Nearshore Outsourcing

Nearshore outsourcing (also known as “Nearshoring”) is the practice of outsourcing to a cost effective service provider that is located near the client’s home country, in the same geographic region and time zone. Nearshoring can reduce the risk and complexity associated with traditional outsourcing to remote offshore service providers. The benefits of Nearshore outsourcing include reduced cost, and easier, more effective communication.

Offshore Challenges

As many US companies have learned, there can be significant issues with traditional offshore outsourcing to countries such as India or China:

Extended work days - Only a few hours of overlapping time exists between teams, either late at night or early in the morning, making a regular work day extend into a 12+ hour day. The additional hours increase the cost of the engagement and can erode employee morale.
Communication breakdowns and miscommunication - If an idea is missed or an issue misinterpreted developers have to wait until the next day to clarify the problem and then wait another day to see if the offshore team understood the correct idea and delivered accordantly.
Minimal real-time communication - Simple communication has to be done over email with 8-12 hours of response time between responses.
High Turnover and Inexperienced Engineers - The best engineers aspire to the higher paid positions at companies with the best career paths, such as captive offshore development centers (CODCs) of brand name companies like Google, Microsoft, and the major outsourcing firms such as Infosys or Wipro. Further, many of the best engineers aspire to management which means they do not focus on mastering one particular technology, making depth of expertise harder to find.
The offshore team doesn’t assimilate the sense of urgency of tasks or share the same enthusiasm, passion and quality vision for the product.

The overhead of doing business offshore can be high and outsourcing is about saving money. That is why for many companies, Nearshore outsourcing is now the most viable alternative.

The Nearshore Advantage

Time Zone

Building software is not an easy task. Teamwork, interpersonal communication, and ownership are critical success factors Software development is a collaborative process that is difficult enough without throwing time zone differences into the mix. Our well-located US, Bolivia and Chile locations allow us to work with our clients during their normal working hours, as a single team. Real time interactions between teams are crucial for the success of any project. The TrueSoft team is aligned with your team, available to talk throughout the entire day via phone, IM, or video conference.

Communication

Poor communication caused by language barriers or cultural differences can cause loss of valuable project development time and a mismatch of expectations and deliverables. For example, in America and Latin America, “yes” confirms agreement with what was spoken, while In many offshore locations, “yes” is often used to confirm an understanding of what the speaker said, but not the statement itself and its point or assertions. Accents, intonations and cultural differences can all impact the understanding of not just the words, but their underlying meaning and intent.

The goal of effective business communication is not just comprehension of the words that were spoken, but an understanding of what is being communicated, and ultimately to reach a conclusion such as confirming agreement, or reaching consensus or a common understanding. This is especially key for a successful outsourcing engagement, and best when accomplished with the least amount of effort or frustration.

All TrueSoft staff is fluent in English and Spanish, allowing our clients to communicate their needs without concern about misunderstandings or heavy accents. “Yes” doesn’t just mean “I understand what you just said”, it also means “I agree and commit to what you said.” In addition, our US office provides local staff that oversees all engagements and has direct responsibility for customer relationships and the success of the project.

Culture

Software development means collaboration and increasingly this collaboration must cross boundaries of organizational and national culture. The effect of different cultures involves countless challenges, from collaboration, to existing project planning and management, and even simple communication.

Our similar and warm Latin American culture facilitates communication in a respectful but straightforward way. Our regular working day, food, entertainment, customs, education, ethics and values are very similar to North America. Our people are nice, very enthusiast and passionate about what they do. That’s why our clients like to work with us, to visit us and truly make us part of their team.

Continuity of Resources

Big companies like Google, Microsoft, and other have development centers in outsourcing countries like India, China, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. Instead of being good news for the outsourcing business, big companies are taking the majority of good engineers leaving other outsourcing companies with inexperienced resources and huge rates of turnover. Companies outsourcing to Asia have always had the challenge of “training good resources for others” adding significant risk and overhead to their projects.

As a new outsourcing spot, Bolivia has the advantage of not having large technology companies competing for its high quality technical resources, resulting in a loyal employee base with minimal turnover.

Distance

Face-to-face interaction is an important ingredient for most outsourcing engagements to build chemistry, trust and effective relationships. Our geographic proximity to US makes travel easier and less expensive thus facilitating face-to-face interaction.