Outsourced, Not Offshore in MexicoBy Liam Eagle, theWHIR.com
August 27, 2008 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — It’s quite a common practice among businesses without the resources to employ a software development team in-house to outsource the development of certain of the applications critical to their businesses.
And among those businesses outsourcing their development, it’s common to send that outsourced work offshore, to locations such as India, where the high level of technical skill and comparatively low cost of labor conspire to create a very attractive outsourcing proposition. But inherent in that offshore outsourcing model is a set of difficulties that ranges from relatively minor scheduling conflicts to more significant communication barriers and even occasional areas of legal incompatibility.
That’s the pitch, roughly, for the outsourcing model espoused by the Monterrey, Mexico-based developer Sieena Software (sieena.com). The company says what it calls the “near-shore outsourcing” model compares favorably to the overseas alternative in a long list of ways.
“The advantages include a talent pool that knows English,” says Omar Del Rio, Sieena’s director of technology. “The cultures are extremely similar – the people that work here and the people we work with. Other advantages are things like not having to deal with the typical 12 a.m. or 1 a.m. phone call. Or that waiting time that’s usually associated with places on the other side of the world.”
Del Rio says Monterrey, located in the Northeast part of the country, within about 100 miles of the Texas border, is one of the country’s technology hotbeds – particularly given its much smaller population than the 20-million-or-so who live in the Mexico City area. He says the local focus in Monterrey is more on newer technologies, such as Web 2.0 programming and open source technologies, as opposed to older firms doing things like mainframe support in other parts of the country.
He says the talent pool in Mexico is a big surprise for a lot of the American companies that discover it as an outsourcing option – not just at companies like Sieena, but also for business processes, at places like tech support centers.
In Sieena Software’s case, the company’s focus is on high tech development, says Del Rio.
“We’re focused on Microsoft,” he says. “And there are other firms that do the same things for other technologies.”
Sieena has partnerships with several American web hosting companies it knows can be counted on to provide reliable support for some of the applications it develops for clients. Sieena is strictly a developer, not interested on hosting these applications itself. So it hands off that part of the process to its hosting partners.
The procedural advantages, he says, to working with a developer in Mexcio, as opposed to one on the other side of the world, include the general fluency in English, the similarity of culture and the proximity to just about anywhere in the US. If a project calls for a face-to-face meeting, he says, Monterrey is really no farther away than any city in the US.
But the natural geographic advantages are really a bonus, says Del Rio, on top of a solid foundation of technical expertise and a thriving IT industry.
“I don’t want to downplay the technology part too much,” he says. “All the people who work for us are really, really smart people. And we have a lot of skills certified. It’s amazing the things you find here, not only in this company, but outside this company, in Mexico.”
