How MXA saves $200k annually with Oceans

Item: Oceans Talent
Author: Chuck Sebastiani

$200K

saved annually

100%

offshore finance team

13+ yrs

controller experience

Industry

Other

Company size

SMB

Role

Finance

Published

July 2, 2024

Chuck’s Story: The experiment that paid off

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Based in Pennsylvania with a background in Mechanical Engineering, Chuck Sebastiani co-founded Mechanical X Advantage LLC (MXA) in 2019 with an entirely remote working team. Despite the onset of COVID-19 in just its second year, Chuck’s business continued to grow, being one of the very few small businesses that was actually hiring during the pandemic! MXA is a manufacturers’ rep that focuses on solutions for cooling and power equipment for mission critical infrastructure. Their service division not only services the equipment they sell, they help property owners and managers with all of their building needs.

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Having grown to $7M in annual revenue in less than 3 years, Chuck started noticing that his account managers were being stretched thin. As their current accounts were getting an increasing amount of traction, it was getting harder to also hold them accountable for generating new business.

“We wanted to give our account managers more ammo. They were at the time doing everything; cold calls, generating lists of new leads, all while taking care of existing customers.” - Chuck, Co-Founder & COO

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So it was decided that a business development professional was required to feed the existing account managers with leads and a job description for the ideal candidate was drafted.

Our relationship with Oceans started off as an experiment to help our account managers. Today, our entire financial dept is made up of Divers. They are core, contributing members of our team and we're super grateful.

Chuck Sebastiani

Co-Founder & COO

The experiment that changed it all

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It was during this time that Chuck had just learned about Oceans’ expertise in connecting offshore talent. After a conversation, Chuck saw the potential benefit this could bring MXA.

The options available with local hires were far more expensive and the thought of going through all that paperwork and liability risk for what could potentially be a failed experiment didn’t seem worthwhile to Chuck. So he decided to take a leap of faith and began a 3-month trial with Oceans.

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“When we were looking at Oceans economically it was like well, let's try this because it's going to be more cost effective for us. You try somebody locally, it's a lot more expensive and if they don't work out, a lot more paperwork. We gave it three months and we're like if it doesn't work, fine. Chalk it up to expense!”

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Thiran joined the team at MXA and went on to build out a new business development process. He was now putting leads together, making the calls and setting up appointments. Thiran was driving email campaigns and experimenting with various approaches for MXA to further develop their already growing business. Chuck was impressed and the trial became a permanent fixture.

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A year later, business was booming and the company’s office manager, who was still handling the finances together with Chuck, was starting to get overwhelmed. So they decided they needed to recruit a bookkeeper to handle their accounts receivables and payables.

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It seemed like a simple enough slot to fill in and they found and hired someone local. At the same time, it was the beginning of 2023 and everyone’s favorite time of year: tax season! Chuck, an experienced engineer (not a finance major), was now having to handle the company’s growing tax complexities by himself. The new bookkeeper was finding it hard to keep up and the finance department was on shaky ground.

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Leaning on the success of hiring Thiran through Oceans and knowing the high cost of hiring locally, Chuck reached out to Oceans. This time, looking for a Financial Controller who could completely take on the company’s finances.

The birth of an entirely offshore finance department

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While giving their new bookkeeper a chance, Chuck found and brought in Brian through Oceans to be the company’s Financial Controller. Right from the start, Brian seamlessly meshed with the team.

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With the keys to the kingdom, Brian started identifying the cracks in MXA’s system. He found where their internal bookkeeper was struggling to keep up and worked with Chuck to find a more efficient way forward.

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What had initially been a leap of faith was now concrete evidence and a trusted relationship had formed between Brian and not only Chuck, but the entire team at MXA. Brian brought with him 13+ years of experience in the finance sector, having worked for multinational corporations such as HSBC and EY. He was implementing new systems and platforms for better bill management, monthly sales reporting and financial projecting.

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Just a few months in and Chuck wanted Brian to get all the help he needed to continue exceeding everyone’s expectations from the Finance Department. The more experienced Abdul, a Diver with years in accounting, was brought in place of the former bookkeeper. Soon after, Jonathan, another financial Diver with 5+ years of experience joined to support MXA’s growing book of business.

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The result

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By partnering with Oceans, Chuck was not only able to find more than qualified individuals to support his internal team, but he was able to do so with massive economic and logistic benefits, while ensuring an ideal cultural fit for his company.

$200,000 Annual Savings from an entirely offshore finance team.

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MXA’s successes with Oceans has even led the team to invite their Divers all the way from Sri Lanka to America for some team bonding time and personally getting to see and learn even more about the business with their own eyes.

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"They fit in awesomely. They've done a great job for us and they've made us a lot more financially sound and everybody knows what's going on. So it's been a really good thing!"

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Chuck Sebastiani

Co-Founder & COO

MXA