Trips Abroad: Nearshoring with Partners in Argentina

As covered in previous articles, the region of Latin America has become a popular place for North American companies to partner with staff augmentation vendors.

Within the region, there are many countries that are adept at providing quality services when it comes to staff augmentation. And today we’re going to talk about one of them in particular: Argentina.

The Southern Cone nation is an ideal location when it comes to nearshoring software development capabilities. And here is why.

Argentina is already an established country that provides staff augmentation for North American businesses – and in particular software development, an industry which has experienced sustained growth, doubling in the last decade.

According to the Permanent Observatory for the Software and Information Services Industry (OPPSI), the main destination for Argentine software and IT services is the US, accounting for 52% of total exports.

Argentina’s main advantages can be summed up in the following:

• Similar time zone
• High education & English levels
• Value for money
• Similar work culture
• Developed infrastructure

Now we can excavate each of these to see them in greater detail.

Similar time zone

The closer the clock the easier the communication. Time differences matter – and not just for couples trying to make things work as one of them goes off to college, but also for work partners who are attempting to build solid relationships and regular real-time collaboration.

Argentina is just 1 hour ahead of New York and Ontario; 2 hours ahead of Texas; 4 hours ahead of San Francisco and Vancouver; and conversely 4 hours behind the UK.

Remote teams are able to be integrated into the workday, or at least half of the working day if on the west coast, making Argentina an important strategic spot.

With a growing time difference comes growing communication issues, with greater hindrances on daily conversations – all of which can play into hidden costs related to project delays and work inefficiencies.

High education and English levels

It’s no good hiring devs simply based on their proximity to the US and Canada. You need a quality workforce. Argentina has a respected educational system within the region: it has a free education system all the way until university. 

Its goldstar institution, the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) is renowned across the world. UBA is considered the best university in the whole of Latin America, and is ranked 69th in the world rankings. The institution trains professionals in many areas, and among them many subjects related to technology, software development, and user experience.

In fact, 24% of undergraduate students choose courses linked to science and technology. While outside of academia, the government, along with private companies such as IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft collaborate in the training of more and more professionals to meet the demands.

When it comes to technical skills, Argentina is ranked #1 in Latin America and #22 in the world. And their English skills are pretty decent, too. Actually, Argentina has the highest English level in all of Latin America.

Value for money

When it comes to the value of the Argentine staff augmentation workforce, costs are lower than you may think. With a commitment to delivering solutions on time without the annoying practice of accumulating hidden costs.

When it comes to the comparison of contractors by the total cost of ownership (where the return is measured in the short, medium, and long term) then Argentina stands out as the best performer.

Similar work culture

Like much of Latin America, Western culture has influenced Argentina over the last 2oo years, and particularly US culture. This eases the integration and communication between a company and augmented staff. 

The influence is paralleled in the office culture. Practices such as Agile development and management methodologies like Scrum have been adopted and quickly become core parts of the working culture.

Developed infrastructure

In terms of infrastructure, Argentina ranks in the top tier and is complemented by social networking adoption, smartphone usage, and high-speed internet.

In terms of software development, the sector has a legal framework that provides certain privileges such as tax benefits, making it one of the more protected economic areas.