Modern technologies have paved the way for Latin American offshore developers to take their talent pool to a global scale. They can now broaden their scope by creating business relationships overseas.
Business structures in today’s state-of-affairs are in constant evolution, and now more than ever, the need for offshore remoteness is at its all-time high. Whether in the startup stage or full-scale enterprise, digital innovation is a must when developing growth strategies. Consequently, IT needs are driving the search for newer, more efficient ways of developing technological tools. These tools will propel companies forward. They will also determine which operations can get conducted locally and which need offshoring.
In Western Europe, especially in the UK, the talent pool is not as large as it should be, and prices for software developers are skyrocketing due to lack of availability. Furthermore, according to the BBC, since 2017, there has been a considerable decline in students majoring in computing and IT sciences. Said lack of interest has reduced the size of the available workforce and has created a need for companies to seek other alternatives, like offshoring, to have access to competent IT teams.
Offshoring Environment in the UK and Latin America
Developing and growing the digital aspects of any business is paramount to its success, but it can be costly, especially for startups. As stated above, due to costs and availability issues, hiring teams of designers and developers isn’t always a straightforward process. It can be overwhelming to manage the costs and efforts of hiring software development teams, especially in the startup stage, where budgetary and operational limitations can create conflict.
According to a study conducted by Glassdoor, the average hourly rate of a software developer in the UK is $80. If we are talking about hiring a full-time front-end developer in London, for instance, it costs about $55,000 a year (about $4,500 a month). Meanwhile, a back-end developer costs about $67,000 a year ($5,600 a month). All of this without considering paid leave, benefits, paid sick days, holidays, insurance, and other extras that keep mounting.
In contrast, the average hourly rate for developers in Latin American countries is $30, which means a 50%-60% cost reduction compared to average UK hourly rates. Furthermore, the ever-growing talent pool in Latin America represents an attractive alternative to the dwindling workforce in Europe. Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia are the largest IT service providers in the region, with the latter grossing $433 million worth of computer and IT services and products.
Benefits of Hiring a Latin American Development Partner
Language
There’s no denying that when building business relationships, good communication and mutual understanding are crucial. Language compatibility is what lays the groundwork for successful offshoring relationships. Luckily for UK companies, Latin American countries have a high level of proficiency as far as the English language goes, which sets the basis for a fluent communication.
According to Babbel, there are 5.4 million English speakers in South America alone, with Argentina (2.8 million) and Colombia (1.9 million) leading the way. English proficiency is high and keeps growing in the region due to governments incentivizing studies. Said studies include English as a requirement when graduating from schools, colleges, and other degrees. Additionally, most Latin American development partners hire staff members with considerable English fluency as a requirement.
Time Zone
Working with teams overseas often comes with difficulties when aligning workflows and overall ease of communication. Teams on opposing sides of the planet often have different work schedules, which causes inefficient work alignment. Consequently, a reasonable short time difference between parties is crucial for establishing successful business relationships.
As opposed to China, for instance, where there’s a difference of about 8-9 hours, most Latin American countries have a time difference with the UK of 5 hours, at most. Additionally, Latin American countries are behind UK time zones, which means that development teams start their work hours around noon UK-time.
The overlapping of hours is favorable for both because it allows the entire afternoon to be available for communication between parties, meetings, and overall project development. Also, when the UK company is sleeping or at nighttime, the Latin America teams are still in working hours. This enables the UK team to wake up to new work having already been done over the night.
Cost Efficiency
As stated above, the European IT workforce is not as abundant and available as it should be, which has caused prices to skyrocket. Furthermore, for UK-based startups and companies, hiring local talent means paying higher hourly rates and additional legal benefits and add-ons that can stack-up costs.
In Latin America, IT services are not only lower in costs but have the same, if not better, quality and reliability as locally-hired workforces. For UK companies, hiring an offshore development partner in Latin America represents an average of 50%-60% cost reduction when compared to hiring locally. Also, companies are only paying for the actual hours the developer worked on the project, which avoids extra costs. Additionally, there’s an always-growing talent pool, which means that availability is never an issue.
Business Growth and More Efficient Processes
Aside from costs and lack of availability, UK-based companies, and startups that hire local talent will also be sacrificing time and energy, which slows down processes and overall efficiency. Hiring processes, interviews, negotiations, documentation, and all that goes into assembling an onshore team can often become a hassle and jeopardize successful business development.
Offshoring promotes business growth by passing the responsibility of team-building to a company that already has the tools and talent at hand for this purpose. Startups and companies get access to an entire development team almost immediately, which can free-up workload and allows the employment of those resources in other areas of the business development cycle. Moreover, the offshore provider will handle everything regarding the project, which fast tracks processes and streamlines workflows within the company.
Conclusion
According to Statista, by the end of 2019, there were around 24 million developers worldwide. Most of those developers reside in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, which highlights the importance of offshoring for the UK and all of Western Europe. The advantages are manifold and are too good to pass up. Business development, resource and cost optimization, hiring efficiency, and less workload are some of the benefits of offshoring that can propel successful business structures.
Foonkie Monkey’s Added Value as an Offshore Development Partner
With more than 10 years of experience and over 200 projects developed, we offer outstanding offshore services based on innovative technologies, a skilled workforce , and transparent business practices. We provide top-quality software and app development offshore services while enforcing our pocket-friendly Shared Responsibility principle, a result-oriented approach to seeking the best cost-efficiency balance. Our Shared Responsibility approach guarantees that if objectives are not met, we will reduce the cost by 50% until they get fulfilled.
The benefits mentioned in this article are just a small part of the value we can add to your company by being the perfect offshore partner. If you want to work with the best, let’s talk!