Companies have long been outsourcing labor to other countries with greater workforce availability or lower labor costs. Some work with remote employees from across the globe, while others prefer to keep things closer to home. When companies work with remote employees from other nearby countries, that's called nearshoring.
Nearshore Software Development has become increasingly popular in recent years. For software developers, nearshoring offers the perfect middle ground between traditional outsourcing and hiring exclusively from the domestic talent pool. Read on to find out why.
Shared Time Zones
Working with employees or partner firms in Asia, India, or other faraway places can be very challenging for US software developers as a result of the time zone differences. Work hour differences often lead to problems with collaboration and create significant declines in efficiency. Since nearshoring involves working with other developers in the same time zone, it eliminates that problem.
Fewer Cultural Barriers
Countries that are geographically similar tend to share more in common when it comes to culture, as well. English is spoken as a first or second language across most of the world, but the connections to Western culture become more tenuous the further away one gets from the United States. Eliminating cultural barriers can be especially important for companies that are using nearshoring as a means of staff augmentation rather than hiring all-remote workforces.
Easier to Find Quality Talent
Wondering why software developers have been outsourcing work, at all? The explanation is simple. American software developers have been in increasingly high demand in recent years, and when talent becomes scarce, it becomes increasingly expensive.
Expanding the labor pool to include people from other countries can make it easier to find skilled professionals in a highly specialized field. Plus, the US dollar is stronger in most other local currencies, which means American companies can pay lower salaries without impacting workers' abilities to get by.
Reduced Travel Costs
Sometimes, there's no way of getting around holding an in-person meeting with the team. Nearshore software development teams live closer together, which means it costs less for team members to travel and they spend less time in the air.
Increase Productivity
Need to hire new software developers and want to prioritize both quality talent acquisition and agile development? Nearshoring may be the perfect solution. Just make sure to work with a staffing firm that understands the needs of software development companies and maintains strong connections to other labor markets. It's the best way to ensure that everything goes smoothly with employee acquisition and onboarding.