In-House Developers vs. Nearshoring: Which Development Model to Choose for Your Business

Internal developers are employees who will work directly for your company, usually in the office. They get adapted to the culture of your organization and become part of the process.

1. Better Control: Having a developer in your office means you can keep a closer eye on things. You can give feedback right away, making sure the work fits your company's style and stays on track.
2. Gets Your Company: In-house developers really get to know how your company thinks and works. This means they're more likely to understand what you're after and work well with everyone else.
3. Always There: When you need something done fast or want to bounce ideas around, your in-house developer is right there, ready to help.
4. Tighter Team: When everyone works in the same place, it's easier to become friends and talk to each other. This usually leads to a team that works better together and feels more motivated.

1. Higher Costs
   Hiring internally involves significant expenses, including salaries, benefits, office space, and equipment.
2. Small Pool of Talents
   Depending on where you are based, developing locally may be limiting and difficult in terms of accessing a wide variety of skill sets.
3. Longer Hiring Process
   In-house recruitment and onboarding of developers are very time-consuming and slow to begin with projects of importance.

One of the most popular nearshoring strategies is outsourcing work to countries relatively close to a company. Geographic proximity, in this case, means, often, similar timezones and cultural backgrounds that afford smoothness and efficiency in working together.

1. Cost Savings
   Nearshoring creates an opportunity for considerable cost savings compared to local hiring because, typically, the labour costs between countries that are next to each other will be lower.
2. Access to Larger Talent Pool
   Nearshoring provides access to a broader range of skills and expertise, which may not be available locally.
3. Flexible Scaling
   Nearshoring provides an organization with the ease of bringing in specific expertise at short notice when required for a project, without long-term commitments like hiring full-time employees.
4. Communication
   Sharing similar time zones makes it easier to schedule meetings and collaborate in real time, reducing the chances of miscommunication and project delays.

1. Less Control
   You will have less direct control over nearshoring teams than an in-house team; this might be related to misalignments or delays.
2. Cultural Differences
   While cultural similarities are more likely to be in place with nearshoring compared to offshoring, there could still be huge differences that will have to be managed for seamless collaboration.
3. Integration Efforts
   It may take building nearshoring teams some time and effort to fit seamlessly within collaboration into the internal processes and culture.

1. Quality Control
   For any development model, the control of high-quality output is cardinal. With internal developers, you would have direct oversight. Still, with nearshoring, stringent quality control procedures backed up with a defined checking-by-review regime may help keep this under control.
2. Communication
   The key to this is clear and continuous communication. This goes without saying for internal teams, but with nearshoring teams, it can be duplicated by clearly laying down the communication channels and asking them to use collaboration tools.
3. Cost Versus Benefit
   Weigh the costs against the benefits. Besides, even though it might provide more control over an internal team, nearshoring offers cost savings and flexibility but seems to require much more effort in management and integration.
4. Talent Accessibility
   Consider the availability of skills. Internal recruitment may be limited to locally available talent, while nearshoring will attract much more diversified competencies.

As you can see, some unique benefits and challenges pertain to internal development and others to nearshoring.

Internal developers provide more control, timely availability, and deeper integration into your company culture. Nearshoring offers cost savings, flexibility, and access to a broader talent pool. The model you select will depend on your unique business needs and budget, along with long-term goals.

In nearshoring, one stands to benefit when working with tech hubs known for their skilled pool of developers. At Notum, located in one of these tech hubs in Brno, we handle nearshoring and deliver top results.

Let's discuss how we can help you achieve your business goals. Got a question? Shoot us an email at sales@notum-tech.ch

If you are looking for a reliable Strapi development agency that comes to your Swiss office, look no further. Happy to meet you over a coffee in Zurich.