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As 2024 unfolds, the digital landscape is not merely evolving—it’s transforming. The pace at which technological innovation is advancing intensifies the need for strategic sourcing of tech talent. More than ever, aligning with skilled web developers isn’t just beneficial; it’s imperative for companies aiming to solidify their digital presence.

In this transformative climate, Latin America (LATAM) stands out as a pivotal force. Once primarily viewed as a classic outsourcing destination, LATAM has redefined itself as a hub of tech innovation and skilled remote development talent. The region’s unique blend of advanced technical skills, cultural alignment, and cost-effectiveness makes it an excellent choice for businesses poised to lead in the digital arena of 2024.

Growth and Opportunities in the IT Sector

Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina are spearheading substantial growth in Latin America’s developer population, which is expanding at an annual rate of 7%—almost double the global average. This surge is supported by significant investments in technology education, with the number of graduates in computer science and engineering doubling in the last decade.

Complementing this educational advancement, English proficiency in major urban areas across the region has surpassed 50%, facilitating seamless integration with international teams. This linguistic capability is crucial for effective collaboration, positioning Latin American professionals as ideal partners for remote projects.

Advantages of Hiring Remote Tech Talent from the Region

Engaging with Latin America’s IT workforce offers several strategic benefits:

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Deepening Tech Capabilities in LATAM

The technological landscape in LATAM is not only expanding but also deepening. There is a growing emphasis on specialized fields such as cybersecurity, cloud services, and big data analytics. This focus is driven by a mix of local startups and international corporations establishing R&D centers, enriching the region’s skills diversity and expertise.

This deep pool of talent, eager to tackle new challenges, makes LATAM an optimal choice for outsourcing sophisticated projects. Additionally, the region’s alignment with North American business practices and the widespread adoption of agile methodologies ensure seamless collaboration. This cultural and operational synergy is invaluable in remote work settings, where understanding subtle project nuances and aligning with client expectations are crucial for success.

Strategies for Hiring Remote Developers from LATAM

As technology evolves rapidly, defining clear and effective strategies for integrating LATAM talent into global projects is more critical than ever:

Is your business poised to leverage LATAM’s booming IT sector? With its rich pool of tech talent and strategic advantages, LATAM offers a unique opportunity to enhance your digital operations effectively. Contact Intersog today to discover how our solutions can seamlessly integrate LATAM’s expertise into your projects, ensuring you stay ahead in the competitive digital race.

Scaling your business can be tough, especially when you’re working with a limited budget and a small team. Also hiring and retaining talent have also become one of the greatest challenges for companies these days. According to a 2020 survey, 54% of employers worldwide reported difficulty filling open positions due to talent shortages; furthermore, in the US, a survey conducted by Korn Ferry found that the talent shortage could reach 85.2 million workers by 2030, potentially costing companies trillions of dollars in lost revenue.

But don’t worry. With the right staff augmentation company, you can access the talent and resources you need to take your business to the next level. In this article, we’ve done the research for you and compiled a list of the top 10 staff augmentation companies. From tech wizards to creative geniuses, these companies have got you covered. So let’s dive in and explore the best staff augmentation companies of the year!”

BEON.tech

Founded: 2018

Company size: 50-200

Website: https://beon.tech/ 

Offices: Argentina

Services: Workforce augmentation

Industry expertise: Startups, Web Apps, angular, react, python, ror, ruby on rails, .NET, C#, staff augmentation y remote

BEON is a nearshore staff augmentation company offering dedicated teams and staff augmentation services. They recruit top talent from Latin America with great expertise and a flawless level of English.

Their team members cover 5 time zones and 2 languages: English and Spanish. This creates an agile environment, ideal for companies looking to augment their teams. BEON offers professionals in a variety of fields, including engineering, quality assurance, and management. Tech stack: Node.js, Ruby on Rails, React.js, Python, .NET, PHP, Go, Angular, React Native.

DOIT Software

Founded: 2014

Company size: 10-50

Website: https://doit.software/

Offices: Ukraine, USA

Services: IT staff augmentation services, Dedicated development team

Industry expertise: Mobile App development, Website development, and E-commerce (Magento, WordPress, OpenCart)

DOIT Software is a software development company that specializes in providing software solutions for businesses of all sizes. The company was founded in 2014 and has since worked with clients from a wide range of industries, including healthcare, finance, logistics, and e-commerce. Their services include software development, mobile app development, web development, cloud computing, DevOps, and quality assurance.

DOIT Software has a team of over 40 professionals with expertise in various technologies such as Java, .NET, Node.js, React Native, and Angular. They are committed to delivering high-quality software solutions that are tailored to meet their clients’ unique business needs.

Intersog

Founded: 2005

Company size: 200-250

Website: https://intersog.mx/

Offices: Ukraine, Israel, USA, Canada & Mexico

Services: Software Development and IT Staff Augmentation Services

Industry expertise: IoT app development, Big Data, iOS development, offshore software teams, software development, medical software, wearable app development, eHealth app development, mobile health apps, android development y IT staffing

Intersog is a Chicago-based provider of software engineering, custom development, and IT consulting solutions. 

They help companies address IT talent shortage challenges and jump fast on the innovation bandwagon by building dedicated software development teams locally in the USA, Canada, Mexico, or their R&D centers in Ukraine, as well as providing ad-hoc project resources for short- and long-term software project needs.

The company was founded in 2005 and has since worked with clients from a wide range of industries, including healthcare, finance, logistics, and e-commerce. Their services include software development, mobile app development, web development, cloud computing, DevOps, and quality assurance.

Intersog has a team of over 200 professionals with expertise in various technologies such as Java, .NET, Python, Ruby on Rails, and React. They are committed to delivering high-quality software solutions that are tailored to meet their client’s unique business needs. 

Intersog’s advantage is that they fit perfectly in any software development partnership and empower innovation with their 6 A’s strengths: Advisory, Application Development, Automation, Analytics, Access to Talent, and Actual Results. So if you’re looking for a software development partner with a strong presence in Latin America and a global reach, Intersog may be worth considering.

e-Core

Founded: 1999

Company size: 500-1000

Website: http://e-core.com 

Offices: Brazil, USA, Canada, UK

Services: IT staff augmentation

Industry expertise: Custom Application Development, Atlassian Services, DevOps, JIRA, Atlassian Training, Project Management, Agile Culture, MVP Development.

e-Core is a software development company that specializes in providing custom software solutions and technology consulting services. They are headquartered in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and have additional offices in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

The company was founded in 1999 and has since worked with clients from a wide range of industries, including healthcare, finance, e-commerce, and government. Their services include software development, cloud computing, digital transformation, and quality assurance.

The company has received positive reviews from clients who have praised their technical expertise, communication skills, and ability to deliver projects on time and within budget. e-Core is also known for their Agile methodologies, which allow clients to work closely with their development teams and make changes as needed throughout the development process.

N-IX

Founded: 2002

Company size: 1000 – 5000

Website: https://www.n-ix.com 

Offices: Sweden, USA, Ukraine

Services: IT staff augmentation

Industry expertise: Custom Application Development, Atlassian Services, DevOps, JIRA, Atlassian Training, Project Management, Agile Culture, MVP Development.

N-iX is a global software development service company that helps businesses across the globe expand their engineering capabilities and develop successful software products. Founded in 2002, N-iX has come a long way and built a strong presence in Europe and the US. Being in business for over two decades, the company has formed strategic partnerships with a variety of global businesses and Fortune 500 leaders, including OpenText, Fluke Corporation, AVL, Lebara, Currencycloud, TuneIn, and many others.

With more than 2,000 professionals, N-iX offers expert solutions in software engineering, cloud-native services, data analytics, embedded software, IoT, machine learning, and other tech domains covering a wide variety of sectors, including finance, manufacturing, telecom, supply chain, to name a few. N-iX Solution Group, a team of top N-iX experts, works together with our partners to solve their business problems through technology and innovation. 

Avenga

Founded: 2019

Company size: 1000 – 5000

Website: http://avenga.com/ 

Offices: Poland, USA, Ukraine & Kuala Lumpur

Services: IT staff augmentation

Industry expertise: Strategic consulting, Customer experience, Solution engineering, Product engineering, Enterprise application development, Data Science & Big Data services, AI, AR / VR, Enterprise management systems, Cloud, UI / UX, Digital Platform development y IoT

In November 2019, four well-established companies with unique cultures, backgrounds, and strengths merged into one global IT company to transform industries. Today, Avenga is a global IT that delivers strategy, customer experience, solution engineering, managed services, and software products with a clear mission to “connect brilliance with opportunity.” 

They have more than 3500 professionals with over 20 years of experience in the area of IT and digital transformation. Avenga maintains a total of 27 locations in Europe, Asia, and the USA. The company is backed by funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management L.P. and Cornerstone Partners to expand internationally further. 

Five Pack Creative

Founded: 2008

Company size: 50-200

Website: http://fivepack.com/ 

Offices: USA, Mexico

Services: Software development

Industry expertise: Android App Development, Quality Assurance, Mobile App Development, iOS development, UX/UI Design, Software Development, Mobile Staffing, Staff Augmentation y Custom Software development

Five Pack Creative is a U.S.-based IT staff augmentation company. Founded in 2008, the firm offers its services all across North America. The key focus of the business makes on developing custom mobile apps along with out-staffing. 

Since its foundation, the company has worked with clients from a wide range of industries, including healthcare, finance, education, and e-commerce. They are headquartered in Frisco, Texas, and also have offices in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Guadalajara, Mexico.

Five Pack Creative has a team of over 50 professionals with expertise in various technologies such as iOS, Android, React Native, and Node.js. With more than a hundred successful projects under its belt, Five Pack Creative manages to build high-quality products and offer skilled experts. 

ProCoders

Founded: 2007

Company’s size: 50-249

Website: https://procoders.tech/ 

Offices: Portugal, Croatia, Albania

Services: Team augmentation, Software discovery phase

Industry expertise: Healthcare, Supply chain

The company was founded in 2007 and has since worked with clients from a wide range of industries, including healthcare, finance, logistics, and e-commerce. Their services include software development, mobile app development, web development, cloud computing, DevOps, and quality assurance.

ProCoders has a team of over 70 professionals with expertise in various technologies such as Java, .NET, Python, React, and Angular. They are committed to delivering high-quality software solutions that are tailored to meet their client’s unique business needs. ProCoders is also known for their flexible engagement models, which allow clients to choose the level of involvement they want in the development process.

Newxel

Founded: 2016

Company size: 250-999

Website: https://newxel.com/

Offices: USA, Cyprus, Ukraine

Services: R&D, Staff augmentation service

Industry expertise: Arts, Finance, Gaming

Newxel is a technology recruitment agency that specializes in providing staff augmentation services for companies looking to hire software developers and IT professionals. They are headquartered in Kyiv, Ukraine, and also have offices in the United Kingdom and the United States. 

They have a team of experienced recruiters who specialize in sourcing top tech talent and work closely with clients to understand their hiring needs and find the right candidates to fit their company culture and technical requirements.

Nickelfox

Founded: 2015

Company’s size: 50-249

Website: https://www.nickelfox.com/ 

Offices: India, USA, Australia, UK

Services: Staff Augmentation, Product Design & Consulting, Web and App Development

Industry expertise: eCommerce, Healthcare, Education, Business, Consumer products & services, Fintech

Nickelfox is an IT staff augmentation company that helps to create unique and customized solutions, combining a passion for technology and business understanding. They have also partnered with the United Nations, The NY Times, ITC, Gucci, GE, Dunzo, MyGov, and others to deliver successful software and mobile app solutions. Their clientele is spread across 25 countries and over 30 industries.

If you’re looking for a software development partner with a strong presence in India and a focus on quality and flexibility, Nickelfox may be worth considering.

In conclusion, finding the right staff augmentation partner can make all the difference when it comes to scaling your business, completing projects on time, and achieving your long-term goals. The top 10 staffing companies of 2023 that we’ve explored in this article represent the best of the best in terms of technical expertise, professionalism, and commitment to client success.

Whether you’re looking for a software development company, a recruitment agency, or a technology consulting firm, there’s a provider on this list that can meet your needs. By partnering with one of these top staffing companies, you can access the talent and resources you need to take your business to the next level and stay ahead of the competition.

The last three years have completely shaped the labor market and how the workplace is understood. The world has seemingly gone from one crisis to another – from the COVID-19 pandemic to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the most recent inflation and rise in the cost of living. 

In 2022 companies were busy playing tug-of-war with workers over return-to-office policies while also engaging in a brutal war for talent to attract and retain only the best employees. Now, with a brand new year ahead of us, what is in store for the workplace of 2023? 

Here are some workplace and hiring trends that will shape the business world.

Technology and digital tools

The increased use of technology and digital tools in the workplace has been consolidated in recent years, and it’s not going anywhere. This includes using cloud-based software, collaboration tools, and virtual meeting platforms, making it easier for employees to work remotely or from different locations. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of these technologies, as many businesses had to transition to remote work in order to continue operating during lockdowns and other restrictions. Nowadays, the use of digital tools has proven to help businesses to increase productivity, improve communication and collaboration, and reduce the need for in-person meetings and travel. 

For example, cloud-based software allows employees to access work-related information and tools from any device with an internet connection. This has made it possible for employees to work remotely, as they don’t need to be physically present in the office to access the necessary resources. Other tools such as collaboration tools like Asan, Basecamp, Slack, and Trello and virtual meeting platforms such as Zoom, Skype, and Google Meet will continue on the rise, allowing employees to communicate and collaborate with each other in real time, regardless of their location.

Therefore, companies need to ensure that employees have the necessary training and support to use these tools effectively and to address any potential challenges that may arise, such as difficulties with technology or difficulties with adapting to remote work.

Remote work is here to stay 

Despite many companies encouraging employees to return to the office, employees aren’t letting go of hybrid and remote work. Consequently, many companies have started following the increasingly common practice of having remote teams. Now, as we start the year 2023, organizations will become more comfortable with implementing this work structure. One of the most popular policies that workers will use their leverage for will be the option to work remotely. According to Forrester, the number of remote workers at the end of 2021 was 3x pre-pandemic levels, and 74% of professionals expect remote work to become standard.

Remote teams are a great way of cooperating and leveraging skilled specialists. In the case of software development, hiring a remote team of developers and engineers is a great strategy for success. Now more than ever, companies, big and small, around the globe are leveraging remote work to their advantage by hiring tech talent remotely.

Also, remote hiring allows companies to access a pool of tech talent around the world so that they can select the best talent for their project. In 2023, employers will reassess current hybrid working arrangements in order to rebuild culture, improve mental health and retain talent. 

A tight labor market

The end of the COVID-19 pandemic came along with tough times for employers to find new talent and retain it. This 2023, the situation is not looking different, as the economic downturn turned into a tight labor market and fierce and widespread competition to attract and retain talent. Some sources like Indeed and Glassdoor even believe that hiring will remain challenging for years to come, driven by demographics and evolving preferences. 

This context will lead to increased competition among employers to attract and retain workers but may also result in higher wages and better working conditions as employers try to attract and retain employees.

In other words, in a tight labor market, workers may have more bargaining power and may be able to negotiate higher salaries or better benefits. They may also have more job opportunities available to them, allowing them to choose from a range of options and potentially switch jobs more easily.

In that sense, we are facing a year full of challenges for employers who may struggle to find the workers they need to meet demand and may have to invest more resources in recruiting and retaining employees. Therefore, new, more novel acquisition strategies must come to the fore.

Companies should plan for multiple future scenarios and stay agile to navigate potential disruptions to hiring. Finally, companies that partner with staffing agencies will be better placed to survive a difficult talent landscape. 

Flexibility equals happiness 

Nowadays, workers prioritize flexibility in their workplace as a crucial element of their happiness and well-being more than they did before the pandemic. On this note, flexibility at the workplace can enhance good employee experience, which is crucial, for it not only determines the intent of an employee to stay with the organization but also their productivity and engagement. 

Successful companies do not treat their employees as mere workers but as human beings with complex emotions and lives outside work. Therefore, it is understandable that each of one them goes through multiple situations and experiences that can and will impact their performance within the workplace. 

Glassdoor and Indeed estimate that 90% of people believe that how we feel at work matters, but only 49% of people report their company is measuring happiness and well-being. Even the best employees need help from time to time, so make sure you’re offering plenty of support. Whether it’s professional or personal, proving that you’re on their side when they need you is one of the most important things you can do. It is vital that you take advantage of your communication channels and connect with your employees from a place of empathy. 

Try to implement mechanisms that improve your company’s flexibility. You can achieve this by allowing your employees to work in their preferred environment at their preferred hours to decrease stress and increase productivity. You can also advocate for a professional and personal life balance; you can do this by establishing healthy working hours or even making available mindfulness programs and mental-health resources for your staff. 

Be creative and bold to maintain a flexible work environment; as long as you maintain clear communication and become aware of what your employees need, you will come up with the right tactics to make your employees happier.

Retention through upskilling

It’s not all about promotions and salaries; in 2023, workers can expect their employers to invest more in training and upskilling programs to equip them with the skills they require.  Many employees consider opportunities to grow and learn as a reason to stay at their job; according to LinkedIn, 94 percent of employees say that they would stay at a company longer if it simply invested in helping them learn.

But just offering employees with random learning opportunities won’t cut it. To improve your employee experience, it is important for you to give them the necessary amount o time and resources to learn in desired areas and facilitate them with the right tools to help them advance in their careers. According to a recent survey from Amazon and Workplace Intelligence, 83% of workers place improving their skills as their number one priority in 2023. Find out what motivates your team and provide the opportunities they’re looking for. This will help you improve your employee engagement to build a healthy work environment.

First, focus on helping your employees to establish a career path within your organization; this will allow you to know their aspirations and choose training accordingly to help them achieve their goals. Once their path is clear, make self-directed learning available, like webinars, schooling, training, or in-person events. 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

Another trend that has been gaining momentum is the focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Many companies are making efforts to create a more inclusive and equitable work environment, including through initiatives such as hiring and promoting more diverse candidates, implementing unconscious bias training, and adopting policies that support work-life balance and flexible scheduling.

Inclusion and diversity in the workplace can bring a range of benefits to both employers and employees. Some of the potential benefits include the following:

Although the 2023 workforce landscape is complex and challenging as businesses and workers face acute ongoing financial obstacles, now is the perfect opportunity for business leaders to learn from the past and prepare for what might lie further down this and the upcoming years.

It is not the time to let their guard down. It is crucial for team leaders and HR teams to keep on top of trends and be more flexible and creative than before to sort out whatever this new year brings. 

All companies have a goal in common: to grow their product and the demand for it. Every business should focus its efforts on increasing productivity in the workplace, as the more productive a company is, the easier it is to boost profits and improve business relationships. However, improving productivity is not as simple as it sounds.

Boosting productivity can pose a challenge to all, but particularly to startups, as their customer acquisition growth starts to happen very quickly and the need to accelerate the product roadmap becomes inevitable; this is when the engineering teams need to find ways to be more productive and accomplish their goals accordingly. 

However, being more productive does not rely on working more. In other words, a team cannot simply be asked to work more hours and be told to be more productive; instead, we should be finding new ways of building productive teams. That said, let’s explore some of the most common productivity challenges and how nearshore solutions can be the answer to creating more agile software and development teams.

Let’s stay productive, but how? 

Every team experience a lack of productivity at some point, do not panic! Productivity challenges are common in teams of all sizes; however, as a small company, your team might feel they need to do a lot with little resources, which doesn’t help the productivity process. Even when you have everybody fired up and ready to tackle their tasks, you still get stuck, deadlines are missed, and team members are burnt out.

Being unproductive has a lot of root causes and is especially common during these times, as most employees from all over the world work remotely. We listed below some of the most common productivity issues your team might experience so you can spot them right away and avoid them before they start hampering your team’s productivity.

Social Isolation

Working remotely has many advantages; how don’t you enjoy avoiding traffic at rush hour or working in sweatpants? However, working from home can also feels kind of lonely. Although apparently going all day to the office might seem a thing of the past, it promoted interaction with other employees, camaraderie, and encouragement. In other words, physical and social interaction promotes a sense of community that motivates workers to reach their common goals. 

Working remotely can increase a sense of social isolation and reduce the sense of belonging to a team; this will eventually make your workers feel like they are standing alone while trying to accomplish the company’s goals. Social isolation will have a negative impact on the workers and affect their productivity within the company. 

Overwhelm and burnout:

Did you know that 23% of workers say they feel burned out more often than not, while 44% reported feeling burnt out sometimes? As ironic as it sounds, too much work is one of the main productivity blockers. The feeling of having too many things to do and not making any progress can lead to a feeling of overwhelm and burnout in your workers pretty fast, which will block productivity completely. 

Dealing with burnout has become even more challenging with remote work models, as the lines between having a work/life balance can get blurred easily. Now it is more common for employees to spend extra hours on the computer and have a hard time separating their “home environment” from their “working environment.”

Lack of clarity and communication

One of the biggest challenges of leading a remote engineering team is a lack of communication. According to Buffer’s State Of Remote Work 2020, 20% of workers surveyed responded that the biggest struggle with working remotely they have is difficulties with collaboration and communication. 

Working physically at the same place makes communication more direct and fast, as any manager can just show up at a worker’s desk and ask for something or call a meeting whenever is needed. On the other hand, when all the team is working remotely, communication can be a little trickier. When wires get crossed, the team can get lost in their tasks and priorities, and this can hinder productivity within the company.

Different Time Zones

Working remotely has allowed companies to hire talent without limiting it to their local area, which means having workers within different time zones. Also, some companies choose to outsource their employees from other countries, which poses the same time zone challenge. If not managed masterly,  this can cause problems with scheduling and communication, which will eventually lead to lower productivity rates.

How to increase productivity

Reaching high productivity levels, and more importantly, keeping them, is a learning process; however, it shouldn’t be a paramount task. With the right communication strategies and the right partner, efficiency is just around the corner. Here are some simple techniques to help you maximize the productivity of your remote team and how some solutions like nearshore can help you succeed.

Conduct Regular Online Meetings

As stated above, remote employees often feel isolated as they work without having direct interaction with their colleagues. We recommend you encourage continuous integration and knowledge sharing and prioritize communication to allow an agile development methodology with your remote teams. To fight isolation within your remote team, there´s nothing as effective as holding regular meetings with your employees. This will help you to strengthen your relationship while keeping a sense of belonging in your workers. Make sure to communicate clearly during these meetings and follow a shared agenda, so the meeting can be short and sweet.

Also, it helps to hold regular one-on-one meetings with your employees. These more personal sessions will help you motivate your team members and get more personalized feedback from your employees. Take advantage of these opportunities to discuss particular issues and explore any struggle the team might be facing and come up with solutions. 

Set individual expectations and goals

Setting individual expectations and short and long-term goals is one of the easiest ways to reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed among your employees, reducing the levels of stress and ultimately burnout. Also, try to give your workers specialized guidance on how to achieve what is expected from them; remember if you don’t communicate to your team what they should be doing, it is difficult for them to achieve what you are expecting.

Being realistic about workloads and deadlines will help you organize better and will ultimately help the company as a whole to work in a smoother and more efficient environment. But what happens when a project’s workload is not as straightforward? Nearshore is a great tool to deal with changes in project demands.

With nearshore, you have the ability to scale upwards or downwards depending on the demand allowing you to add strategic resources where they are needed without the need to overload your workers with tasks and extra hours. Plus, strategically hiring nearshore talent of a project-based nature will help you delegate tasks better, allowing your employees to stick to their work plans and organize better.

Promote a healthy work-life

Without a traditional in-house working environment (with coffee breaks, conference room meetings, happy hours, or lunch), you need to create other spaces and procedures in other to build a good work culture based on shared values and a sense of responsibility. There are plenty of helpful actions you can apply to your management skills in order to improve a healthy work culture within your team while improving productivity. Firstly, avoid micromanagement; give your employees the freedom to do what they do best; that’s why you hire them. Communicate clearly your project goals and let go of the outcome. Also, focus on long-term goals; instead of tracking every step of the project, focus on long-term goals to increase productivity. Give your remote workers a problem instead of a solution, they will be more creative. Finally, reduce busywork; automate everything that can be automated, and make sure that your team has fun working for you. Encourage your workers to find solutions and organize their work on their own, trying to avoid routinary tasks as possible.

Effective Communication

Good communication is crucial in any team; without it, hardly any project can be successful. Being located remotely throughout different regions can pose big communication challenges, so make sure to have an effective schedule and organized workflow and that your team stays up-to-date with everything. Try to find the best time for team meetings and stick to a solid communication plan.

It also helps to be present at the meetings. We sometimes know remote meetings are hard to attend but pay as much attention as you can and make sure everyone is engaged and focused. As stated above, it will also help if you make the meetings short and to the point. Finally, build a solid rapport with every team member. You need to communicate with them clearly and make sure that both your in-house team and your remote teams are on the same page.

Having nearshore partners is a great solution to improve communication. By hiring nearshore software development, everyone’s tasks are clear, and the communication is usually straightforward. Also, by having nearshore talent, you won’t need to wait for hours to receive a response making it easier to plan and meet your deadlines.

Work around the time zone

If you succeed in not micromanaging, you are already on the other side of good management skills. Good remote developers tend to be independent and self-organized by nature, so they will surely appreciate you giving them the freedom to organize their time. However, what happens when your remote software team is located throughout different time zones?

It’s true that having resources from around the world can steal productivity due to the change of timezone, but don’t be scared about having talent from different regions; with good organization and management skills, they won’t become an obstacle but rather an advantage for your projects. 

Once again, nearshore is a great option to boost productivity within your remote team.

Sharing timezones with nearshore resources means communication happens in real-time, and therefore the team remains collaborative. These overlapping hours when you and your team are available are known as “golden hours” and will be a great asset for your team’s organization. Try to squeeze as many meetings as possible into those times for instant communication.

Summing Up

If you learn to manage remote development teams, you will gain incredible productivity levels. Remember that the quality of work is never determined by a geographical location, and a properly managed team can do wonders for your projects. Don’t be afraid of extending your engineering team with highly skilled global talent. At Intersog, we can help you by providing you with a flexible nearshore workforce solution of highly skilled tech talent tailored to your company’s needs.

Why you should be looking at your company culture

Company culture has always been important, but it has gained more and more important in the last decade or so. Now, as we get used to the new normal and the perks and challenges of remote work, company culture has become even more important as the modern workplace continues to evolve.

But first, what is company culture? It is the set of shared values, practices, and goals that characterize an organization. In other words, it refers to the common ethos of a company, its nature, and the way its workers live and breathe the company’s core values, from the CEO to the newest intern. Simply put, company culture is how workers live and work within the workplace. It is how they feel about the work they do, the values they abide by, and the goals that motivate them day by day. 

So why is it so important?  According to Fobes, there are clear benefits to having a strong, unified company culture:

The importance of Company Culture goes far beyond the environment of the office; it impacts every facet of the business. Therefore, it is no surprise that companies that actively manage to keep a good and permanent culture maintain higher employee retention and boast higher employee engagement rates than those with weak cultures. 

Cultural fit for the win

As stated above, company culture is the essence of a business and impacts every asset of it, from how the work is organized internally to the way the company does business externally. Therefore, it is not sufficient for companies to maintain a strong culture; it is crucial to find talent that holds cultural compatibility with your business and that will aby to your company culture at all times. In other words, it is not enough to find candidates with the right skills; companies should be looking for talent in sync with their personality and values too. This is what we call cultural fit. 

Let’s think about it like any type of relationship; finding a good cultural fit means finding someone who believes in your company’s mission and shares a similar outlook and attitude as their potential colleagues. Therefore, you should be looking for candidates that share similar beliefs, attitudes, and values aligned with your company.  

If you are struggling to identify your company culture, there are plenty of tools to help you start. In the meantime, don’t stress and keep it simple; just identify what makes your company tick and align your recruitment accordingly. For example, if your company focuses on innovation and risk-taking, you should be looking for employees who are eager to participate and challenge the status quo to constantly find ways to innovate and develop new ideas. On the other hand, if your company follows a strong hierarchical structure, your HR team should be looking for candidates that prefer an established order regarding power and decision-making. 

So, why is cultural fit so important? Well, as in any type of relationship, when there’s a good match, the union thrives. When a company hires the right people, people actually want to work every day and enjoy collaborating with their co-workers, as they feel valued and appreciated within the organization. Here are some advantages of achieving a strong cultural fit:

No wonder why 75% of recruiters say that cultural fit is more important than work history and experience in the hiring process. 

Cultural fit has become even more important since remote culture became the new trend. Mainly because when a team doesn’t interact physically every day, it is easy for employees to start pursuing their own goals instead of the company’s goals. The lack of strong cultural fit at the time of hiring will eventually different teams to have different cultures.

How to hire for culture fit

Not having a strong cultural fit when hiring remote employees results in a lack of collaboration (which in turn leads to loss of time and money and project delays). Also, it will be challenging to grow a team because it will be difficult to know what makes a successful employee in a given team. This leads to lowered team performance, higher turnover, and bad hires.

At Intersog, we would never want you to go through the aforementioned struggles, so we gathered some helpful tips to help you achieve a strong cultural fit from the get-go when hiring remotely.

Finding the right cultural fit for your company can positively impact your business in more ways than one. The end goal is to identify your culture and hire the best candidates whose skills and attributes match the organization’s core values with the help of an expert partner already established in the region. ​​

With over 15 years of experience providing top-performing staffing solutions that help businesses succeed in the digital world, let us help you extend your engineering team with highly skilled global talent that will fit your company perfectly. Let’s ride the tech wave and make great things happen.

There is nothing better than starting the year with new and promising opportunities to grow your business, including potential new additions to your team. As the year 2022 starts, and still with the uncertainty of how long Covid-19 will continue to impact the employment market, preparing for future job openings to avoid starting from scratch and building a strong talent network is crucial.

Simply put, a talent network is a database of interested leads who agree on receiving communications from your business to learn more about your jobs, projects, events, and other career-related information without necessarily applying for a job. 

But actually, a world-class talent network is much more, as it can help you to build a pipeline of evergoing interested leads (giving you the ability to fill positions more quickly and successfully) and nurture them to keep candidate leads warm and grow their interest in your organization so they may eventually apply or spread the word about your business opportunities. Last year, over 27% of the Fortune 500 allow candidates to join their talent network without applying, and the number is expected to grow. 

Now, if you do not have a clear idea of where to start building a talent network, here are a few tips for you to start right away:

Rejection is not the end

The easiest and fastest way to grow your talent network is through your company’s regular job application process. While most applicants either get hired or turned away, there are always a few candidates that fall into a grey area that your talent network can cover. If you come across someone that it’s not the perfect fit your the position they are applying, but could be a good fit for your company in the future if you have the right position, consider adding them to your talent network:

Inform your potential candidates that while they have been rejected for that position they applied for, you were impressed with their resume and would like to add them to your talent pool for future consideration.

Ask around 

Confucius once said, “the man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life”. Even if you think you are starting from scratch, we guarantee you that you have more connections than you think and closer than you imagine. Just ask around! Put out calls for colleagues and employees to refer or suggest to you other candidates in their network. Plus, having a personal connection already working within your team can encourage potential candidates to feel confident enough to apply for a job or to gain interest in your company. 

Once you make the connection, do not let the relationship go cold. When somebody joins your talent network, it is crucial that you interact with them to keep them engaged; remember building relationships is what matters. 

Get creative on your search

One of the best pieces of advice we can give to you is to not limit your search for talent to certain groups; the more creative and open-minded you are, the more chances you have to build a strong talent network. It’s time to think out of the box and expand the places where you connect with new talent. 

For example, look within former independent contractors or employees who have successfully worked for or engaged with your company in the past; keep an eye on different organizations and schools for eager new graduates hungry for the experience, and connect with retirees that want to keep working as independents. The sky is the limit! 

On that note, diversifying where you look for talent can be your game-changer, and Latin America has consolidated over the years as a giant pool of pure talent. 

Why LatAm?

Well, first of all, as the global tech industry keeps booming, it relies on a continuous influx of professionals to fill its growing number of job demands. Just in the U.S., the tech sector has seen unprecedented growth in recent years, with four tech firms reaching a $1 trillion market cap by the beginning of 2020 — all of which have seen double-digit growth since achieving a 13-digit valuation pre-pandemic, making demand much higher than supply.

On that note, Latin America has become one of the main hubs for tech talent and software development and the region has become the perfect place to look for engineering talent

due to its ever-increasing number of tech graduates and new developers.

However, it’s not by chance that companies look at Latin America as a talent gold mine. Here are some advantages to look into:

It’s Cost-effective

Ok, first of all, the money…One of the main reasons American companies turn towards Latin America for potential hirees is lower costs. American tech companies can lower their operational costs by outsourcing their tasks to more affordable candidates in other countries. For example, outsourcing a software engineer job to someone in India can cost 11x less than it would hire someone in the USA to do the same job. On that note, Latin America is an attractive option for sourcing talent. Hourly rates for developers in this region, although higher on average than countries in Asia and Africa, are significantly less than in the Global North, plus the area is within the same time zone and has a relatively similar work culture enabling better collaboration to overall project success.

It’s Logistically Smart

As already mentioned, besides the lower costs, the Latinamerican region is close enough to the Northamerican markets, enabling real-time collaboration at times that work best for both parties to make projects time-efficient and easy to coordinate. While the time difference between America and Asia can exceed 12 hours, the time difference between American companies and countries in South America is usually within 5 hours, which keeps exchanges within the same business day.

Beyond the time difference, many cultural similarities make working with Latin America the clear choice for tech outsourcing. For example, the U.S. is home to more than 41 million native Spanish speakers, plus over 12 million bilingual Spanish speakers, while English is the third most spoken immigrant language in South America, with about 5.4 million speakers, compared to the English literacy rate in China that hovers around 1%.

Also, the number of consumer and cultural exports from countries like Mexico and Colombia to the U.S. helps to build familiarity and solidarity between the two countries, which can only help advance to a healthy relationship within the company.

 It’s Full of Talent 

As stated above, Latin America is producing big amounts of engineering talent day by day. For example, Mexican universities are nearly producing as many computer sciences graduates as American ones, and outside of education, Mexico and Brazil have a combined workforce of just under three-quarters of a million technology specialists. This makes a good pool of highly qualified and very experienced workers at the reach of companies HR team’s hands. In other words, LATAM is full of attractive candidates to choose from when companies are looking to set up world-class development tech talent networks or to hire individual remote engineering talent.

Building your talent network should not be a mind breaker. Give people a way to join your community, engage with them once they’re in, and then go back and match people up with your new positions when you can. Once you follow these steps, you will enhance your quality of hire. Also, you can always reach out to us to overcome your tech talent shortage and we’ll provide you with a flexible nearshore workforce solution of highly skilled tech talent.

The days of calling on an IT consultant to help optimize processes within the organization are over.

Now, IT consultants and the tech teams behind them have moved up the food chain into a position of great power. Due to the shortage of IT workers in recent years and the explosion of online business, it’s now essential that you onboard top tech talent to thrive in the market.

Digital transformation has swept across many industries, driving companies that proved unwilling to change like Blockbuster and Kodak out of business. To prevent such a fate from befalling your organization, you have to act now and embrace the trend towards tech-driven innovation in business.

Technology teams are the lifeblood of many thriving organizations, and to ignore or underestimate what they can do for your business would be naive.

To give you an idea of some of the key reasons to invest in strong tech talent for your business, we’ll go over the main benefits and tech-driven improvements they can bring to the table.

Enhanced Communication 

You’ve heard it a million times before, but communication is vital in business.

Whereas in times gone by, it would look like phone calls, correspondence, and long face-to-face meetings, the modern workplace has digitized communication greatly.

This is partly due to necessity as remote workers aren’t easily accessible, but also because, in a lot of cases, it’s more convenient. We all spend a lot of time looking at our phones and computers, so an email, video call, or instant message through an app is likely to get our attention quickly.

The latest innovation in recent years regarding inter-organizational communication has seen many companies take to popular project management tools such as Slack and Zoom for their communication needs.

While many of these programs are designed to be simple to use, having a tech team on hand to help with the employee onboarding process can save a lot of time and minimize miscommunications and misunderstandings.

It may seem like a lot of effort to transfer your company’s communications over to new software, but after the initial learning curve, in most cases, it works well. 

One day soon, virtual reality may become a viable communication tool too, which goes to show how fast tech is advancing in business. If you can’t keep up, you could see a sharp decline in employee retention as workers look elsewhere for flexible work dynamics. 

After being trained in one of the efficient communication software tools mentioned above, it’s likely that a lot of workers won’t want to go back to the more traditional means.

Productivity-based Optimizations

As well as digital innovations in communication, it’s not uncommon these days to see companies turning to various software solutions to boost productivity levels.

SaaS (Software as a Service) business solutions such as Asana, Notion, and many others, are attempting to revolutionize workflow at every level from the individual freelancer all the way up to the large enterprise.

There are even programs that allow for employee time tracking, which equips you with knowledge on what your workers are doing in real-time so you can act accordingly if you notice trends regarding productivity levels.

In the world of remote work, it’s essential to manage employees from a desktop, and leaning on software such as those mentioned is an increasingly common approach to do so.

These tools can streamline the project pipeline and allow teams to collaborate through various means, such as task comments, labels, and more. If the project is being held up somewhere in the pipeline, you can quickly identify why and communicate the problem to other team members.

A recent study carried out by Capterra showed that one of the most cited reasons to use a project management tool is that it allows for better project completion timelines. Being able to quickly gauge the length of a project can free up resources and allow for more effective future planning.

There’s even the option to look into AI writing systems, too, if you’re curious to see how technology can help accelerate the content creation process.

AI Interaction

Though some may not realize it, AI has played an increasingly important role in business in recent years.

As a result, if your company isn’t equipped to interact with it and extract the necessary data, it puts you at a disadvantage.

There’s a lot to be gained from working with AI systems, including the following:

Machine Learning

If you’re not already familiar with it, machine learning is all about processing huge volumes of raw data.

Using a series of algorithms, the AI essentially solves problems through a perpetual learning process, which can help businesses to scale.

In concrete terms, here are three of the top benefits AI machine learning can offer:

CRM Optimization

CRM (Customer Relationship Management), which refers to how you deal with customers, is much more customizable and personable with the use of AI.

There are many great CRM systems out there powered by AI that are data-driven and focused on delivering results for your business.

The most sophisticated CRM systems will give you access to a wealth of customer data, centralizing it in one easy-to-access interface. They can also help you to generate leads and work towards a high conversion rate.

More Robust Security Measures

Every business could benefit from a more robust security system, especially now that things are moving to a digital space that comes with various cyber threats.

One of the best ways to improve security for your business is through the use of AI.

AI will identify malicious activity by trawling through company data, monitor your systems for digital attacks, and provide security analysts with a wealth of information that can help them keep your business safe.

Tech teams are crucial for futureproofing your business and adapting to the changes wrought by digital transformation.

If you don’t want to get left behind, then it’s worth tracking down top tech talent to optimize your business at every level.

Finding the best talent for an open position at your company can be a challenging task. The COVID-19 pandemic has put extra pressure on some sectors like the tech industry and made the process even more of a slog.

With the IT talent shortage that has become even more of an issue in light of recent events, finding the right candidates for your open position can be a struggle. For many businesses, the key to a successful hiring strategy is developing and implementing a robust recruitment pipeline process.

What is a Recruitment Pipeline?

In a nutshell, a recruitment pipeline refers to a system of hiring which funnels candidates through a step-by-step process that hopefully leads to a hire. It sounds simple, but creating a hiring pipeline that filters out the best candidates and has a solid hire rate can be tricky.

What the recruitment pipeline does for you and your business is accelerate the hiring process while also providing you with key insights you can leverage to streamline the system. It can be seen as an organized approach to recruitment. You establish the important criteria from the beginning and filter all potential candidates through it to speed up the process.

The recruitment pipeline will vary according to the type of open position and other factors, but usually, it should cover the following key stages of the hiring process:

Screening

The screening process can be time-consuming, so to create an efficient recruitment timeline, it’s worth finding ways to make it less so. For example, this could mean ruling out candidates based on strict criteria you’ve established such as particular qualifications.

Interview

The interview process is crucial as it’s your opportunity to put the candidates in the spotlight and cross-examine them. To make it more streamlined, you can draw up a list of go-to questions that solicit the kind of answers you’re looking for to fill the vacancy.

Evaluation

Finally, the evaluation process is all about sifting through shortlisted candidates to find the perfect fit for your vacancy. To speed it up, you could come up with a procedure for determining which candidate is a better fit, based on certain criteria such as experience or qualifications.

Why do you Need One?

You need a recruitment pipeline because the chances are if you haven’t assessed your recruitment strategy in a while, and you’re struggling to fill new roles, then it could be optimized.

Specifically, a hiring pipeline could help you with the following:

Faster Hiring

One of the biggest problems recruiters face is keeping up with the demands of the hiring company. Filling open positions is a key process to stay on top of business operations, yet finding the talent quickly isn’t easy.

However, with a solid recruitment pipeline, you can accelerate the process keeping those at the top of the company satisfied. 

Talent Pool Development

Often, the worst-case scenario with the hiring process is that the competition is fierce to fill the position. This is all-too-common in the tech talent crisis we’re experiencing, and it seems like employees at the large tech firms have all the power in their hands.

In this case, what you need to do is establish a recruitment pipeline that acts as a net, catching potential talent each time it’s cast out. That way, you can grow a talent pool that you can dip into in the future should a job become vacant that fits one of the candidates.

How can you Optimize your Recruitment Pipeline?

Fortunately, while the talent might be hard to come by, there are ways to accelerate your recruitment pipeline so when the right candidate does come along you can snap them up quickly.

Diversify your Talent Sourcing

When it comes to recruitment, one thing’s for sure: the more sources you draw your talent from, the more fruitful the process is likely to be.

If you rely on just a single talent source, such as a networking platform like LinkedIn, then the talent might dry up quickly. That’s why diversification is key.

Some of the best ways to source candidates include in-house events if you have the resources, referrals, and even tapping into an existing talent pool that you’ve created. As mentioned earlier, developing a talent pool you can dip into again and again is a beneficial byproduct of developing a solid recruitment pipeline.

Don’t Exclude Existing Employees

A common mistake when establishing a recruitment pipeline is omitting existing employees from the process. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t look both internally and externally for talent.

Granted, existing employees might not have the requisite skills for the vacancy, but if you’re struggling to make a hire there’s always upskilling.

What is upskilling?

Upskilling refers to the process of retraining talent within the company in order to boost their skillset and perhaps even prepare them for a different role. This process does require company resources and a willingness on the part of the employee, though, so it should be seen as more of a last resort.

Broaden your Recruitment Horizons

The recruitment pipeline should be about finding the right candidate for the position, and as such, out-of-the-box thinking is sometimes needed to aid the search.

Here are some alternate recruitment strategies that could help you secure the right talent for the job:

Outsourcing

Sometimes the talent pool in your local area has dried up, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up the search. Nearshore delegating is all about outsourcing work to a team or agency in a nearby country. The benefits of this are that you can work in a similar time zone with minimal cultural differences and perhaps even save money in the process.

Hire a Contractor

Did you know that freelancers make up around 35% of the global workforce?

This figure is staggering, and with the disruption and digital transformation caused by the pandemic, you’d have to assume this figure is set to grow.

The global freelance market is an excellent resource for any recruitment pipeline as it can speed up the hiring process and open up a significant talent pool to you.

It’s imperative to take initiative now that the tech talent crisis seems worse than ever, and the first step you should take is to review your recruitment pipeline process. Once you’ve optimized the way you hire, the company should be able to create a talent pool and fill open positions much more efficiently. This should stand you in good stead, even in the competitive market of today.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses in all sectors have taken a hit and have been forced to adopt new measures to stay afloat.

It’s no longer viable to ignore digital transformation since it has become all but essential for businesses to continue to thrive in the current climate. This comes at a time when the demand for tech talent is at an all-time high, with IT-based skills coming at a premium.

This may seem like a direct result of the pandemic, but the reality is that the tech skills shortage has been an issue for several years now. The research backs this up, showing that as many as 73% of CEO’s back in 2015 had expressed concerns over the shortage of talent, and this figure has slowly grown over the years. As such, the pandemic didn’t cause the issue; it just made it more apparent. 

The tech talent shortage is a concern for many small to medium-sized businesses, especially when large corporations snap up top talent by flexing their financial muscles. 

The Tech Talent Crisis

As a result of customer demand for convenience through digitalization, and the lack of talent in related fields, we find ourselves in the midst of a tech talent crisis.

It makes sense: if customers are able to receive groceries directly to their door, pay for goods online with a single click, and do just about everything they need from the comfort of their own homes, why would they want to go back to how things used to be done?

The rise of remote work and a hybrid work schedule has the potential to wreak havoc on small tech startups and medium-sized businesses in the industry since it’s hard to keep up. With the pandemic looming for the foreseeable future, the only way forward is to adapt.

What does this mean for you?

Well, unfortunately, it means that employees from the largest tech firms now have all the power in their hands. Whereas before their skills were well compensated only at the very top of the pyramid, now they’re faced with a wealth of options as tech companies up and down the country vie for them.

The average tech employee these days can have his cake and eat it too. Not only can talented tech workers demand a competitive salary, but they can also find a job with a work schedule that perfectly matches their lifestyle and offers flexible remote work.

How to Find the Best Tech Talent

If you want to secure the best tech talent out there, you’re going to have to go back to the drawing board.

Sliding a piece of paper across the table with a large sum of money will no longer cut it.

You have to show that you can offer the employee a level of flexibility that they can’t find elsewhere.

Not everyone makes career decisions with dollar signs in their eyes, and if you can come up with a remote work schedule that allows employees complete control over how they work, then it’s an offer that’s hard for anyone to refuse.

There are other options, though, so don’t fret if the thought of offering your employees complete independence makes you nervous.

Here are some of the best strategies to adopt if you want to land the best IT talent:

Upskilling

One of the simplest ways to address the dearth of tech talent in the job market is to establish upskilling campaigns within your company.

With the right amount of investment, you can effectively retrain your current workforce which could eliminate the need to outsource or onboard more workers. Teaching subjects such as software engineering and machine learning can help produce more in-house tech talent, though of course this strategy will take a lot of time and resources.

Staff Augmentation

A term you may have heard from your time in the tech industry, staff augmentation is a strategy of external outsourcing which aims to fill positions in your company with the right candidates.

The primary benefit of the augmentation process is that it can relieve you of the burden of seeking out and onboarding top talent. Find the right partner and they will take control of the whole augmentation process from recruitment to interviewing, so that you’re free to focus your attention on other aspects of the business.

Nearshore Outsourcing

Nearshore outsourcing is all about expanding your operations to include a workforce in a nearby country.

If you’re struggling to hire local talent, outsourcing your search to a nearby country could be the perfect solution to bolster the workforce. This approach works well for a lot of companies because workflow shouldn’t be disrupted with faster integration, and similar time zones.

Contractors

Contractors, or freelance workers, represent an excellent resource for tech companies affected by the tech talent shortage.

With all the flexibility that remote work brings, it’s no surprise that some of the best IT workers have decided to go solo and set up their own businesses. As such, it’s a good idea to dip into the global freelance market from time to time to see if you can find solutions to your tech problems abroad.

The one caveat here is that hiring freelance workers is usually just a temporary solution, not a long-term one. Plus, North America isn’t the only part of the world to suffer from a tech talent crisis, so it may still be tricky to find the right talent for the job.

Find a Recruitment Partner

Sometimes, although the plan to acquire top tech talent is clear, the process can be complicated.

You might decide that a freelancer is the right solution, but don’t know how to find the best contractors. Or maybe you decide to go down the route of nearshore outsourcing, but again, you’re not sure how to go about it or where to set up your external team.

In cases such as these, your best bet might just be to find a recruitment partner who can assume control of the talent hunt to ensure you end up with the employee/s you need. Intersog offers digital recruitment solutions for your IT talent needs, with dedicated development teams and high-performing software that can assist your search for the best tech talent.

As companies and organizations discover the benefits of remote work, they also discover the limitations of current work-from-home practices.

This article will discuss a strategic technology trend that solves these limitations and is bound to become a standard for many organizations: Anywhere operations.

What are anywhere operations?

Anywhere operation is an organizational model that allows IT companies to fully operate remotely while supporting customer service, enabling employees, and managing the deployment of products/services from anywhere in the world.

This is possible thanks to cloud technology and a decentralized infrastructure independent of one location, server, firewall, etc.

The anywhere operations model might sound like work from home; however, it goes beyond its capabilities. Work from home allows companies to continue operations without the need for employees to be at the office. 

And while it is undoubtedly a functional model for some businesses, it presents limitations for many organizations, especially IT companies.

This is where anywhere operations come in to solve the management limitations of work from home. It can be considered as the next step of work from home. 

The anywhere operations model utilizes new management solutions and a decentralized infrastructure to allow IT companies to be genuinely independent of physical location.

What are the differences between anywhere operations and work from home?

It’s important to fully understand the differences between these two models to successfully implement an anywhere operations strategy. 

So, let’s take a look at some characteristics that set anywhere operations apart from work from home:

These differences are also some of the benefits of this operational model. We will explore them further in the following section.

Benefits of anywhere operations

Thanks to the constant development of new technologies and software, the world of IT and tech companies advance faster than any other industry. 

This presents CTOs with the challenge of staying up to date with new advancements to support the company’s growth while managing the high costs of upgrading and maintaining an IT infrastructure. 

Anywhere operations reduce costs of aging hardware, improves employee and customer experience, and give companies access to a broad talent pool of experts ready to join the team. 

Let’s take a closer look at these benefits:

Customer Support

Anywhere operations are not just for employees. It also allows companies to offer better customer experiences. One example of this is customer service. 

Providing the best customer service has always been a challenge. Every year the quality standard gets higher, and customers get used to that. If there is no advancement in a company’s customer service, then they get left behind no matter how good the product is.

In fact, 33% of Americans report they will consider switching companies after a single instance of poor service. With that in mind, it’s not difficult to understand why $62 billion are lost annually by U.S. companies due to poor customer service. 

Anywhere operations allow companies to solve this issue by giving them the capability to employ workers in different time zones. Thanks to the decentralized infrastructure, workers can collaborate and share information as if they were in an office together and offer quick customer service at any time. 

Now customers don’t have to wait until the next day to get a solution for their problems.

Collaboration and productivity

The COVID-19 pandemic rushed companies into a work-from-home modality, and many of them adapted well to this change. Mainly because of remote work tools and because eventually, they would go back to the office. 

They thought of work from home as a temporary solution because they know these tools have limitations.

Limitations that are solved by anywhere operations. This model lets employees access company data and systems at any moment from any device, boosting collaboration and productivity. 

In addition, anywhere operations empower employees by allowing them to work in their own schedule while achieving the company goals. It’s not surprising that 77% of telecommuters report being more productive than in an office.

Secure remote access

We’ve mentioned secure remote access before, but what does that mean? It means that people in an organization can access any relevant data from any device at any moment from anywhere in the world with protection protocols against cyber threats. 

Some examples of cybersecurity strategies that work with anywhere operations are multifactor and password-less authentication, Zero Trust Network Access, and Secure Access Service Edge.

Having secure remote access is a priority for any remote work, and cloud infrastructure is the only way to achieve it.

Disaster recovery

Another thing that secure remote access helps with is disaster recovery (DR). Many external factors can impede a business from running properly. Factors like natural disasters or even the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced many unprepared companies to change into a work-from-home modality. Resulting in disruption of business. 

With the cloud infrastructure of anywhere operations, a DR plan becomes simpler. Since physical factors don’t affect and everything is remotely accessible, businesses can continue operating smoothly.

Automation

Another benefit of having a decentralized cloud infrastructure is that it allows the automation of various processes. Companies worldwide are automating as many processes as possible because they have figured out that employees spend a lot of time on repetitive manual tasks. 

These tasks can become frustrating and even lead to human errors. Automation eliminates that factor. A company can automate transactions, approvals, and workflows, among other processes, to free employees from manual tasks that only waste time. 

In addition, companies are also able to automate product and service deployment. Automation in combination with AI is a great tool to let your employees spend their time solving complex issues instead of doing mundane tasks.

Cost efficiency

Migrating from the current system to a cloud-based, anywhere operations model can seem like an expensive project. However, in the short and long term, it is cost-effective.

What really is expensive is hardware. The costs of upgrading and maintaining an aging IT infrastructure are much more expensive. Now add the fact that as the IT equipment ages, its performance drops considerably. This is due to the fact that software is based on current technology, giving hardware a short lifespan. 

Since you don’t have to worry about these costs, anywhere operations end up being a lower-cost alternative. 

Talent

One of the biggest limitations for businesses that are not using an anywhere operations model is talent acquisition. For a person to be hired, they don’t only need the proper qualifications, but they also need to live in the same city as the office. This fact reduces the talent pool significantly. 

While this might sound like a problem work from home solves, it still has limitations compared to anywhere operations. 

Oftentimes, a work-from-home role still requires that the employee is near the office for many reasons. Usually, this is the case for companies who had to adapt to this modality due to the pandemic, which is still location-dependent. 

With anywhere operations, workers should be able to literally be anywhere and still be able to access relevant information for their work. 

Companies that apply this strategy successfully have no geographical limitations for hiring. They can focus on building the right team and not worry about relocation or sponsorships. 

A great way for organizations to handle talent acquisition once they are free of geographical limitations is through nearshore staff augmentation. 

We will tell you more in the next section.

What is nearshore staff augmentation?

You might have heard this term in recent years, especially as IT companies are starting to employ remote work modalities more and more. 

So, what exactly is staff augmentation?

Staff augmentation is an outsourcing strategy that allows companies to hire tech talent from anywhere in the world and manage them directly as your team. They can be hired for the short or long term, depending on the company’s goals.

With this in mind, nearshore staff augmentation means the same thing, but the company chooses candidates in neighboring countries. The purpose of doing this is that neighboring countries expand the talent pool while having similar time zones and language.

This might sound similar to project outsourcing; however, the main difference is the following:

Staff augmentation firms handle everything from recruiting, hiring, and training to management. Allowing companies to quickly add skilled talent to the current team and work directly for the CTO or manager.

This talent acquisition strategy is great when you want to add skilled tech professionals quickly to your team.

Benefits of nearshore staff augmentation

Now, let’s explore the specific benefits of building your IT team through nearshore staff augmentation. Some of the benefits include:

Over to you…

An anywhere operations model provides a modern solution to many challenges IT companies face nowadays. And while it might sound easier to stay with the current management model, in the long run, it might make your company get left behind. 

According to Gartner, by the end of 2023, 40% of organizations will have applied anywhere operations. Will your company be one of them?