With how advanced our telecommunications systems are right now, it’s no surprise that more and more businesses have become hugely dependent on outsourcing. You can’t deny that the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry is booming, and it may be only a matter of time before every corporation in every trade you can think of is partnered with an outsourcing company or two.
After all, outsourcing offers dozens of benefits and very, very few drawbacks.
A Quick Look at Outsourcing
As you may know by now, outsourcing is when one company hires another company to take care of certain tasks or responsibilities for a specific amount of time. Usually these tasks are internal and repetitive back-office procedures like recruitment, accounting, bookkeeping, engineering, and customer support.
There are typically three (3) kinds of outsourcing:
- Offshore
- Onshore
- Nearshore
Offshore outsourcing is when a business works with an outsourcing company that is based in an area quite far from their country—or even continent. The time zone, culture, and language of the both parties are often drastically different. For instance; a company based in California hires a company in India to handle their accounting. Or a company in New York outsources their software engineering needs to a company in the Philippines.
Offshore outsourcing is perhaps the most affordable option of the three, as the cost of living in other countries tends to be lower. They difference in time zones also makes it a great choice for businesses that need 24/7 shifts.
However, the difference in culture and language often makes it difficult to establish effective communication. The difference in time zones also makes real-time collaboration nearly impossible.
As the name suggests, onshore outsourcing is the complete opposite of offshore outsourcing. A business hires another company that is based in the same area—i.e. country, city, continent—to handle their back-office processes. For example, a Los Angeles-based corporation hires an office in San Francisco to handle their technical recruitment and other HR processes.
Onshore outsourcing is perhaps the most expensive of the three. However, unlike offshore outsourcing, language, culture, and real-time communication is easy to establish and maintain.
Nearshore outsourcing is the best of both worlds. It is when a company outsources its services to another company based in a different country that is not too far from where they are. The language may be different but the culture and time zone very rarely are. This means that the cost is not as exorbitant as onshoring and communication is not as difficult to establish as offshoring.
For instance, an office in California decides to outsource its software development process to a company in Colombia.
This actually happens more often than you think.
Outsourcing to Colombia: The Popular Choice
A lot of businesses are now realizing that Colombia is the place to go to for software development outsourcing. Aside from the fact that it’s nearshore for companies based in the U.S., Colombia itself is an incredibly beneficial choice location.
Here’s why:
Time Zone
Colombia shares the same time zone with many states in America, making it possible to establish real-time collaboration and direct communication with any outsourcing company there. Things like last-minute meetings and daily correspondence are easier to organize when the custom software development team isn’t working eight to twelve hours ahead of your normal office hours.
Untapped Potential
A survey done a while back revealed that 71% of adults in Colombia viewed entrepreneurship favorably, and that 60% of them are actually potential entrepreneurs. Their government has also been taking steps towards reforming their business regulations and starting joint campaigns to establish the country as a tech center.
To date, many media outlets have declared Colombia as a viable and promising technology hub. As it’s been ranked the fourth country with the highest number of internet users in Latin America, people in Colombia are brimming with fresh ideas and innovative concepts. And with their government fully supportive of such technological innovations, it won’t be long before they’re fully realized.
Highly Educated Workforce
Every year, 200,000 Colombians graduate from higher education institutions. In 2012, their Ministry of Education reported 130,000 Engineering and Business Administration graduates alone. That number has since risen drastically, inspiring the National Service of Learning (SENA) to offer free education and technical trainings for the citizens.
SENA is a governmental initiative founded by the Colombian government as a response to the increasing interest in digital engineering and tech startups. This public institution aims to develop education and encourage gainful employment by offering roughly 250 university-level programs for citizens who might not be able to afford a university education.
True to form, SENA offers programs and trainings catered towards social and technical development, ensuring that the citizens are able to contribute to the country’s socio-economic and technological growth. As proof of this program’s effectiveness, Colombia has been named the second-largest educated—and growing—labor force in the region.
Related Content: The Complete Guide To Software Development Outsourcing
Government Support
On the subject of government-initiated programs, more and more outsourcing companies are turning to Colombia for tech talent because their government is so supportive. One such initiative is the Productive Transformation Program (PTP)—a government program that supports the Colombian services sector specifically for development and growth.
Another example would be the Vive Digital Plan. Created by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), this plan aims to support technological IT development in Colombia by giving the public as much free access to the internet as possible. With this unfettered access, they hope to encourage people’s interest in navigating and mastering multiple digital platforms. In so doing, they hope that these same people will further dive into understanding and utilizing the four main components of all similar platforms:
- Infrastructure
- IT Services
- Software
- Users
The statistics show that 99.8% of Colombian businesses have gone digital since the implementation of the Vive Digital Plan. Furthermore, the number of units with established 4G connections have gone up by 26% and the overall number of households hooked up to the net has reached 50%, thanks to the initiative. The Vive Digital Plan was so successful, it was recognized—and awarded—during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
To recap, a Colombian outsourcing company means immediate, real-time communication and more cost-effective fees. Thanks to their education system and government support, they can guarantee high-quality production for all sorts of software products. All of this makes Colombia the ideal destination to outsource your business’s custom software development.
