For companies looking their ways to get savings and other benefits from offshoring but anxious about the risks associated with it –nearshore development comes as the alternative way. It involves outsourcing work to companies with similar economic benefits, but a closer cultural, linguistic and geographic fit, giving you:
1. Time saving
Nearshore development is a good way to save your time, since service providers do all the recruitment, paperwork, administration and legal procedures, so that you can focus on the project at hand and not get side tracked. To start outsourcing you do not have to speak out all the details. Nearshore company’s specialists would ask the right questions and then come back with the results. Additional savings in time can also be achieved over shorter lead times, thanks to small distance to outsourcing centers, compared to offshoring, and full overlapping of working schedules. Lack of face-to-face contact should not fear you much – Skype calls are of big help for that.
2. Access to a large talent pool
With short distances away there are generally large talent pools to discover and Ukraine could stand as an example. The country ranks fourth globally in the number of certified IT professionals. That has been made possible thanks to strong technical education with a long tradition and a firm foundation. Apart from a large number of IT professionals, companies often look for partners with “get it done” experience. They anticipate to find people who would make it possible to reach the critical production levels much faster than expected. It is what nearshoring tends to deliver and, for that matter, there are different engagement models of work, such as fixed price, dedicated development team or time-and-materials depending on your specific needs. Moreover, through nearshoring you get the ability to access in-house base of skills and practices accumulated by service providers throughout years of operations and the possibility to easily upscale the team.
3. Value
Even though billable costs in countries like Ukraine may be higher than those in offshoring destinations, nearshoring eliminates potential hidden costs such as travel spendings, ramp-up time and low retention rate. There are many companies who succeed in reaching developer turnover rates as low as 5%, thanks to a good working climate, interesting projects and rapid development of IT industry. All that combined lets nearshore development countries like Ukraine compete pretty well and the full costs or what you get in the end might be seen as a fair value.
4. Cultural affinity
No cultural misunderstandings should be expected to accidentally pop-up during the cooperation process, since nearshore countries mostly shares similar cultural values. Many foreign companies tend to say that there is even the same humor at place, which is encouraging when working with nearshore developers. After all, working with people who are on the same page with you, who share and support your aspirations – that is the biggest cultural advantage of nearshoring.
5. Possibility to practice agile methods
According to agile manifesto, the highest priority of agile development is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. That is where nearshoring has its benefits to show. Overlapping in working hours between the client and the provider brings shorter lead times with quicker responses to arising issues, increasing the efficiency of every development project. That, in turn, enables better realization of agile methodologies like Scrum, as sprints are completed faster and each iteration of software is delivered without delays. Short iterations generally result in usable software increments, which ultimately would help your customers get satisfied. Many companies in nearshore destinations are already fluent in agile methodologies as they have been practicing them for many years.
