Offshore isn’t a wholly new concept. Nor is the utilisation of software agencies to speed up a particular project, or swiftly handle a temporarily bulging pipeline. But 2020 saw the world turned upside down and the notion of building a team of developers in another geographical location is now viewed with different eyes.
The business landscape saw unpredictable changes with a redrawn landscape that saw diversification on a not-before-seen scale and a scramble to make the most of new opportunities to stay relevant and competitive. Let’s look a little more closely on three reasons why the world changed it’s perspective on global offshore teams.
Resilience
The pandemic showed how vulnerable existing operating models can be to sudden and unpredictable disruption. With part of your software development operations located somewhere else, you’re less vulnerable to crisis. In other words, offshore teams can be the first step on the road to being ‘pandemic proof’.
Transformation
Continuing on from the first point, it seems everybody wants to accelerate their digital transformation after the pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in how things were done before. Hiring local talent is expensive and often the skills you need aren’t there, particularly in the talent-scarce regions of Western Europe and North America. Untapped pools of top talent in places like India can help businesses accelerate on their respective roads to a ‘digital first’ future.
Value
Those talent-scarce locations are also expensive places to hire both in terms of salary but perhaps more importantly in terms of commercial rental space. Although offshoring isn’t outsourcing, and the value is in highly talented employees who’re bought into your company culture as opposed to external support, cost arbitrage is still an important factor when building global offshore teams.
Global offshore teams: a conclusion
As we head halfway into 2021 the changes in perception don’t appear to be going anywhere fast. CTOs and other IT decision makers understand that this way of building software development teams gives them access to new pools of talented developers without the sky-high premises prices facing firms hiring locally in cities such as London or Paris. And, that this way of building teams keeps them resilient and on the right road to digital transformation.