The first question US, UK and Gulf buyers ask about an offshore team is some version of “will they actually be online when we are?” With dpoint the answer is yes, for your whole working day. Your team is staffed to your hours, in your own timezone, so it works like an in-house team, not a relay.
This post sets out the exact numbers: how much a team left on India time would overlap with you, and the India-time shift that covers your full day instead.
Natural overlap if a team stayed on India time
India Standard Time is UTC+5:30 and does not change for daylight saving. Here is how a normal 9am to 6pm India working day lines up with a typical working day in each region.
| Your region | Your working day | Overlap with a 9am to 6pm India day |
|---|---|---|
| US Eastern (New York) | 9:00 to 17:00 | None |
| US Pacific (California) | 9:00 to 17:00 | None |
| UK (London) | 9:00 to 17:30 | About 3.5 hours (winter) to 4.5 hours (summer) |
| UAE (Dubai) | 9:00 to 18:00 | About 7.5 hours |
| Saudi Arabia (Riyadh) | 9:00 to 18:00 | About 6.5 hours |
So the honest picture is that an India-hours team cannot collaborate live with a US company at all, gives a UK company its mornings only, and covers most of a Gulf day. That is the reason a managed partner should not leave your team on India time.
The shift that covers your working day
dpoint operates 24/7 as a company because its clients sit in different time zones. Each client’s team is assigned to that client’s hours. This is the India time your team works to cover your day.
| Your working day | Your team’s shift in India (IST) |
|---|---|
| New York, 9:00 to 17:00 | 18:30 to 02:30 (US daylight time, mid-March to early November) or 19:30 to 03:30 (winter) |
| Chicago, 9:00 to 17:00 | 19:30 to 03:30 (daylight time) or 20:30 to 04:30 (winter) |
| California, 9:00 to 17:00 | 21:30 to 05:30 (daylight time) or 22:30 to 06:30 (winter) |
| London, 9:00 to 17:30 | 13:30 to 22:00 (British summer time) or 14:30 to 23:00 (winter) |
| Dubai, 9:00 to 18:00 | 10:30 to 19:30, all year |
| Riyadh, 9:00 to 18:00 | 11:30 to 20:30, all year |
For US clients that is an evening or night shift, and it is worked as the team member’s regular, full-time job, not an occasional favour. India’s IT and services industry has run US-hours shifts for decades, so it is an established way of working. The result is a team that is online when you are, at Indian rates, instead of paying two to four times as much for nearshore talent simply to share your clock.
Using the time difference on purpose
With your team on your hours, standups, reviews and quick decisions all happen in real time. You can still use the time difference when it helps: brief work at the end of your day, and it can be picked up and finished before your next morning. Most clients never need this, but it is there for launches and deadlines.
How to run a team across time zones
- Set the team’s hours to yours. With dpoint this is the default, agreed in writing before anyone starts.
- Hold a daily standup. Fifteen minutes in your morning aligns the day.
- Keep one shared calendar and source of truth. Decisions and status live in your tools, not in someone’s memory.
- Name the hand-off rules. If you ever use an overnight cycle, agree what gets briefed by when.
Making it feel in-house
dpoint staffs your team to your working hours and runs standups on your schedule, so the “offshore” part fades into the background. See how this works for US companies, UK companies and Gulf companies, how a dedicated team is run, or book an intro call.