It’s not rocket science to succeed with nearshoring, but there are a few things you need to consider if you want to maximise the value of your new setup.
This guide gives our top tips to ensure you get off to the best start.
For many companies, the decision to go nearshore is not an easy one. It’s a decision that requires a great deal of consideration – we know that because several of our current clients were also reluctant to go nearshore at first.
But if you are mindful of the pitfalls mentioned in this article, you can also maximise the potential of nearshoring.
We summarise all our tips in three main stages, elaborate on each one in further detail, and ultimately present you with a checklist at the end of the article.
The three stages we will discuss are:
- Plan properly
- Communicate effectively
- Make a move
Closing a deal for a nearshore operation can involve many stages and phases in planning and setting it up correctly.
Plan Properly
Find a Supplier with Experience and Local Contacts:
Use experienced suppliers with local contacts in the establishment phase. Insight into the local market, the consultants, and how to deal with the nuts-and-bolts logistics is a considerable advantage.
Furthermore, a proven supplier will have a strong interest in ensuring your nearshoring operation is successful. At the same time, they can handle the entire setup for you, saving you much time and minimising costs in the start-up phase.
This will allow you to stay focused on the things that add value to your business.
Get Input from Outside:
Take advantage of networks, both your own and that of your supplier. Get in touch with companies that have been through the same exercise your company is doing.
Listen and learn; adapt their lessons to your situation.
Bring the Right People on Board:
Many companies get enthusiastic about the volume of talented resources and the expertise of individual consultants.
Sometimes, they end up onboarding overqualified consultants for their projects, which ultimately means they can’t offer the consultant professional challenges.
To retain a motivated, high-performance team, ensuring a good match between the projects and the consultant’s skill set is crucial. With that in mind, it’s essential to select highly skilled consultants who can help you get off to a good start and create momentum in the project.
Make sure that the first tasks are ready and waiting so the consultant can hit the ground running, instead of waiting for the developers or documentation before they can get started on the project.
Create Culture Bearers and Build a Core Team:
Start by building a core team that can later become the foundation if you decide to scale up.
- Begin with a maximum of 10 consultants.
- Make sure they adopt the culture and values of your company.
- Invest time and energy in getting the team introduced properly to the company.
- Start with a two-week introductory stay at your company for the new consultant team.
These initiatives will allow you to transfer the company’s values to them, so they absorb the company’s culture entirely. In this way, your company creates culture bearers who will help shape new consultants in the future.
Start by building a core team that can later become the foundation if you decide to scale up.
Communicate effectively:
Ensure the company has a good digital infrastructure supporting collaboration across national borders. Tools that can connect employees and improve their communication are essential. For example, video conferencing technologies make collaborating and working on specific tasks easier.
Make Frequent Meetings a Priority:
Schedule frequent meetings. It feels easy and natural to call someone or send a mail if you have a question. But we don’t always get around to it – or sometimes our colleague isn’t available. When we schedule a meeting, we’re more likely to prioritize the conversation – or at least we should be.
Prioritise Time-on-site:
We recommend a two-week introductory program in your home country that allows your company to prepare the consultants for their future assignments and get to know your culture first-hand. But in addition to this, make sure you schedule visits regularly in both locations – meeting in person is essential.
Make a move
And: …. Make sure there’s strategic and managerial support
For a nearshoring operation to thrive over a more extended period, it must have the support of management.
There needs to be a long-term commitment to the project to succeed. And if your nearshoring operation is to be scaled up to benefit your organisation on a broader scale, you need to ensure it’s anchored in your strategy.
This will enable you to take more long-term decisions on how to get the most out of nearshoring to reach your organisation’s strategic goals.
Take the plunge!
If your company has decided to try nearshoring, it’s important to take the plunge and get going.
Some things can be planned in advance; in other cases, it’s learning by doing. In both cases, the experiences you gain will be valuable for your organisation.
In addition, make a point of meeting some consultants, experiencing the work culture first-hand, and seeing the work environment. Working close to your consultants is an eye-opener for many companies.
Aspira has helped many small, medium, and large organisations with their struggle in building successful remote software development teams. Reach out to our Nearshoring Team today for an initial consultation.
