The shortage of skilled workers in Germany is discussed daily on TV and in other media. The current housing shortage in Germany is also often addressed. As of the beginning of 2023, allegedly 700,000 apartments are already missing in Germany. Even if the government finally should find a more pragmatic and unbureaucratic way to facilitate the entry of qualified professionals from abroad into the German labor market, those will then also need affordable housing. In this context, therefore, the topic of nearshoring will once again move more into focus.
Nearshoring moves back into focus
On Wikipedia (German version), nearshoring is defined as follows:
“The term nearshoring refers to a special form of offshoring. From a European perspective, this usually means outsourcing to Eastern countries. For North America, nearshoring destinations include Mexico and Brazil.”
Of course, many professions, such as care services and the craft sector, require presence in the respective workplace. In the IT sector, however, where companies of all sizes, but especially SMEs and startups, have a growing problem of finding good software developers, nearshoring often is the only solution. A few years ago teams of developers used to sit together in the office. Since the beginning of the Corona crisis three years ago, in many software companies developers have continued to work from home and only come into the office sporadically. Does it then make any difference for a company in Berlin or Munich whether a software developer is based in the surrounding area or in Cairo? Most important is the same time zone and, of course, the language. Even today, English is the primary language spoken in many development teams due to the high proportion of employees from foreign countries. So that’s actually no longer a roadblock.
Only cutting cost does not lead to success
If you continue reading the article on Wikipedia (German version), it also describes the following:
“Nearshoring, like offshoring, is intended to reduce personnel costs. (…) In Europe, jobs are therefore relocated from Central Europe to so-called low-wage countries in Eastern Europe. (…) In sectors such as IT or call center services, nearshoring is mainly used to keep personnel costs low.”
If only cost saving is the major driver for nearshoring, success will probably be rather limited, especially in software development, except from perhaps a few independent projects. At least the experience of the last few years has shown that.
The provider makes the difference
In the end, it is the nearshoring provider in Germany that makes the difference. It hires the specialists, is responsible for their working environment abroad and, above all, ensures that the collaboration works between the teams abroad and in Germany – on both a technical and a personal level. The focus in the future should therefore be more on a long-term integration of the foreign specialists into the local development teams, moving away from pure project work. In addition to their technical expertise, the employees abroad should therefore fit into the team and the corporate culture. This means that it is the provider’s task to select the candidates not only according to technical skills, but also according to personal criteria. In the end, this will make the real difference.
Why Egypt?
Wikipedia (German version) continues:
“Particularly in the IT sector, it became apparent that the cost advantages of the significantly cheaper development resources in nearshoring are to a large extent relativized by the considerable communication efforts on the client side. Political and legal framework conditions, especially with regard to data protection, should also be adequately considered when evaluating nearshore risks.”
This is precisely what needs to be taken into account. That’s exactly why it’s so important to work with the right provider. pyraCode focuses on Egypt because….
- Egypt is located in the heart of EMEA, making it the ideal hub between Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
- The European time zone enables synchronous collaboration across borders
- More than 50 universities and 100 institutes guarantee an excellent education
- 50,000 IT graduates annually provide the basis for a wide range of candidates
- The local data protection policies are compatible with European regulations
pyraCode – the nearshoring provider
The German-Egyptian founding team of pyraCode has many years of experience in the IT environment, especially in the areas of
- Software development
- Business process outsourcing (BPO)
- HR services
- International sales and business development
- Organizational development
- Company foundation and management
- International management
- Consulting and interim management
The company’s Egyptian office, with local management on site in Cairo, selects suitable candidates from a pool of hundreds of highly talented software developers with extensive experience and a wide range of skills and tech stacks. The German team then supports the client in the selection process and, most importantly, in integrating the new developers into the company’s processes, team and culture. The customer pays a fixed price for the developer, pyraCode takes care of everything else. A long-term and successful cooperation is the primary goal.