In a previous article, we discussed how partnering with nearshore software companies is helping organizations during this time of economic turmoil, as they strive to keep their cost-reduction goals while simultaneously delivering satisfying services and products to their customers.
While we have already pointed out how the nearshore paradigm aligns with the necessary financial adjustments that the post-covid crisis and the upcoming recession force, we will discuss today how this relatively new paradigm for software partnerships offers benefits that go far beyond the mere advantage of saving valuable financial resources.
Communication: human connections and business value in a global economy
Traditionally, software outsourcing consisted of establishing short-term partnerships with companies from countries that could offer significant cost reductions on software projects. For decades, countries like China and India have been successful at attracting companies from developed countries with this strategy.
But as useful as it might have been back in the beginnings of the digital era, this offshore model has always shown a set of issues that tend to make it much less attractive in a time in which competitiveness is mainly defined by a company’s ability to deliver high-quality software services or products.
First of all, anyone who has worked with software teams from offshore countries has probably experienced how time-zone gaps can easily jeopardize a process, or at the very least make it much more complicated and slow. Being forced to wait until the partner’s work hours begin can be frustrating, especially when swift changes are needed.
Also, lacking or limited language skills can certainly become a liability in the course of a software project, producing all types of misunderstandings and, eventually, delays. Communication difficulties can often be the cause for disappointing outcomes, something that usually also has an impact on costs.
Furthermore, as the role played by human relations in employee productivity, satisfaction, engagement, and retention has been extensively studied and recognized, the importance of assembling teams in which cultural or language differences are not an impending barrier to communication and interpersonal relationships is more widely understood.
That last one is where probably the most crucial point of all kicks in. While nearshore software teams in Latin America share the same or similar time zones and are usually highly proficient in English, it is their akin culture that makes them much more attractive as potential partners.
Latin American countries share similar cultural mindsets with the United States or Canada, which makes their differences, not a barrier but rather an opportunity for teams to gain diversity and enrich their cultural knowledge.
Bonds of trust, long-term business relationships
Now, as important as the possibility of developing mutually enriching human relations is, there is an advantage that comes as a consequence and that can have a significant and lasting effect on a company as a whole. In today’s business environment, the ability to develop the type of tight bonds of trust from which long-term business partnerships can emerge is a key element in driving a company’s competitiveness.
As there are plenty of countries in Latin America that have developed tech talent pools with the ability to create high-quality software products, only a few stand out for a feature for which most of them are still struggling: a decades-long economic and political stability that has granted them the opportunity to combine long-term public policies that have encouraged the development of high-quality tech profiles with a stable environment in which resources companies were able to develop, grow, and gain competitivity.
Today, because of the quality of their institutions, the strength of their legal system, and their ability to create a favorable environment for entrepreneurial activity and economic growth, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Canada are the only three countries in America that are considered full democracies, according to the index created by the prestigious British newspaper The Economist.
In particular, Uruguay launched the successful Ceibal plan in 2007, which has become a model for the encouragement of technological education in Latin America, and that, along with a flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem, has put the country at the vanguard of the nearshore software industry.
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