The nearshore lure during an economic downturn

As everyone continues to say, an economic downturn is clearly on its way and almost every C-level executive is trying desperately to keep their company’s head above water. As often happens in such times, the outsourcing of IT suddenly becomes much more attractive as a way of slashing overheads and minimise IT’s impact on companies’ bottom lines. 

However, the UK has one significant problem – the lack of IT skills. Companies looking to UK-based organisations as outsourcing partners are finding that they lack depth in terms of IT skills – whilst the management level are often world leaders in their field, the required level of expertise does not stretch to the lower echelons of the organisation.

So how can UK companies deal with the combined problem of economic downturn and lack of UK-based IT skills? One answer is nearshoring work. Outsourcing work to a company at a location in relatively close proximity to the UK (e.g. Eastern Europe) solves the two problems simultaneously: firstly, the outsourcing of the IT function to a lower-cost location will slash bottom line costs and secondly the vast resource of highly qualified IT professionals in Eastern Europe, throughout all levels of IT organisations, is more than enough to cover for the UK’s shortages. The need for an up-to-date IT infrastructure is especially prevalent within the current economic climate, particularly for financial institutions needing computer models that can advise on when to buy and sell investments.