Neither Offshore Nor Onshore: Head Nearshore for your Next Salesforce Commerce Cloud Tech Consultancy

Before getting started with this topic, it’s worth stressing from the start that any attempt at generalizing regions is going to ignore exceptions to the general trend, no matter how small or large. And so with that said, let’s dive into the discussion of shoring.

There has been a strong growth in outsourcing software development in recent years as geographic areas have emerged more fertile for cultivation. And there are essentially three types: onshore, offshore, and nearshore.

Offshoring in traditional geographic areas such as Eastern Europe and Asia has long been the preference for cheaper labor, which is typically offset by struggles with and limitations in clear communication, quality collaboration, and practices of agile methodologies. If the bottom line is the prime concern, then offshoring is going to appeal greatest to you — despite these already mentioned drawbacks.

If you have decided to undertake a revamp of your ecommerce site, whether it’s a modest WordPress site integrated with WooCommerce, or a thorough installation such as Salesforce Commerce Cloud, then the benefits of nearshoring your project maintains the benefits of competitive cost while providing a whole host of more effective and convenient similarities to that of the US.

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of reverting ship from the distant offshore to the neighborly nearshore.

Great value for money

As mentioned above, the greatest advantage of nearshoring is the ability to cut back on expenses while hiring tech and dev support in lower-income regions. Companies here are going to provide the technical personnel and facilities to career out your project at lower expense than American equivalents.

Working in sync

The second greatest benefit of nearshoring is that your teams are going to be able to work together in similar time zones. And this question of time is well worth taking seriously: if you’re based in California and decide to work with a partner in, let’s say India, then there is going to be a gulf of 12 and a half hours difference between you. Will you be wanting to wake up at 5am for a team call which is 5:30pm in India? Or wait until 8pm for a call to India where it is 8:30am?

Having a partner that is more in sync with your workflows and time is going to provide a more efficient working relationship and smoother communication. California and Mexico City, as well as Guadalajara, are separated by a mere two hours, and Argentina by four hours. If you’re on the east coast, then Argentina is a mere hour in front.

Closer cultural connections

If you’ve worked with outsourced teams before then you know that the beginning phase can become their discovery period as they learn and become aware of your company’s processes and workflows.

Nearshoring enables closer connectivity of tech expertise and other cultural similarities that are going to integrate your teams faster, which in turn helps to build better and clearer channels of communication.

With a faster onboarding process, the agency or consultancy is able to get to work and start contributing value at a much earlier phase than those located offshore.

And keeping with culture, there is a tendency among many Asian cultures for individuals to withhold their own opinions, particularly when it comes to providing alternative solutions or risks that are unknown to you. The result is a much wider exposure to project delays and reworks.

Alternatively, cultures in Latin America are noted for higher levels of sharing autonomous views and opinions. Engineers, software developers, designers and the rest of the teams are not going to hold out as much when it comes to providing you with their expertise, whether or not you initiate the conversation.

Besides these benefits, finding a tech and dev agency that is spread out across the nearshore of the US is going to be the most valuable, because it is in their nature to communicate and work across continents already, and so adjusting to your work requirements is going to be a much smooth process.

PS: UV is one of the world’s leading Demandware (now SFCC) development teams, and has offices in New York (US), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Guadalajara (Mexico). Contact us to see how we can work together.