Nearshore Model: The union of technology, agility, and know-how

In the blink of an eye, the world has turned remote. In recent years, major social changes have occurred, and organisations are now facing new realities and ways of working.

To help organisations to deal with it, nearshore outsourcing is a solution to be considered. We are talking about that moment when companies recruit employees from a neighbouring country to complete their services; in fact, they are hiring a remote team that is geographically close to the organisation and able to understand and communicate with the internal team.

Although this is not a new strategy, many organisations still need to learn about its advantages, but this might change soon. According to this Near Contact study, there is an estimated growth of nearshore services in the IT market, with a compound annual growth rate of 4.04%  until 2025. On the other hand, this study also says that the global nearshore IT services market is expected to be driven by several factors, such as the rising demand for cost-effective IT services and the growing need for faster time to market.

According to the Near Contact study, the IT trends we should keep an eye on are:

- The rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning

- The increasing importance of data security

- The continued growth of cloud computing

- The continued focus on quality and customer service

- The growth of shared services models

But at the same time IT services are growing, recruiting and retaining talent remains one of the biggest challenges for companies — according to the Global Tech Trends Equinix report, 62% of IT decision makers recognize the talent shortage as one of the biggest difficulties in the sector.

What could be one of the solutions?

Embrace a nearshore model, seen as a flexible and agile strategy, that support the expansion of teams remotely and lets companies achieve scalability as well as competitive advantage.

In Portugal, this is already more than a trend; our country is already seen as an international technological hub. Here, the companies take advantage of the availability of qualified talent, geographical proximity, and competitive costs when it compares to some other geographies.

And we may also point out some other advantages of this model:

• Cost reduction: When discussing nearshore, we must mention cost efficiency as one of its most important advantages. It requires reduced effort in resource management and provides access to highly skilled at an affordable cost, with a less expensive factor than other outsourcing models;

• An easy way of communication: With nearshoring, your company can hire employees who already share similar cultural backgrounds with your business, your products and even your team members. In fact, geographic, linguistic, and cultural proximity is crucial to ensure all business management smoothly. We are talking about short-term travel, greater ease of understanding the micro and macro scenarios of the projects, and similar time zone;

• Agility: an important concept when we talk “business”. With nearshore, organisations can ensure a faster start of projects (as it is easier to allocate technical teams and people able to operate in a few days);

• A better market knowledge: It facilitates the structuring of multifaceted and qualified teams, able to work in any region (always guaranteeing continuous and close follow-up and feedback throughout the project).

As already mentioned above, nearshore solutions, when correctly directed on to the needs and strategies of a business, not only help the success of projects, but also add some important value to them, and it is paramount to find a qualified partner to work on this journey together. In fact, the union between technology, agile methodologies and expertise are the key to guarantee the quality of the response.