What type of company should at one point consider nearshoring?
Any kind of company looking for consistent growth paired with efficient cost-cutting. It might sound surreal to promise more for less, but this is exactly what nearshoring provides: the possibility to scale-up while cutting down expenses.
In recent years, Europe has become a hot bed of nearshoring enterprises that have sparked many fruitful collaborations among people of all European nations. Romania is one country to reap such benefits and provide companies with a wide pool of resources.
About SHE Cluj
With more than 100 experts in Cluj-Napoca, you can realize your digitalization projects. For over 10 years, cross-industry tailor-made solutions have been developed here. With capabilities in areas such as IoT, Security, Healthcare, Business Intelligence and Web Development, SHE is being trusted by clients like BASF, ZF Friedrichshafen, Solarlux, Swiss Life and many others.
Discover the full range of IT services offered by the SHE Group
What is nearshoring?
The biggest financial expense for a company is with salaries. Therefore, should a company wish to expand its activity and modernize its processes, it needs professionals to help with digitalization, for example. However, for a company that does not usually need an IT department, this one-time project may be too expensive and unjustified in the long run.
Thus, they outsource. Meaning that they delegate the responsibility of this particular project to an external company, contracted and paid for the delivered solution, instead of having to bring on people in-house and invest in them.
Outsourcing saves time and money. And there are several ways in which a company can outsource. It can reach out to a company within its own country, but probably a different city through onshoring; it can opt for the services of a company in the farthest corner of the world, which is offshoring; or it can opt for nearshoring, meaning that it can choose the services of a company in a neighboring country. All of these are good options, but we believe that nearshoring is the middle ground everyone is looking for.
Nearshoring offers the best of both worlds. There are several great advantages such as a smaller time difference, no culture clash, more or less the same work ethics and the same work schedule, travel availability, and lower costs. A nearshore outsourced project is cost-effective and easy to manage. These are the main elements it has to meet.
Nearshoring in Romania
Romania is a great candidate for a nearshoring project, especially in the IT sector. The country boasts some incredibly busy hubs and has already attracted international investments from all over the world, tapping into this amazing resource pool.
Quality of life has improved considerably throughout the years, making young professionals living in big cities satisfied with their lives here and willing to invest in their careers. Even so, the cost of living remains low, keeping people put and bringing new companies in. It is the place to invest in and the place to collaborate with. Here are just some of the benefits of nearshoring in Romania:
• Experienced developers and great professionals. Big international companies have been interested in Romania for a few decades now and the people working in the private sector knew how to adapt. They have adopted the Western work culture with ease and have become key workers for the outsourcing companies. The IT sector has benefited from Government subventions and foreign companies are invited to invest and to work with Romanian based companies.
• Excellent university centers in several cities. Bucharest, Cluj, Timișoara, Iași, Constanța are just some of the university centers producing students eager to put their knowledge to good use and gain some real-world skills in any company willing to train them. And the number of these companies is not low.
• Location, location, location. For most European outsourcers, Romania is an accessible country. The country can be reached by plane in 2-3 hours and there is a reliable network of airports throughout the country.
• Improved quality of life paired with lower living costs. In Romania, IT professionals enjoy the same low living costs but have salaries above the national average, even though they are still lower than the ones an outsourcer might have to pay in his own country. This is a great combination that guarantees that the people are motivated to stay in their country, in their jobs, to perform, and to grow professionally. It is the company hiring them that reaps these benefits.
• Good language skills. Having good universities and schools, as well as an overall openness toward the Western culture, English is very accessible to many young professionals. French, Italian, Spanish, and German are other languages some of them are skilled in.
• No cultural gap. There are roughly the same holidays, with some differences. Work hours and work ethics are more or less the same. Overall, there are the same expectations and a common understanding of the aim of any given project.
Cluj in particular is a blossoming city, combining beautiful architecture with modern developments. It has a Western vibe, and it checks all of the requirements for a great city to nearshore outsource a business. It has been nominated in international tops for best countries and cities to invest in since 2010 and it keeps growing and offering great opportunities, both for the professionals living and working there, as well as for the companies interested in nearshore outsourcing.
SHE Informationtechnologie AG is one such example of a German software development company that decided to take a chance on the Transylvanian city. The company has been in Cluj for 10 years now, in the form of SHE Information Technology Romania, a successful association with local professionals which has developed over 60 projects. 24 of these projects are currently running at the same time, a sign of trust from clients, plus a show that activity can be at anytime scaled up, according to various needs.
Judging from the testimonials alone, what convinced clients to get on board with SHE Cluj is the accessibility of an amazing, fresh, and vast resource pool, together with the advantages of the Romanian Western city – it has an airport, a modern infrastructure, people are oriented toward the cultural values of the West, and they are responsive to market demands, as well as aware of general cultural references, making communication easy and efficient.
SHE has tapped into the nearshore resources of Cluj and has built up a well-functioning structure that can fastly respond to customer needs, setting-up a dedicated team in just 3-4 weeks. The young professionals working here are up to the challenge and they can keep up with the tasks and requirements as they are already experienced in working with outside companies. This is the best example of getting more efficient with your project, while covering a lower cost and without losing anything quality-wise or in terms of accessibility of project management.