosing a Delivery Hub Judging the building instead of the process A well-furnished floor tells you about the furniture. What protects your work is the process behind it: who checked the people, who can switch off access, and what happens on the day someone leaves. Ask to see those, not the lobby. Handing over access to your systems When the provider manages accounts in your environment on your behalf, you lose the ability to remove them quickly. Keep identity and permissions in your own hands from day one, whatever else you outsource. Skipping your own onboarding A provider's first week cannot teach your codebase, your customers or your priorities. Without a liaison and agreed overlap hours on your side, a capable team spends its first month waiting for answers. The Honest Part ## When a Delivery Hub Is the Wrong Choice A hub suits work that runs for months with a stable team. It is the wrong choice for a short burst of specialist work, where [staff augmentation](https://ontracsolutions.net/staff-augmentation) of one or two people is simpler. It is also the wrong choice when the work needs people in your own office every day, when your data is contractually bound to stay somewhere a hub cannot be, or when the overlap hours your team needs would leave little working day on either side. For transparency: Ontrac runs [delivery hubs in Chicago and Karachi](https://ontracsolutions.net/innovation-hub). The five checks above are the same ones we would expect a careful buyer to run on us, and on anyone else they are considering. If you are deciding how much of a gap to fill this way at all, our look at the [tech talent gap](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/tech-talent-gap-2026-staff-augmentation) is a useful place to start. Where Ontrac Comes In Run the five checks on our floor. Our [Innovation Hubs](https://ontracsolutions.net/innovation-hub) host dedicated teams for mid-market and private-equity-backed companies. Bring the checklist, ask for the evidence behind every answer, and decide on what you see. [Book a walk-through](https://ontracsolutions.net/contact-us) FAQ ## Frequently Asked Questions What is an offshore development center? It is a facility run by a provider in another country where people work on your software. The provider runs the building, equipment, network and the people's employment, while you direct the work. A nearshore center is the same arrangement in a nearby time zone. How do you check the security of an offshore team? Ask for evidence on five points: how each person's identity and background were checked, who can enter the floor and reach your systems, where your data can and cannot be stored, what happens when power, connectivity or a person is lost, and how onboarding works. Keep access to your own systems under your own sign-in, so you can remove it yourself. What should an offshore development agreement cover? Whether you get named people or a pool, how fast departures are replaced and what the handover includes, which data may be worked on from the hub and what is deleted at the end, that the work produced belongs to you, and how you exit, including the last-day removal of access and data. Is an offshore development center the same as staff augmentation? No. Staff augmentation is an engagement model: you direct people the provider supplies. An offshore development center is a place: where people work. Augmented staff can work from a hub, from your office or from home, so choose the model first and then check the place. More ## Keep Reading → [Staff Augmentation vs. Managed Services vs. Consulting](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/staff-augmentation-vs-managed-services-vs-consulting) — choose the engagement model before the place. → [How to Onboard Augmented Staff Without Disrupting Your Core Team](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/onboard-augmented-staff-without-disrupting-core-team) — your side of the first weeks. → [Detecting Candidate Fraud in Remote Hiring](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/detecting-candidate-fraud-remote-hiring) — verifying the people before they start. This article is general information about evaluating delivery facilities and is not legal, security-certification or procurement advice. Contract terms, data-protection obligations and security requirements depend on your own circumstances and agreements; review them with appropriate advisors. ## Framework Will Help You Grow Your Business With Little Effort. [Get Started](https://ontracsolutions.net/contact-us) ![](https://ontracsolutions.net/hubfs/Vinayak-img.jpg) [mailto:vinayak@ontracsolutions.net](mailto:vinayak@ontracsolutions.net) ##### Vinayak Bhagat HubSpot & Marketing Automation Specialist at Ontrac Solutions Share the Love [mailto:?subject=Offshore%20Development%20Center%20Checklist%3A%205%20Floor%20Checks&body=https%3A%2F%2Fontracsolutions.net%2Fen%2Fnews%2Foffshore-development-center-checklist](mailto:?subject=Offshore%20Development%20Center%20Checklist%3A%205%20Floor%20Checks&body=https%3A%2F%2Fontracsolutions.net%2Fen%2Fnews%2Foffshore-development-center-checklist) You May Like These ## Related Articles ![Four colleagues in a bright modern office looking at a wall screen that reads The Four Deliverables, the framework for what a tech stack audit should produce.](https://ontracsolutions.net/hs-fs/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/tech-stack-audit-four-deliverables-featured-2to1.jpg?width=700&name=tech-stack-audit-four-deliverables-featured-2to1.jpg) Innovation Hub ### [Tech Stack Audit as a Service: What It Covers, What It Finds, and What It Costs](https://ontracsolutions.net/en/news/tech-stack-audit-as-a-service) What a tech stack audit actually covers, what it reliably finds, and what drives the price. 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