The requirement for experts has increased, and likewise, the number of openings for tech jobs that won’t be filled. Canada, for example, is predicted to have 218,000 tech jobs open by 2020 and they’re not alone, the U.S market is expected to follow in giant figures as well. This drives companies offshore to countries like India too, as expected, to keep up with development needs. The reason for offshoring software is all about meeting affordable necessities with knowledge and expertise. However, there’s a but: the Agile way does not work for offshoring.

Traditional Offshoring challenges

With Agile development, developers must, unsurprisingly, work together. This means, collaboration with cross-functional teams to continually grasp new knowledge through client feedback, delivering new code that can be tested regularly. This is used to increase the speed at which the company can test hypotheses concerning the client’s wants and needs without wasting precious time or above effort. At the end of the line, engineers will present a minimum viable product, testing it to determine if it works. Providing feedback from clients until all potential issues are gone before the product hits the market. Unfortunately, due to the traditional offshoring software model, part of the flexibility and iteration speed becomes difficult to achieve.

Using the offshoring model presents itself with some issues. A company in the United Kingdom and its outsourcing partner in Finland may only a bit more than a couple of hours to solve issues, discuss future needs, and organize their work. This leads to less time for team members to communicate. Resulting in an extra effort when it comes to communicating, with only two options: or very early or very late.

One way to tackle this passes by the Canadian team producing documents with detailed instructions and recommendations that the Spanish team can read before the work starts. Still, this may pose another problem. Besides reducing real-time meetings, it can add complexity to the overall task since the risk for different interpretation exists.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Nearshoring!

Companies far and wide are realizing the impact of an agile environment and how outsourcing software must walk hand in hand with the agile way. The answer has increasingly become a nearshore approach, which provides several advantages, in this case, similar time-zones are crucial.

Top tip: If you want to know more about key nearshore benefits, take a look at our article Nearshore vs. Offshore: Why Nearshore is the best option!

By applying a nearshore model, developers from the U.K have the possibility to partner with a foreign development team in a country set in the same time-zone, such as Portugal. Providing a more efficient and increased means for communications. With the nearshore model, you’ll have the benefits of a talented workforce. That is to say proficient and different languages, mainly in English, in a country classified as one of the safest in the world with the ideal technological infrastructures, technical quality, and attractive costs.

Offshoring will always be the first choice for many companies. However, in the near future, those who will lead the market will be nearshore companies. Resulting in the optimal choice for cost and reliability, providing speed-to-market and a functional agile approach