Many companies use custom software applications or other core technologies they have developed and perfected over time that are critical to their operations. But as important as these applications may be, the work of keeping them running smoothly is often not one of the company’s core competencies and may require a sizeable, dedicated IT staff. These companies can realize significant cost savings — and gain an experienced software maintenance team — through outsourcing. Companies exploring or re-evaluating their outsourcing options should consider looking into a nearshoring partner.
 

 

Why Nearshoring Might Be Right for You

 

Brazil is not typically the first location that comes to mind when considering an offshore IT destination. But perhaps it should be. Several unique factors set this nearshore country apart from the offshore market:

• Time zone: Brazil is in a much closer time zone to the US than other countries to which companies commonly outsource. Because most of the US is only one, two, or three hours behind Brazil's time, a large portion of the working day overlaps between the two countries, enabling real-time collaboration, consultation, and emergency response.

• Geopolitics: Brazil has no ongoing military conflicts or major territorial disputes with any of its neighbors. Since regional tensions could affect not only foreign investment decisions but also currency markets and credit ratings, Brazil's stability in this area is a significant advantage.

• Demographics: Brazil's workforce has some of the lowest employee attrition among regional outsourcing destinations. For example, despite continuous double-digit revenue and employee growth at Politec in recent years, our employee attrition rates have held steady at under 5% per year since the mid-1990s. In contrast, attrition levels can average 30% to 40% annually at IT outsourcing firms in other countries.

How Politec Can Help

Politec - a Brazilian-based nearshoring company - has decades of experience in application maintenance, solution testing, and SAP systems integration. This tenure sets us apart from companies in other IT offshoring destinations, including India. A main focus of Politec is Application Lifecycle Services, which includes these components:

• Application development: Politec has substantial experience managing higher-value-added services, like custom application development. The staff at our 17 development centers across Brazil, Argentina, and Chile can develop a wide variety of applications (from COBOL to Java). This technology-agnostic approach allows companies to focus on more strategic IT initiatives, rather than on developing applications.

• Application maintenance: Politec also performs application maintenance for applications that we develop for companies, or that companies create internally (SAP and non-SAP applications).

• Legacy transformation: Another service Politec offers is taking a custom application that was written in an outdated programming language and updating it to run on a modern platform like .NET - which can drastically reduce maintenance costs and can reduce or eliminate dependence on obsolete or more expensive mainframe hardware.

• Solution testing: Politec has over 500 senior engineers dedicated to full lifecycle testing.

• SAP systems integration: Politec's staff is skilled in helping SAP customers better understand and accomplish their lifecycle implementations, upgrades, learning solutions, as well as staff augmentations.

Each of these services brings with it substantial savings on projects of virtually any size. To learn more about these services and other ways that Politec can help your company, visit www.politec.com.