Making the Same Mistake Over and Over? How to Absorb Outsourcing Lessons into Process
May 21st, 2012
By Jagdish Dalal
George Santayana once wrote: “Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.” I also like what Albert Einstein wrote, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
So it is for many providers who do not have a structured process for learning from their past performance. Customers expect their providers to continuously improve their performance. In a competitive world of outsourcing, providers benefit by reducing service defects, thereby improving customer satisfaction and their bottom line. After all, failure to meet performance levels ends up costing them in their margin – directly or indirectly.
By Leonardo Mattiazzi
Agile has been largely regarded as an ideal fit for today’s business challenges (for a reference, check the Forrester Research Feb. 2012 report, “Determine The Business And IT Impact Of Agile Development”).
And, from our experience, the business benefit of using Agile is magnified when it is coupled with the application of Lean principles, such as establishing a continuous flow of constant throughput. This principle, known as heijunka in the Lean vernacular, when applied to software development means creating a continuous delivery model, with a fixed-size team that undertakes several different projects one after another (of course, using Agile methods in each one of them). By doing so, we are able to eliminate several different sources of waste, and significantly decrease the actual cost of these projects (in our estimates, by at least 25% in the long run), as well …
Why HTML5 Projects Are a Great Fit for Latin America IT
May 11th, 2012By Steve Mezak
The emerging HTML5 standard will make it a lot easier to deliver more graphical and attractive Web pages to more and more devices (especially mobile devices). That makes it a big boon for Web developers, and also a great fit for Nearshore developers with an eye for good design and local tastes.
Economic Slowdown Won’t Stop IT Expansion in Brazil
May 3rd, 2012
By Luke Bujarski
Last week’s Bloomberg Latin America Investing conference in New York City was a sobering reminder of Brazil’s precarious economic balancing act hinging on foreign investment, consumption, government stimulus, and inflated commodity prices. Yet, despite mixed signals over the future macro outlook, Brazil’s IT services industry will continue to rage forward. Antonio Gil president of BRASSCOM shrugged off pragmatic panel concerns with confidence, reassuring the audience that IT will expand aggressively at ten percent annually, to reach $210 billion USD by 2020.
Neoris CEO on Brazil, Bilingualism and Future Expansion
April 27th, 2012
By Filipe Pacheco
Neoris started as a true Latin American outsourcing company, as a spin-off company of Cemex, one of the biggest businesses from Mexico’s infrastructure industry. Although that beginning occurred very far away from Brazil, a little over a decade after the company started its operation in Brazil, it increasingly focuses its global strategy in the country as one of their biggest opportunities for growth in the world – especially when considering SAP services.
Such attention helps to explain the recent visit of Claudio Muruzabal, global CEO of Neoris, to the SAP Forum recently hosted in São Paulo.
By Luke Bujarski
Distinguishing between domestic and export driven business is becoming increasingly important to vendors operating in LatAm. How are Brazilian banks outsourcing their back office? Why is Mexico’s manufacturing industry rebounding and what technology solutions are producers looking for? Is Colombia’s telecoms market the next big opportunity? Likewise, multinational enterprises will be looking for those service providers best suited to support their specific industry, as they invest in these oft complex markets.
By Shagun Malhotra
I knew I was in for a ride as soon as I arrived in Santiago and ventured out to the local neighborhoods to hunt for an apartment. It was not so much the huge language barrier, but rather, the non-stop honking and the playful wolf whistling that followed everywhere I went – a surprisingly warm Latin American welcome for an Indian-American girl. That was when I decided to put away my tight white shirt for the rest of my time in Santiago. But that’s a story for another time. Let’s rewind.
I am from New York City, a city bustling with all kinds of incubators but unfortunately, cost expensive equity. I wasn’t really looking for incubating opportunities as the city’s entrepreneurial spirit, diverse community and phenomenal resources were enough to nurture me. Reading the article on Start-Up Chile (SUP) in Inc. Magazine, however, had me intrigued by the equity-free offer of $40,000, access to international networks, and support from the Chilean government with just an agreement to relocate to Chile for six months.
India Losing Cost Advantage Over Latin America
April 23rd, 2012
By Robert L. Scheier
Hourly labor costs in the Latin American Nearshore are still slightly higher than in traditional low-cost leader India. But other factors such as faster time to market and simplified communications often still make the Nearshore the better choice, according to speakers at the Nearshore Nexus outsourcing conference in New York City last week.
Uribe Declares New Day for Nearshore at Nexus
April 19th, 2012
Uribe highlighted positive social, political and business developments in the Latin American/Caribbean region
Kirk Laughlin, CEO of Nearshore Americas, kicked off today’s Nearshore Nexus Conference at the Crowne Plaza in New York City by stating nearshore outsourcing has gone from “novel to mainstream.” Laughlin promised that conference speakers would illustrate how outsourcing destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean are “no longer in the shadow of India or China,” but have instead become vibrant providers of sophisticated IT and business outsourcing services in their own right. The first speaker, former President of the Republic of Colombia Mr. Alvaro Uribe, delivered on that promise.
Production in Brazil Almost as Expensive as Europe
April 18th, 2012By Filipe Pacheco
It might be surprising and paradoxical at the same time, but when it comes to business competitiveness, Brazil can be almost as expensive as developed European countries. A study recently published by KPMG shows that producing in the country is almost as expensive as doing it in places such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. According to the research, called Competitive Alternatives, it is more expensive to produce in Brazil than in any of the other of the so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) plus Mexico, which are some of the fastest growing economies in the world.
