How to manage an offshore dedicated team in Vietnam: Tips for US-based companies 

Managing a remote dedicated team is challenging due to the differences in working hours, working style  and culture. Discover best practices for US companies to manage the offshore development team in Vietnam effectively.  

Hiring an offshore dedicated development team offers diverse benefits, allowing US-based companies to access a broader IT talent pool with competitive cost while still maintaining high-quality delivery. However, how to collab and manage the remote teams effectively is not easy for many business leaders. Working across different locations can create gaps in communication, workflows, and time zone, making it hard to the client and outsourcing team to work well together.  

Deloitte (2025) reported that when using different workforce, including the offshore teams, defining, coordinating, and managing the offshore teams has become more complex. This guide is written for businesses leaders, CTOs, Tech Leads struggling to build a framework to manage the offshore software development team, especially those based in the US and want to outsource to Vietnam.  

Key takeaways 

• Deloitte (2025) found that it has become more complex to define, collaborate, and manage the extended workforce, including the offshore dedicated development team. 

• Managing an offshore dedicated development team is challenging due to the geographical distances which lead to gaps in collaboration, interaction, and culture.  

• Having a consistent communication framework helps businesses communicate clearly and easily with offshore developers.  

• To ensure efficient collaboration, it is necessary to clearly define each side’s responsibilities: What clients handle and What offshore developers are in charge.  

• As data breach is one of the biggest concerns of clients when working with offshore dedicated teams, clear data protection practices are needed to ensure security.  

Challenges when working with an offshore development team  

Why managing an offshore dedicated team is challenging. While building an in-house team can put pressure on businesses in terms of costs, hiring a remote team working dedicatedly for your project also presents several challenges. The main reason lies in the geographical distances which create gaps in communication, collaboration, working styles, and working hours, which can affect the coordination of both sides: client and offshore team.  

So what challenges are US-based companies facing?  

Time zone differences  

The US has many different time zones. If you hire an offshore team in Vietnam, the time zone difference will be quite large, approximately 11 – 15 hours. This difference limits real-time interactions between the client and the offshore teams, meaning that questions or blocks have to wait until the next day to be resolved, making it difficult to handle issues requiring immediate decisions.  

Communication gaps  

The US team uses mainly English, while the offshore developers are usually in non-English speaking countries. Therefore, their English communication skills may be limited, especially when clients want to discuss some complex requirements.  

Also, in many cases, the requirements are not specific enough. This can lead to the fact that many offshore developers misinterpret requests and resulting in unexpected outcomes.  

Data protection  

Data protection is a big challenge when hiring an offshore dedicated development team as the remote teams can access, use, and store the internal data. Also, transferring money across countries, for example US and Vietnam, can pose a higher risk of data breach. It is necessary for the US-based team to know where the data is, who has the right to access them, and how the data will be used.  

More importantly, there are many strict regulations in the US regarding the data protection. For example, when working with companies in the healthcare sector, the software development team needs to understand and comply with HIPAA.  

Different culture  

Developers from different countries have different styles. For example the US developers are quite direct, willing to give and receive feedback, and encourage others to proactively offer their opinions. Meanwhile, Vietnamese software engineers are more cautious and tend to be more indirect when speaking with leaders.  

Understanding these differences can help client team and vendor team work well together, increasing productivity and coordination.  

Here are just some typical challenges when the US-based companies hire offshore software development team in other countries, including Vietnam. There will be many hidden problems that may arise during the development process. As such, having practices to manage the remote team is essential for both sides to optimize the collaboration.  

Best practices for managing offshore development team in Vietnam  

Building communication framework 

Having a consistent communication framework helps businesses communicate clearly and easily with the offshore development team  

What channels are used to communicate? First of all, client and vendor need to decide on the channel used to communicate with each other. With different communication purpose, they can use different channel. For example, use Jira for task and project communication, Teams for formal conversation, and Slack for daily talk.  

How to communicate effectively? Client can set priorities for each issue, including emergency situations (solve as soon as possible), questions or blockers (handle within the working day), or non-urgent tasks.  

Another important thing is how to document key decisions. When handling with scope changes, meeting outcomes, or important decisions, it is necessary to document them in a shared workspace, avoiding unnecessary misunderstandings.  

Communication frequency needs to be defined clearly from the outset, helping both sides update the progress.  

• Daily communication to update progress, ongoing tasks and blockers, typically through daily standup. 

• Weekly communication to review the progress, timeline and problems that need to be decided.  

• Bi-weekly communication to review sprint, demo and adjust if necessary. 

• Monthly communication to review overall about the performance, budget, roadmap, team capacity, risks, and business goals.  

Creating clear responsibilities  

To ensure that offshore teams can operate effectively, it is necessary to clearly define each side’s responsibilities.  

The client side mainly handles directions, provides resources, and manages the offshore dedicated development team:  

• Defining goals, priorities, and specific requirements for vendors. 

• Providing necessary tools, systems, and information, making sure that the offshore teams can have access to them to support the development process. 

• Review and response timely on deliverables. 

• Decide on products, scopes, and priorities. 

Offshore development team handles technical execution and delivery, ensuring timely completion and meeting client requirements. They should report progress proactively, ask questions or raise problems early to solve them as soon as possible.  

Tracking performance regularly  

Tracking performance regularly can help client know how well the offshore team performs, are they following the direction or what problems need to be solved soon.  

First of all, client and the offshore dedicated team need to set clear KPIs. KPIs need to be specific, measurable, and fit with the project’s goals, instead of relying solely on the tasks done. Here are some suggestions:  

• The percentage of tasks/ sprints completed on time  

• Bug rate and number of bugs fixed  

• Lead time to complete a task  

• Code quality and test coverage  

• SLA or issue resolution time  

You can track progress daily or by sprint through tools like Jira, Trello, or GitHub. Then client needs to check which tasks are completed, in progress, or blocked. Also, client should compare planned work with the actual progress to detect delays early. For offshore teams, this tracking process is particularly important as it gives clients visibility into the team’s activities without micromanagement.  

Performance review is also essential. Client can review daily/ wekly/ monthly or by milestones, depending on the size and scope of the project. Then, both sides should discuss, give feedback, and determine the solutions to improve.   

Defining working framework 

Having a working framework, such as Agile, can create a structured working style, helping client handle remote developers easily. Key benefits of building a structured framework:  

• Creating a clear working process, standardize tasks like planning, development, daily standup, review, and sprint.  

• Increasing visibility for client, supporting them in maintaining control without micromanaging.  

• Giving feedback quickly to solve urgent problems as soon as possible. 

• Managing changes better with clear responsibitites. 

Agile is one of the most common working frameworks in software development, focusing on develop a product in sprints, receiving feedback regularly, and flexibly adjust requirements. Instead of planning the whole development project from the outset, Agile breaks down the process into small parts, including develop, test, review, and improve.  

Agile software development team has become increasingly popular among businesses. There are two typical approaches in Agile: Scrum and Kanban. While Scrum organizes tasks in sprints from 1 to 4 weeks, Kanban manages work in a continuous flow. As such, Scrum is suitable for projects with a clear roadmap while requirements can change during the development process. Kanban is best for continuous delivery and changing requirements.  

Data protection practices  

Data breach is always one of the biggest concerns of client when working with offshore dedicated teams. Therefore, both sides should create clear data protection practices, ensuring the security.  

Data encryption  

Data encryption helps protect data from unauthorized access, even if the data is stolen. While working with software development vendor, it is crucial to ensure data is encrypted both while being stored (data at rest) and while being transmitted (data in transit). 

Data storage and transfer  

Data needs to be stored and transferred through controlled systems and methods. The offshore dedicated team needs to determine what data is stored, where it is stored, who has access to it, and between which systems the data is transferred.  

When transferring data between the client and the offshore development team, vendor should use secure channels instead of email, file-sharing, or other uncontrolled methods. 

Authentication and account security  

Authentication ensures that only authorized persons can have access to the system, application, or data. Here are some common approaches:  

• Multi-factor authentication (MFA) and strong password policies  

• Assign user permissions based on roles 

• Do not share accounts or credentials among members 

Monitoring and auditing  

Monitoring and auditing help team follow the system and detect problems soon, including:  

• Monitor logins, access, and critical system activities. 

• Record audit logs to identify who has accessed or modified data. 

• Record audit logs to identify who has accessed or modified data. 

• Create procedures in place to detect, handle, and report security incidents. 

Data retention and deletion  

Data should not be stored longer than needed. The dedicated development team should determine which data should be retained, for how long, and when it should be deleted or anonymized.  

It is necessary to have a clear data retention policy  

• Retention period for each type of data  

• When data needs to be deleted or anonymized  

• How to securely delete  

• How to handle requests regarding data deletion 

Final thoughts  

In conclusion, having clear practices when working with the offshore development teams is necessary for US-based clients to manage remote developers effectively.  The ultimate goal is not supervising the offshore software development team, but creating a transparent mechanism to detect problems, improve performance, and make sure that offshore developers align with business goals. 

Adamo Software  

Adamo Software is a premier AI and Software development partner in Vietnam, helping clients build the offshore dedicated development team within weeks. Our software developers are good at modern tech stacks and cloud platforms, including .NET, Python, NodeJS, React, Google Cloud, and Azure, which enables scalable software solutions. Also, Adamo offers fast-onboarding engineers integrated into your workflow and roadmap, helping your business move faster than a typical in-house team.  

Kick off your software development project with a dedicated team ready to join in days.