Outsourcing software development projects has become a widespread practice among both tech giants and startups across industries and continents. Nearshoring, a type of outsourcing that implies delegating projects to vendors located in nearby countries, becomes a prevalent trend for many businesses. But what are the nearshore outsourcing trends that shape the modern industry and what are the reasons to implement nearshoring in your project?
Forbes projected that the software outsourcing market will increase by a whopping 70% between 2022 and 2023, which is an eye-popping trend in its own right. We can clearly see that the most prominent of the nearshore outsourcing trends is growth. Let us see why it is good news for your business’ digital transformation.
Focus on Return on Investment
One of the key nearshoring trends that would shape the face of the domain in 2022 is its cost-efficiency. Here are several ways you can save costs with nearshoring:
- Lower hourly rates – hiring people from developing countries usually costs less but they offer a compatible service quality;
- Reduced operational expenses – you do not need to maintain the office, pay taxes, sick leaves, days off, take care of the accounting, etc.;
- Lower travel costs – if you want to meet your team, you do not need to travel far;
- Outsourced team management – usually, nearshore teams are managed locally, so you do not need to hire PMs;
With the reduced cost of hiring and managing nearshore teams, you can allocate your resources to pursue other business goals. With cost-efficiency as one of the main nearshore trends, you will also generate ROI faster. The less you spend, the faster you get your money back.
Move Business to Nearby Countries
Outsourcing can bring a problem of huge response delays, cultural and language barriers, and all sorts of inconveniences that made the whole concept unappealing to some businesses. For instance, if you are a German business, outsourcing to India would create huge communication gaps. That is why nearshoring trends Europe experiences right now is caused by the need to cut communication delays. Geographic proximity gives you several advantages in communication with the team:
- Shared time zones – no night calls, no communication delays, everything is where you need it when you need it;
- Similar culture – working with people from a neighboring country means that you might have some common cultural background, which is always good for effective cooperation;
- No language barrier – in most cases, people speak English when talking to partners overseas, but neighboring nations might even understand each other as is.
Basically, exodus to nearby countries is one of core nearshore trends in Europe that defines the future of the industry. Fluent, timely, and efficient communication is often the key to successful project delivery, and that is where nearshoring truly shines.
Hunt for Larger Talent Pool
One of the nearshore outsourcing trends people tend to forget about is the hunt for entirely new talent pools. Let’s say you’ve been looking for an AI or machine learning developer in your city or even a country and found none that suits your demands. The best idea here is to hire an AI specialist from abroad or even an entire team of people who correspond to your requirements in every way.
Of course, they will be working remotely, but it is 2022 and many people work remotely these days. Considering how widespread the remote workforce is, there’s no difference between a developer who lives in your hometown and a developer who lives in a nearby country. Add all the benefits of nearshoring on top of that, and you get yourself a perfect solution to fill up your draining talent pool with experienced developers from abroad.
Chase for Flexible Recruitment
Having a strong in-house team is great – a loyal and efficient group of experts you can gather for a meeting, talk to at the office kitchen, and even hang out with from time to time. That’s until they leave your company for a better deal. Working with a good nearshoring recruitment partner, you can staff your team whenever you need with the types of experts that you need. You can also scale your team up or down according to your current business needs. This provides you with a much higher degree of flexibility enabling you to quickly react to the changing needs of your business.
New Brains are Trendy
Bringing in new talent from abroad means bringing new skills, new ideas, and new business practices. You can always take a couple of pages from someone else’s book, and that is one of the biggest nearshore outsourcing trends. Why generate knowledge when you can hire brains? The experts you hire have unique experiences working on numerous projects, they know which practices worked best and which did not work at all, and they are ready to share that knowledge with you. The new brains on the team are always a good thing, and if you can engage some talented developers from the outside, it is always a good idea to do so.
Conclusion
There are many things you can say about outsourcing in general, but many businesses still see it as a last resort option. Outsourcing will become commonplace for businesses of all sizes across most industries. The current nearshoring trends prove that people want it and they are ready to invest in it. Instead of trying to hire some developers from a country located on the opposite side of the globe, you can hire people who are closer to you both geographically and culturally. It is much easier to work with people who understand you well and live in the same time zone.
