When you start your own business, you're going to find that it is indeed a cutthroat environment–you need to always be on your toes if you want to stay on the game. Finding the best way to conduct your business is essential if you want to achieve consistent growth.

Hiring an outsourcing company is one way to significantly improve your operations, and it's something that many companies have been practicing for some time. The rise of the internet has made it explode even more and become a bigger industry over the years.

Do you want to be one step ahead of your competitors? Then find the right outsourcing company who can offer you extra help. Below are more reasons why it's a good idea to outsource certain tasks your business calls for:

1. Improved Efficiency

When hiring an outsourcing company, you enjoy the advantages of their years of experience in the business. They also offer their expertise when it comes to delivering complex projects. As a result, they are able to do the job even better considering their knowledge of the domain. This means productivity and efficiency are increased during the process.

2. Cost Savings

One of the most common reasons why employers resort to outsourcing is the major cost savings that come with it. Any job is completed at a lower cost and at a better quality. Because of the difference in wages and standards of living between Asia and Western countries, outsourcing would also allow you to only pay a fraction of the cost you would pay an in-house team.

3. Saves Time

A great advantage of outsourcing is that they operate round-the-clock to complete any kind of work required. Since no business wants to waste their valuable time, outsourcing companies make sure tasks are completed before the deadline without compromising quality.

Turnaround time is also much lesser compared to havingan in-house team work on the project.

4. Focus on More Important Areas

Outsourcing takes a lot of precious time off your busy hands. Because people are there to help you get the job done, you can focus more on the core areas of your business. It’s much easier for you to put more time into building your brand, offer higher value-added services, and invest more in research and development.

5. Staffing Flexibility

There are companies that only need extra help within a specific period of time. Outsourcing lets operations that have cyclical or seasonal demands to bring in additional resources only when necessary. After the work is completed and things start to get slow again, the outsourcing company can then be released.

Outsourcing is a two-way street–you learn new practices from another country while helping your partners know more about what you do.

Companies turn to outsourcing for a variety of reasons, typically depending on their goals. While those goals may vary from company to company, the fruits of outsourcing are largely the same and can be seen in many of the leading enterprises worldwide. You can be one of those successful companies by giving outsourcing a shot today.

In today’s technologically-advanced world, more and more companies are relying on online strategies and techniques to gain new customers. One of the most common tactics is coming up with software and apps that customers will find value in. These kinds of software can have features that allow you to browse your inventory, interact with your staff, check your account, and more.

Nearshoring is one of the most popular methods for hiring new talent in today’s software engineering world. Due to the many benefits that nearshoring offers, it has become a common choice for businesses both large and small. That’s because nearshore outsourcing partners can provide more affordable services without sacrificing the quality of work.

In a world overwhelmingly dependent on technology, there is a high demand for professionals and businesses in the IT industry—from the biggest SaaS company to the most accomplished software developer. It is an undeniably lucrative enterprise, dealing with software production, distribution, and management. However, it does come with some fairly insurmountable challenges.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing all kinds of business functions and the software development industry is no exception. Aside from making the traditional custom software development lifecycle faster, machine learning techniques offer a new paradigm when it comes to inventing different kinds of technology.

With the increasing need for high-quality software, different companies also find that they need more developers. However, instead of hiring teams for in-house development, the new trend is to hire remote workers as a cheaper and more efficient alternative. Businesses are often presented with two options: onshore and nearshore software development.

In recent years, agile software development has taken the IT industry by storm, thanks to it providing an alternative method of project management. This process is one that lets teams offer unpredictable but fast responses to any feedback they receive on a project that they’re working on.

Collaboration is an important factor in reaching success—especially in business. Your team members work best when they are in an environment that allows them to freely connect with each other. When a company values collaboration, all team members feel they belong to something bigger than themselves. This, in turn, establishes positive feelings that can boost productivity and cohesive creativity.

Over the years, a lot has changed in the ways we recruit employees for our businesses. Now that outsourcing has presented itself as a viable option for managing more than just back-office tasks, more and more businesses are subscribing to this seemingly efficient and effective solution to optimal productivity. It is not uncommon for an insurance company to have a customer service team overseas, or for an IT company to partner with a nearshore software development team.

And on that note, there is actually a difference between nearshore and offshore outsourcing. While everyone can no doubt benefit from general outsourcing, there are certain models of this process that suit some businesses better than others—depending on a number of factors, of course.

If you’re looking to dip into outsourcing yourself, it might be best that you know the three different types of outsourcing; onshore, offshore, and nearshore outsourcing. This way, you can pick the model that can truly optimize your business’s output.

In this article, we’re going to focus on the differences between offshore outsourcing and nearshore outsourcing.

What is Nearshore Outsourcing?

Nearshore outsourcing is the middle ground; the solution that combines the benefits of both offshore and onshore outsourcing. With offshore outsourcing, you pay a significantly lower cost for high-quality labor. With onshore development, you benefit from having outsourced partners who are located in the same timezone as you, speak the same language just as comfortably, and share your cultural nuances.

Nearshore outsourcing offers the best of both worlds. As the name suggests, the company is located in a country near you, so they’re still within the same timezone (or there’s not much difference between your times i.e. two, three hours at most). They are also often more affordable than onshore outsourcing partners because their cost of living is not as exorbitant.

Nearshore software development may not be as low-cost as offshore outsourcing, but the time and language benefits more than make up the financial difference. For instance, Colombia is an ideal location for nearshore outsourcing—especially for nearshore software development. They speak English just as easily as they speak their own language, their IT industry is booming thanks to the surplus of software developers and IT professionals graduating every year, and the time difference between Colombia and the US is only three to five hours.

What is Offshore Outsourcing?

As mentioned earlier, offshoring typically refers to working with a team based in countries geographically far from your location—which is why offshore employees are also often referred to as “overseas workers.” Many companies prefer offshoring to Asian or European countries because their hourly rate is much cheaper than onshore and nearshore companies.

However, low rates aside, offshoring comes with a fair number of drawbacks that you should definitely consider. We’ve already mentioned the extreme time difference that could present problems in terms of setting meetings, conferences, and team-building exercises. Collaboration may also pose a problem, as not every member can work on the project at the same time. Communication may be reduced to offline messages on chat platforms and emails that don’t get read until 12 hours after they were sent.

This is great for production and customer service (round-the-clock support), but it’s extremely detrimental for companies that depend on clear communication and cohesive collaboration.

These kinds of challenges can seriously affect your team’s overall productivity. Communication is important if you want to produce high-quality work while still being cost- and time-efficient. In addition, cultural differences can also lead to minor issues that could compromise company morale.

However, if you value quantity over quality or need 24/7 operations, offshore outsourcing is absolutely perfect for you.

Learn more about outsourcing by reading our complete guide here!

Choosing the Right Company for You

Outsourcing has indeed come a long way over the past few years. The average business owner now has a number of highly qualified options.

Saying something along the lines of; “nearshore software development is far superior than offshore software development” is not a fair assessment—nor is it accurate. Your business is unique and therefore has specific needs. All businesses have different objectives; some may benefit from the balance of nearshore outsourcing, but others may find that offshore outsourcing better meets their requirements.

Staying productive in today’s environment can be quite challenging given the number of ever-present distractions, right at our fingertips. Social media, mobile games, chat apps, the internet … all these can either help or harm our daily output. As such, team productivity faces similar challenges; if one or two people aren’t actively contributing, the entire team is affected.