IT outsourcing has been a prominent practice by companies for decades, but the past few years has given rise to several types of IT outsourcing that are very advantageous to companies. With the labor shortage of skilled IT personnel, many companies have resorted to using outsourced IT staff to meet their needs. Outsourced IT staff offer a cost-effective alternative to recruiting, hiring, and retaining IT personnel. More specifically, companies have used nearshore IT outsourcing to augment their staff and maintain high quality of work while controlling costs.
What is nearshore IT outsourcing?
Nearshore IT outsourcing refers to IT outsourcing that is done by companies located near the headquarter of a company. These companies are labeled as nearshore because they share the same geographic location as the client they are working with. Typically, nearshore companies are companies located outside of the client’s country but still within the same relative time zones.
An example of a nearshore company for a U.S. based company is a company located in Colombia. Although Colombia is in South America, it still has similar time zones in comparison to a company located in the U.S. This provides several benefits for U.S. based companies without adding language and time zone barriers. This is a better alternative for companies than working with offshore companies that have 10+ hour time differences.
Benefits of nearshore IT outsourcing:
Communication: The best benefit of working with nearshore IT companies is the ease of communication. IT projects are already complex and have a variety of constraints; adding a communication barrier on top of project requirements can lead to project delays and significant frustration. Nearshore IT companies share similar work cultures, and they speak English as well as Americans. This facilitates communication efforts and allows companies to spend more time working on the project instead of onboarding.
Cost: Another prominent reason why companies use nearshore IT outsourcing is to reduce their costs. Hiring an in-house skilled IT professional can cost businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars. These costs include the recruiting, interviewing, hiring, onboarding, and retention process; this is all for hiring just one talented IT staff member. Nearshore IT outsourcing allows businesses to leverage entire IT teams for a fraction of that cost. This allows businesses to use nearshore IT teams for the most important projects in their business. This includes creating products and services that can generate more revenue for the business.
More time and focus for your business: Nearshore IT outsourcing allow your business to completely outsource your IT operations. Depending on the industries your business operates in, IT operations are often a cost of doing business. For most businesses, their IT operations don’t generate any revenue. By outsourcing your IT operations, you can focus on the core areas of your business that drive the most revenue and profit. Instead of spending time and resources dealing with technical issues, you can focus more on serving your existing customers and getting new customers to grow your business.
These are just a few of the advantages of nearshore IT outsourcing. To learn more, get a free consultation here.