How many times have you worked with offshore development teams where you had sleepless nights since they were halfway around the world?
Ever wondered if they were working since you should be sleeping? Are they working with multiple clients or dedicated to you? This is more than you need to worry about when working on a mission-critical product or trying to change the world.
There are many opportunities to find software teams near and far with different levels of skill, cost, language, etc. Working with an offshore team (India, Eastern Europe, Asia, etc.), you are definitely going to be plagued with time zone challenges. You’ll be up at various hours of the night, have little working time to overlap with them, and likely find pricing all over the board. They will tell you everything they can to win the business and make you feel comfortable. I am sure there are some good ones out there, but chances are, once you start working with the offshore team, you will wish that you had gone elsewhere.
So, what do you do? Focus on working with a nearshore team closely located to the United States. What is nearshore? It is defined as “relating to the transfer of a business operation to a nearby country.” Typically, in the case of the United States, this will refer to the transfer of a business operation to Canadian, Central American, and South American companies. Once you cross over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, it moves into offshore territory, regardless of how it is spun.
The value in having a dedicated nearshore team
With a nearshore team, there are at least **eight value points.**
- Proximity
- Timezone
- Language
- Culture
- Cost
- Skill
- Velocity
- Transparency
As an executive leading teams at a US-based company or a startup founder, I would imagine that these eight value points are extremely important for you. As part of your development strategy, these are the keys to your success with the right nearshore partner. You should not only expect but demand these things from the partner.
In the business landscape, competition is coming and biting at your heels, so you only have the time and bandwidth to get this done right the first time. I’ve heard time and time again, “Well, they cost less than a US team, so if there are problems and we need to redo it, it will still cost less than a US-based team.” I cringe when I hear this, as it is really an unacceptable approach, especially if you select the right partner the first time around. They are already expecting failure. What they did not calculate in this approach is the cost of “time” in addition to the budget burn. So, in the end, it really costs 2X+ the time and budget in addition to the opportunity cost of other things that could not have been done in parallel. Forget about the sleepless nights.
In a recent CNBC article, “Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s comments about San Francisco are a warning sign for the city’s tech scene,” Jack was quoted as saying “I do think that we need to figure out how to build a company that is distributed, that is not burdened by time zones, but is advantaged by them.” Based on this US-based company’s needs, nearshoring is an opportunity that will bring them advantages. This is a huge statement.
Internal, external, or mixed teams?
Do you need a traditional in-house team? A 100% remote team? Or mixed? These are important questions to help ensure that you are set up for success today and tomorrow.
There is not one answer here, but rather it depends on your specific needs and requirements. Here is a range of questions to ask, which should help you arrive at an answer that works for your situation.
How can I maximize the output performance by extending the budget as far as possible?
Do I have business-critical dates/milestones that I am trying to meet?
Do I need access to specific skills that I can’t find locally?
Am I not finding talent fast enough?
Do I have enough office space based on the budget allocated? Or, can I transfer some of that office budget to expanding my team?
In the world of working remotely and all the available tools, is there a business benefit to having the team in-house at the same time?
Do I value a good night’s sleep so that I can focus on my mission?
Is extending company culture across teams important to the success of the business?
Do I want the team productive or moving in and out of meetings, which could reduce velocity?
Would your business benefit from long-term retention?
And the list of questions can continue to grow. I think you get the idea, and hopefully the examples here help you to formulate those questions that are important for you.
Keep in mind that the intended end result is an “empowered team that can tackle challenges and provide results” that help you move things forward. So, either a combination of in-house and nearshore, or fully nearshore, could likely be the best arrangement as a result of the answers above.
Hiring fully in-house, you expect many meetings, a lot of management, budget burn, and one-on-one time to align with product or company objectives. Balancing that with a nearshore team, the rules of the typical office space don’t apply, and the budget is extended. Typically, you communicate more and intrinsically give your team more freedom to make decisions while providing overall product direction. This really helps to drive velocity, which is hugely important in the competitive landscape.
Just like an in-house team, a nearshore team is dedicated 100% to you, and if set up the right way, it can absorb your company’s culture and goals. We’ve put a lot of effort into Ideaware to bring our US-based clients’ culture to our company. For example, we had one area of our office dedicated to Luna to help our staff feel like they were sitting in the Luna US-based office. On the other hand, offshore teams will take more of your precious time and effort to bring them into alignment.
If you find the right nearshore partner, they will take inventory of your needs and help you to scale swiftly with the right skill and talent. To help ensure this, transparently, you should be invited into the candidate selection and interview process since this person will be a fully dedicated member of your team. The last thing you want is just to have butts thrown into seats to see if they fit or not. Not a good situation, and believe me, if this is offered to you… run the other way. At Ideaware, we expect our US-based clients to be intimately involved in this process. On the same token, if a vendor says “trust me,” well, don’t unless they are providing some sort of (put your money where your mouth is) guarantee.
Nearshore teams could provide the best of all worlds, but again, it really depends on your business goals, needs, and requirements. Lastly, here is a list of potential benefits of working with a nearshore team should you find the right partner.
Benefits you get with a nearshore team
- Collaboration: You have full visibility throughout the candidate selection process and collaborate with our recruitment team to interview and secure the best talent and skills.
- Allocation: Your hand-selected team is 100% fully dedicated to you.
- Managed operation: Operational support and facilities for your team to do their best work.
- Working Hours: Your nearshore team should work within your timezone. For example, for all of our US-based customers, teams work between the EST (GMT-5) and PST (GMT-8) time zones to ensure overlap with your work day.
- Proximity: Location is important. Your team should be easy to get to in a few hours. For example, the Ideaware office is only a 2-hour flight from Miami or 5 hours from Dallas.
- Transparent costs: Flat monthly rates with no hidden or hourly fees.
- Cost savings: Potential savings of up to 50 - 60% of the costs from hiring a local team located in the US.
- Culture: We encourage our partners to embrace the software design and engineering teams as their own. These teams will feel like a seamless extension of your company.
The right partner will help you understand the benefits and challenges of working with a nearshore team and advise on what’s best depending on your specific situation. The team at Ideaware is always available to help you succeed by supporting you with best-in-class team augmentation services for software design and developers.
If you’d like to learn more about what makes a software team successful, check out our post:5 Secrets behind a successful software team.
Why Ideaware?
Since 2010, we’ve helped US companies scale with top-tier tech talent, not just by filling roles, but by becoming long-term partners in growth.
- We handle sourcing, hiring, onboarding, and retention.
- Start receiving CVs as soon as 48 hours.
- You could meet your new teammate in as little as 8–12 days.
- Our retention rates are 2x the industry average.
Contact us here to discuss your hiring strategy, and we will get in touch with you within 24 hours or less.
