Building a Successful Nearshore Team: Costs, Benefits, and Top Providers

The business landscape has become increasingly global over the past few years. While US companies want to tap into quality talent and fill skill gaps, they’re also looking for ways to keep costs down without sacrificing quality or communication.

A well-balanced solution has emerged in response to these needs: Building a nearshore team with remote professionals in nearby countries. Nearshore regions offer a wider pool of experts who are not only as skilled as their US counterparts but also offer competitive rates and time zone and cultural alignment.

By the end of this guide, you’ll find out why an increasing number of US companies are choosing the nearshore approach, the costs associated with it, and a few reliable nearshore outsourcing companies that can help you get started.

Why More US Companies Are Forming Nearshore Teams

Nearshore teams come with a set of unique advantages compared with onshore and offshore teams. Offshore teams in distant locations like Asia or Eastern Europe might be the most cost effective, but they often come with significant cultural differences and can present communication challenges. An onshore team is convenient but also the most expensive option. 

Let’s take a closer look at the key benefits a nearshore team can provide.

Geographic proximity advantages

Even though many companies are already operating on a remote or hybrid basis, having outsourced team members located in nearby countries can foster closer-knit relationships with your internal staff. 

It’s typically easier to travel between the US and nearshore countries than offshore locations—a nearshore setup can make hosting in-person meetings or workshop retreats much more feasible.

Cost efficiency considerations

Rather than limiting your hiring pool to your city or area, where salary costs tend to be higher, you can outsource to professionals in other nearby countries with lower living costs. This allows you to cut down on labor expenses while still paying workers an attractive salary for their country’s standards. 

Access to diverse talent pools

Nearshoring can address talent shortages and fuel growth by giving you access to a far wider talent pool than if you were to hire only within your city. You can access more talent with specialized skills and experience that your local talent pool might not have.

As team diversity has been shown to have a positive impact on financial outperformance, a diverse team can provide new perspectives and approaches to work that can be extremely valuable to stay competitive in a global marketplace.

Cultural compatibility

Outsourcing to faraway countries is a popular strategy due to the low labor costs and vast number of candidates, but nearshore teams have the unmistakable advantage of greater cultural compatibility with the US.

When it comes to communication styles, business practices, and workplace norms, cultural alignment can lead to a more productive and smoother partnership.

This can be a huge benefit, especially if you’re working on projects with cultural nuance, such as region-specific software or marketing material that needs to appeal to a domestic audience.

Time zone compatibility advantages

Even when you’re working with remote teams, time zone compatibility can enable real-time collaboration. Rather than waiting several hours for a response or feedback, issues can be resolved faster, and communication becomes quicker and more seamless.

How Much Does It Cost To Build a Nearshore Team?

As mentioned above, one of the most significant benefits of putting together a nearshore team is the cost advantages. In general, you can save 30–70% on total salary costs by hiring nearshore talent in Latin America (LatAm) instead of in the US. 

However, your exact savings will depend on the type of team you’re forming and what roles you want to fill. The cost (and percentage of savings) can differ based on factors like the seniority of the professionals and their job positions.

For example, a single back-end developer in the US could set you back $165,000, while one from LatAm would cost you only $78,000. Meanwhile, the average salary of an inbound sales representative is $73,500 in the US and just $18,000 in LatAm.

As with any type of outsourcing, you also get the added advantage of not having to pay the various overhead costs associated with in-house teams, such as office space, equipment, software, and employee benefits.

How To Ensure Success With Nearshore Teams

It’s not enough to simply hire a couple of workers from neighboring countries and carry on as usual—more planning and strategy are required. Here’s how to build a successful nearshore team:

1. Know your business goals

When you set clear objectives, you’ll know exactly what to do and why. Nearshore workers should be sourced, vetted, selected, and onboarded with a purpose, knowing the deadlines and outcomes they need to adhere to.

2. Make sure that forming a nearshore team is what your business needs

Is a nearshore team exactly what you need, or are you simply attracted by its prospect? Decide whether this sort of team can provide the solution you need and whether onshoring or offshoring may be a better choice.

3. Look for potential partners

There is a wide range of online platforms and specialized service providers that can help establish a nearshore team you’d want to work with. However, it’s still important to examine the services and track records of potential nearshore partners and choose the one that aligns best with your needs.

You can see a few excellent options in our list of companies offering nearshore outsourcing services below.

4. Understand team dynamics and culture

Although nearshoring can facilitate seamless collaboration between team members, you still need to develop a company culture and positive environment. Through regular check-ins and team-building sessions, you can reinforce a collaborative culture and bring your team closer together.

5. Onboard your team

Only 52% of new hires are satisfied with the onboarding experience, and that’s because onboarding doesn’t just involve giving new hires access to the right platforms or introducing them to the rest of the team. 

It includes defining their role clearly, giving them the right training and resources, providing a support system, and fostering a feedback loop.

6. Set performance metrics and regularly measure them

There’s no better way to measure success than by using performance metrics. These concrete indicators will show you exactly how effective your nearshore team is and whether you need to tweak anything to improve outcomes.

Top 4 Companies Specializing in Building Nearshore Teams

Need some help finding a partner that specializes in building nearshore teams? To help you get started, we’ve compiled a list (not organized in any specific order) of companies that either specialize in nearshoring or offer nearshoring among their wider range of services.

1. Near

Near is a full-service partner that makes hiring, onboarding, payroll, and compliance easy for companies that want to access nearshore talent. 

We help all sorts of companies—from startups to large enterprises—hire fully vetted, talented candidates from LatAm. You can enjoy cost savings of 30–70% compared with hiring US-based professionals, as well as time zone alignment and cultural understanding.

And yes, we put ourselves first! After all, we believe in our ability to help you recruit the best remote talent.

2. TopTal

If you’re searching for talent in the top 3%, TopTal boasts an extensive talent pool of tested and vetted professionals locally and abroad. 

Many of these freelancers previously held positions at big-name companies around the world and have specific expertise in a variety of disciplines. The platform can be especially useful if you have an extreme time crunch and need a partnership right away, as TopTal can find you a candidate in as fast as 48 hours.

3. BairesDev

BairesDev is a nearshore software development company that can connect you with a time zone-aligned software engineer with technical expertise in nearly any programming language you can think of.

With the top 1% of nearshore developers, UX designers, data scientists, and other tech professionals ready to join your team, you can flexibly scale whenever necessary.

4. Arc

Arc can find you the right fit for your nearshore team with its dedicated HireAI software to shortlist candidates. It can help you scale globally, assigning you a dedicated recruiter to save you time in the sourcing part of the process. 

Its talent pool’s many highly specific specialties in marketing, design, development, and more make it more than likely you’ll find a good fit.

Final Thoughts

A well-structured and well-tended nearshore team can propel your company’s projects forward with greater efficiency and innovation. But to succeed, you need to know your business goals, create the right company culture, and choose an effective outsourcing partner.

Near provides the perfect nearshoring solution (it even inspired our name), allowing you to tap into the LatAm talent pool to fill a wide range of roles in your nearshore team. As your trusted hiring partner, we’ll handle everything from payroll to compliance through our end-to-end recruitment process.

Ready to hire a qualified candidate? Fill out this form to get a list of pre-vetted candidates you can interview for free. We can help you find and hire amazing talent in under 21 days.

Frequently Asked Questions

What types of nearshore teams can I form?

Like with onshore outsourcing teams, you can form all sorts of nearshore teams that work just as well in a remote environment. These might include customer support teams, software development teams, design teams, marketing teams, and sales teams.

What should I do if the nearshore team I hired is not meeting performance expectations?

If you find that your nearshore team isn’t hitting your performance metrics or meeting goals, it indicates that it’s time to hold a meeting with your team. You might want to provide constructive feedback, set new goals, and potentially provide resources and regular training to improve their performance. 

What country should I choose for a nearshore team?

The LatAm region is home to numerous nearshore locations that all provide lucrative advantages for US businesses.

For example, Argentina emphasizes tech education, while Brazil has the largest economy in the area of creative services, marketing, and sales. It all depends on what sort of nearshore team you’re hiring and what services you need.