Having decided to outsource your IT development, you may want to consider nearshoring to Portugal as your best option for all the advantages that Portugal can offer:
#1 Lower labour costs of IT professionals compared to western Europe
Lower labour costs due to Portugal’s relatively lower cost of living: Labour costs in Portugal are lower than in most of Western Europe, and its lower unit labour costs relative to the Euro Area enhance its cost competitiveness to other countries.
#2 Highly skilled IT workforce
Portugal has a highly skilled IT workforce: many universities with suitable certifications in IT and engineering.
There is a large pool of highly qualified software engineers and project management teams, with experience in all types of nearshore IT development, from web and mobile development, Data & Analytics, and Cloud adoption.
#3 Easy to talk with
Portugal is known for its language skills, especially English, and ease of communication is a key success factor when working with cross-border distributed teams.
#4 Location, location, location
Portugal’s geographic location may be at the westernmost point in Europe, but as it is on the GMT meridian (UK and Ireland time zone), it is still only a 1-hour difference from the Central European time zone. This provides maximum overlap of working hours with a bigger window for real-time communication, remaining close to the development team, and ensuring faster delivery times.
This time zone proximity is an advantage for remote communication and face-to-face meetings, which will always be necessary throughout the project lifetime, reducing travel times and costs.
Lisbon is a 1 to 4 hours flight from any central European capital city.
#5 Culture and mindset
Besides its proximity and easy travel, Portugal is a politically and socially stable country, known for its hospitality to foreigners, marvelous cuisine, fantastic weather, broad-based culture, and stunning urban and natural beauty. It is an all-around excellent travel destination for business as well as pleasure.
All of this helps in building a solid long-term relationship with a Portuguese IT developer: proximity, top technical and language skills, strong social and communication skills, and welcoming hospitality all go together to form a flexible mindset which, when combined with the good Portuguese work ethic, create a solid basis to success.
Conclusion
From its combination of lower labour costs and the availability of a highly-skilled labour force, we can see that Portugal offers a high value for money ratio for software development compared to most other countries in Europe.
Portugal also offers a wide range of potential partners for nearshore IT development, and a factor that could make all the difference in the vetting stage is the company’s previous experience in similar cross-border collaborations.
For example, the Devoteam Group is a leading consulting firm focused on digital strategy, platform technologies, cybersecurity and business transformation operating in 25 countries across EMEA as one of the largest European groups of technology consulting solutions, and it is represented in Portugal, which has an excellent reputation and proven results in the nearshoring market.
Devoteam Portugal has more than 10 years of nearshore software outsourcing experience involving over 100 experts using state-of-the-art technologies to ensure it can deliver innovative technology solutions that meet a client’s present and future requirements.
Devoteam Group’s network provides unique leverage by allowing access to accumulated shared experience and technical know-how that some of Devoteam’s competitors envy. This can ensure that the right skill-sets can be found for the proposed IT solution. And should the Client eventually need additional workforce for its dedicated nearshore IT team, that possibility also exists.
From the initial identification and analysis of the Client’s requirements, it develops specific recruitment, training, onboarding, and integration plans with the Client and closely monitors and manages performance throughout the development. Its continuous communication, proximity and collaboration ensure the on-schedule and on-budget delivery of the required solution.
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