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Five Tips for Getting the Most from Your Nearshore Software Development Team

Hiring a nearshore software development team to help you tackle an IT project is both time and cost-effective. It allows your internal staff to focus on delivering core business instead of diluting their efforts across several projects. In fact, by working with nearshore developers instead of hiring a dedicated in-house resource, you could optimize your development costs and get your products to market twice as fast.

But you will only reap the benefits of nearshoring if you bring the right team of experts on board and implement a set of best practices to get the most out of the cooperation. In this article, we cover five of our top tips for finding the best nearshore development company for your project and working with an outsourcing partner in a way that yields the most value.

Nearshore vs offshore: What’s the difference?

First, let’s start by defining what a nearshore development team is versus an offshore model.

Businesses sometimes hire offshore development services located in far-off countries as a means of reducing their development spend since this model tends to offer some of the biggest cost savings.

But, while an offshore team does save you time and money, it lacks a certain amount of control. Partnering with a nearshore development company – located close enough to overcome time zone differences or cultural barriers and engage in on-site visits – offers a middle ground where you can benefit from cost efficiency without sacrificing quality. Here are our top 5 pieces of advice to help you pick the right nearshore partner and build a perfect software development team.

Five things to consider before you hire a nearshore software development team

1. Define a clear set of objectives for outsourcing your project

Before entering into any outsourcing relationship, it’s vital that you comprehensively outline the aims of your project and what you require from your nearshore cooperation. By bringing together all of the project’s stakeholders and drawing up a clear, specific and easy-to-follow set of goals, you will ensure that everyone is in alignment and that your nearshore partner understands exactly what is expected of them.

A good outsourcing partner should also provide you with their expectations regarding where the responsibility for certain tasks sits. By defining a project’s scope, objectives, and obligations before you choose a nearshore development company, you can be sure that they have the expertise and portfolio required to achieve your vision.

2. Choose a nearshore development team that lives your culture

As obvious as it may sound, bringing the right people on board for your project is fundamental if you’re to succeed in whatever your digital endeavour may be. Nearshore software development teams can help you scale up to meet your specific development goals and plug any skills gaps you might have.

But while highly skilled engineers are essential to any nearshoring service, it’s also crucial that each individual embodies a team-player spirit. A nearshore software development team that understands and can rapidly adopt your internal culture becomes a true extension of your in-house resource, integrating with your team to transfer process and behaviour-change knowledge that will last way beyond the cooperation period.

The right nearshore development team will also be naturally inquisitive and proactive, with a genuine passion for solving complex technical problems.

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3. Look for nearshore developers with a proven track record

Doing your research before entering into an engagement with a nearshore development company will pay dividends. You’ll want to verify the credentials of whoever you choose to bring on board, making sure they have the relevant level of experience to tackle your project, as well as great feedback from previous clients.

Take a look at any prospective vendor’s website and note things such as industry-standard accreditations and awards. At ELEKS, for example, we regularly update our ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 27001:2013 certificates, which are widely viewed as the gold standard within the IT sector. We’ve also featured year on year on some of the IT industry’s lists of top service providers.

4. Choose a security-conscious nearshore development company

Cybersecurity is a major concern for many IT leaders. In fact, according to an IDG Research Services survey, 78% of IT executives lack confidence in their company’s cybersecurity posture and up to 91% will be increasing their security budgets to tackle the problem. So ensuring that your nearshore development team integrates industry-standard cybersecurity controls and works in accordance with the latest sector regulations and compliance requirements is essential.

Again, validating your outsourcing partner’s credentials can provide confidence that your software development project is in safe hands. The SOC 2 Type II audit, for example, is considered the most rigorous in the industry, providing a comprehensive assessment of the cybersecurity controls within a service organisation. This covers Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality and Privacy. It’s an audit that we’ve undertaken for the past two years, and one which we feel underpins our offering with a level of integrity that clients can feel reassured by.

5. Pick a flexible nearshore team that enhances your skillset

Hiring an in-house team that covers every single specialism you’re likely to need for any given project is unrealistic. The beauty of outsourcing your software development to a nearshore team is that you get access to a potentially massive talent pool with a diverse range of skills.

Where recruitment and onboarding of permanent staff can be a drawn-out process, hiring a nearshore company to partner with you enables you to rapidly scale development capacity on-demand to support your growing development portfolio. With your project objectives clearly defined, as per our first recommendation, your outsourcing partner can take on the responsibility of building you a team of specialists with the best-fit skills for your project.

Summary

Nearshore software development undoubtedly saves businesses time, money and resources. But in order to gain the most benefit from outsourcing your software development project, you need to have a solid strategy in place. By doing your research ahead of selecting a nearshore development company – checking your potential partner’s credentials, ensuring they have the right skillset and that they meet the expected security standards – you can get your product to market twice as fast and for an optimal price.

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