Organizations face many obstacles in their quest for success in today’s rapidly evolving, technologically savvy world. These challenges include shifting consumer behavior, economic uncertainties, and limited resources, all of which can hinder corporate agility and innovation. To overcome these hurdles and thrive in the digital era, businesses must explore effective strategies that are scalable and cost-effective. One such strategy is leveraging the power of a nearshore approach.
The concept of “nearshore outsourcing” has gained significant prominence in the last decade. Nearshore outsourcing entails collaborating with partner firms in neighboring or nearby countries, often sharing time zones. This proximity facilitates close collaboration with a broader talent pool, enabling real-time communication and seamless integration. Overall, businesses may choose to partner with nearshore outsourcing companies to benefit from the advantages of proximity, access to specialized talent, and scalability.
What is Hybrid Nearshore Outsourcing?
A “hybrid” nearshore approach strategically blends both onshore and nearshore teams to collaborate on a project. When onshore consulting and nearshore outsourcing are combined, the result is a powerful synergy that drives remarkable outcomes for businesses. In addition to expanding capabilities and increasing flexibility, this multidimensional approach offers several advantages. Businesses can realize significant cost savings without compromising on quality by capitalizing on outsourced nearshore teams in regions with competitive labor costs. Moreover, this strategy enables organizations to access specialized skills, round-the-clock productivity, and adaptability, which enhances their capacity to meet evolving demands and project timelines.
Benefits of Nearshore Software Development Outsourcing
The power of nearshore software development outsourcing extends beyond cost saving and flexibility. Companies that partner with nearshore outsourcing companies may also experience additional perks, such as:
Improved problem-solving capabilities due to the integration of culturally diverse perspectives and specialized knowledge.
Expedited project timelines through the agility and responsiveness of nearshore development teams.
Access to emerging opportunities resulting from reduced communication barriers, improved cultural understanding, and adaptability to changing markets.
Organizations need unique expertise and perspectives to compose well-rounded, dynamic strategies that will keep them ahead in the competitive market. Nearshore resourcing is a great option for companies that want to access top-tier talent with diverse insights and experience while amplifying scalability, productivity, and cost savings.
Contact Kopius for Nearshore Software Outsourcing Solutions
At Kopius, we bring together the best of onshore project leadership with nearshore software engineering prowess. Our innovative hybrid model provides high-quality, reliable solution delivery in a predictable cost-effective model. Contact a member of our team today to learn how we can celebrate borderless and limitless possibilities together!
What happens to the Scrum process when you are working with nearshore engineering teams?
Agile represents an overarching philosophy for software development, emphasizing the value of iterating quickly. You can read the Agile Manifesto here.
We use Scrum for project delivery, an Agile Framework that enables iterative and incremental product development. Scrum is a way to get work done as a team in small pieces at a time, with feedback loops and experimentation every step of the way so the team can learn and improve as they go.
Scrum allows teams to get things done at the right time, maximizing the value of what is delivered. Tasks are performed faster and with higher quality by self-organizing teams. Scrum is an excellent project management approach for the majority of engineering projects and is particularly well suited for nearshore and nearshore projects.
Nearshore projects are those where some project team members are based in Latin America. We typically provide consultants, project executives, and project managers out of the US, and then take advantage of the extraordinary nearshore engineering talent in Latin America.
Decreased time to market – Scrum delivers value to the end customer 30 to 40 percent faster than traditional methods. Combined with the quicker engineering ramp-up time with nearshore teams, this is a significant acceleration.
Increased ROI – The decrease in time to market is one key reason that Scrum projects realize a higher return on investment (ROI).
Reduced risk – Mitigate the risk of absolute project failure (spending large amounts of time and money with no return on investment) by delivering the tangible product early for evaluation and scrutiny.
Better Quality – Projects exist to accomplish a vision or goal. Scrum provides the framework for continual feedback and exposure to ensure quality is as high as possible.
Higher Customer Satisfaction – Scrum teams are committed to producing products and services that satisfy customers.
Increased Collaboration and Ownership – When scrum teams take responsibility for projects and products, they can produce great results. Scrum teams collaborate and take ownership of quality and project performance.
Improved Progress Visibility and Exposure – Transparency and visibility make Scrum an exposure model to help the project team accurately identify issues and more accurately predict how things will go as the project progresses.
Increased Project Control – Scrum teams have numerous opportunities to control project performance and make timely corrections as needed
By leveraging Agile Scrum for nearshore projects, teams can rapidly design and build technology solutions through a series of sprints with each sprint delivering usable functionality. Periodically, completed sprint deliverables can be finalized and deployed as a production release.
Scrum Roles
The roles and staffing of a scrum project may be the most important decision made on a project.
Scrum Team – The Scrum Team is a group of collaborators who work toward completing projects and delivering products. The scrum team includes one scrum master, one product owner, and a group of developers. Within a scrum team, there is no rank or hierarchy.
Product Owner – The Product Owner is accountable for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Scrum Team. The Product Owner is one person, not a committee, and may represent the needs of many stakeholders in the Product Backlog. This person answers questions like:
What to create?
Why create this and not something else?
How to create this?
When to create it?
The product owner bridges the gap between product strategy and development, is responsible for the product backlog and organizing sprints, and answers questions from developers.
Representative Product Owner – Because being a product owner is time-consuming and is sometimes impossible for a client to dedicate to a project, we can provide a Representative Product Owner that alleviates the burden on the Client. Representative product owners have knowledge and communication of short- and mid-term project goals, deeply understand requirements, create and maintain product backlog, respond to team’s questions and requests, and assures the team’s understanding of requirements for upcoming sprints
Scrum Master – The Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness. The Scrum Master answers the question of Who creates it?
In summary, the Agile Scrum + Nearshore combination is exciting and powerful. We have seen it change the trajectory of client businesses since we started operating under this model more than a year ago.
To learn more about Agile Scrum + Nearshore combinations, reach out to us today! Kopius is a leader in nearshore digital technology consulting and services.
We spoke with Technical Team Leader and Senior Software Engineer, Claudia Rostagnol about women in tech and more. Claudia is based in Uruguay and has been with our organization for three years, working exclusively for a client in the financial sector as a technical team lead. We talked about how the industry is performing for women in technology, and what trends all people in tech need to pay attention to.
Worldwide, women represent 40 percent of the workforce, and only 17 percent of the tech industry workforce comprises women. We operate out of Argentina and throughout Latin America, and according to data provided by Women in Technology, only 16 percent of the people from Argentina who enroll in degrees related to the tech industry are women. And further, only 14 percent of technical roles are filled by women.
Here are highlights from our conversation with Claudia:
What work are you doing for Valence LatAm?
I’ve been working with Valence LatAm’s client, Berxi, for almost 3 years as a technical team lead. Berxi serves the insurance industry, offering policies to small businesses and professionals.
Our goal with Berxi is to migrate a monolithic system into a microservices architecture, while we keep everything working and also adding new features or products. I work with developers to help them build software; with the business analyst and product owner to identify requirements and manage the work; with the architect to define the architecture and design of the software pieces (microservices with a well-defined API – REST and event-driven,) and with the QA team to coordinate testing in different environments and bug fixing with the development team. My role is very dynamic and interesting!
How did you get started in technology?
I became interested in technology when I was just a small 8 year-old-girl in Uruguay, with a kid-friendly programming language called “Logo”. With Logo, I could program the movements of a turtle moving on the screen with very simple instructions. I’ve been interested in computers and programming ever since.
I studied software programming throughout elementary school, mid-school, and high school. Then I found it very natural to go to the Engineering Faculty to become a Computer Science Engineer.
When I finished my engineering degree, I met a few colleagues during an internship in France. One of them became my husband, Daniel De Vera, and another is Pablo Rodriguez-Bocca, who became my master’s degree tutor. We co-founded a small start-up called GoalBit Solutions and worked together for 6 years. I learned and grew a lot (academically and professionally) during that time!
What can you tell us about the people who paved the way for you? How did mentors factor into your success?
I need to recognize my family, especially my parents! They always support me even if they don’t understand this technical world.
My husband helped to pave the way for me to find opportunities at a US company named Vidillion where I started as a Senior Software Engineer. Their CTO at that time, Steve Popper, was a great mentor as well as a very kind person. He taught me a lot about technology and about remote work and the US tech industry. We continue being friends, even living 10.000 km far from each other. Thanks to Steve, I became more confident in my skills and language.
Let’s talk about what’s around the corner in technology. What trends are you seeing?
AI is used more every day and for everything. I’ve been interested in AI throughout my career. It is a very powerful tool, and we need to think about how to use it well. There is a trend toward responsible AI, which is a good thing.
Also, everything happens in the cloud now. Cloud computing powers everything, including our PCs and mobile phones, and everybody is connected and storing/publishing things on the Internet. So, I think there’s a lot happening there: social networks, crypto, mobile apps for everything, remote education, etc.
What tech does the world need now more than ever?
Data Management and Security – When we share our information, thoughts, pictures, videos, and interests, on the internet, we generate data that may be processed and analyzed in different ways and for different purposes like marketing, sales, and connectivity. All this data can be helpful, and at the same time, it can be dangerous if it is not correctly managed and used. We are sharing a lot of information, which can potentially be made public if it’s not protected.I support the call for additional security and regulations.
Cradle-to-cradle hardware manufacturing – The exponential increase in the use of technology is generating technical waste and digital trash. We frequently discard devices to have the latest or more powerful model and that trash is not biodegradable or easily recyclable. The world needs a clear policy on what to do with all that trash.
Claudia is a volleyball player, seen here with a championship cup
Let’s talk about how to improve tech for women. Do you think tech is changing for women?
Tech is changing for women in the sense that we are more accepted now, but we are far from an equitable system, and it is not changing fast enough. I see too many conferences and events about technology where most of the participants or speakers are men. Men are still accessing higher roles and salaries than women. Paternity and maternity leaves are not equal for men and women.
We need a cultural change in the tech industry, which will take time. But we are making progress. It means a lot to me when I see how our company supports women in tech with events like FemIT, and technical webinars where the speakers are women, and even interviews like this.
Several other companies also have internal initiatives to recognize women’s work and to treat us equally to men. However, I still see too many differences in the number of women being promoted to important roles, or the salary we receive for the same role, especially in LATAM.
I still hear stories about women being asked if they are planning to have children as part of their interview process with other organizations. Women are asked invasive questions that men aren’t asked, and that needs to stop. Thankfully our recruiting team and processes are invested in supporting women in tech.
One thing I like in my country (Uruguay) is that the government provides all kids attending public schools with a laptop when they start school. So boys and girls have the same access to technology at home and school. However, we still have cultural/social messages with gendered toys or games that can falsely signal to girls that boys are better than girls for some things and vice versa.
What is the one thing you wish people knew to support women in technology?
People need to know that women are equally capable if we have equal support and opportunities. We have more than technical skills to add to this technical world. We must continue encouraging girls to get involved in tech and science through messages and experiences at home, at school, and in our communities.
Women need mentors and advocates, including men and women. I wish more people understood how much they can change a woman’s life by helping them to grow in this field.
What’s one piece of advice that you’d like to share with anyone reading?
Women are not better or worse at technical jobs. It is just a matter of learning, practicing, and being supported by other industry leaders.
We need to continue working on a more profound social change that makes the world more equitable for women who want to work in technology!
