Onshore, offshore and nearshore are terms that nowadays are being thrown around in business circles. Different from outsourcing, these terms refer to employing people who are not directly involved with your company. The difference lies in where that new employee is located. Onshore workers are near you, offshore workers are very far, and while nearshore workers are abroad, they are always in overlapping time zones. But why do we focus on nearshore development, you ask? Simple: It is better in many aspects than the other two methods. Onshore work is always more expensive, and offshore tends to create more problems than those it solves. Nearshore software developers are cost-saving and encourage efficient and effective communication between in-house employees and their nearshore colleagues.
According to “Future of IT Services,” from Bernstein Research, global sourcing is evolving as it now involves exploring larger talent pools, rather than just resulting in cheap labor; and instead of India maintaining leadership in the area, geographical location now plays a big role in this new type of business.
We will explore these and a couple of other benefits of contacting nearshore software developers to complete projects.
Workflow does not become sluggish
Has it ever happened to you or your colleagues that you work on something, upload it to some repository or cloud, only to find out that someone else updated it while you were gone? Now, most likely you tried to contact the person who authored the changes and most of the time that person could’ve been contacted immediately. The issue comes when that person is not available at that time, which is typical with offshore software developers.
You’d start to see that meetings and tasks start to adjust to strange schedules, seeing that these offshore developers simply do not share similar schedules. While it is easier to have someone next to us in the same office, this is not always the case, mainly because a great deal of software development is being done remotely.
The solution is to employ developers who live in overlapping time zones. That way, whenever there is an issue to be discussed, they can always be available, and work can be kept under a tight and healthy schedule. No need to take up calls at 4 a.m. just because the developer you hired lives at the other side of the globe.
With nearshore software developers, the culture aspect can be nurturing
Nearshore software developers are oftentimes acquainted with the culture of their neighbors, more so than countries in other continents. Take for example Latin America. Most professionals from Latin American countries understand and speak English quite well, and these countries’ work and moral ethic oftentimes resemble that of the U.S.
Feeling understood at work is fundamental to maintain a healthy pace and keep productivity at a maximum. Making sure that your employees get along well, especially when they are set to work with someone who lives in another country, can be a great asset to help solidify your company’s culture and acceptance of different ideas, a trait that’s essential for any career involved with software development.
It does not sacrifice cost for quality
At the end of the day, one might think that developers from another country might not be talented for whatever reason. This is very, very far away from the truth. When it comes to computer science, universities (especially in developing countries) tend to be quite demanding. This results in able professionals that are prepared to face any project proposal coming from any company.
What’s amazing from a computer-related career is that you can take giant steps without even stepping into a classroom. What’s more is that you can always verify a developer’s work just by taking a look at their code. Whether the developer in question knows what they’re doing or not, it’s going to show.
The bottom line is that most of the time when hiring nearshore talent, you’ll have some sort of guarantee that the hired professional is proficient at its job. It is way different to go out and post on offer aggregation websites to seek out new developers than contacting a renowned company with several completed projects under its belt.
