| |
Valueshore Spain, the Government-backed group of IT outsourcing consultancies, has today announced the launch of its outsourcing partner selection service which will help businesses identify the right partner to enable them to take advantage of the innovation and cost-savings available as a result of outsourcing IT projects to Spain. The service, which has been developed by a combination of both global and local IT consultancies, includes organising site visits, providing legal support and offering independent quality control during the course of the outsourcing project.
Spain is fast becoming a leading IT outsourcing hub. Wage costs are approximately half those of the UK, and it has a number of key advantages over other nearshore and farshore destinations. The region’s geographical affinity to the UK means companies do not experience the problems of cross-timezone business, which can make communication and management impossible and travel expensive and slow. Furthermore, as EU protectionism increases outsourcing within the EU is sometimes the only option if companies do not want to contravene certain legislation in areas such as data protection. In addition, there are no delays waiting for visas if staff need to work in both the UK and in Spain. Staff can also travel back and forth in the same day at a moments notice because of the excellent travel connections. Furthermore, the region has a long history of business and IT excellence. The top three business schools in Spain are listed as top ten worldwide by many sources. There is also no skills shortage with almost 20% of Spanish graduates aged 25-64 holding IT degrees, compared to 10% or less in any other European outsourcing destination. Furthermore, with all of these graduates having studied for their degrees using English language textbooks the standards of English are high.
Euan Davis, principal analyst at Forrester Research, who compiled a recent report on nearshoring to Spain, said: “Our interviews when compiling the report revealed the attractiveness of Spain as a destination for IT service delivery. Firms rate Spain highly for the skill of its people, the strength of its technology infrastructure, its nearshore location, and its ability to scale. Although firms hire companies rather than countries, our interviews show that Spain offers the ingredients to make a nearshore strategy a success with competitive differentiators around its large skilled IT labour pool, industrialised software factories and domain expertise – particular in financial services, retail and utilities.”
Daniel Naoum, co-founder of Valueshore Spain, added: “If a business is outsourcing IT, it’s vital that the chosen region can offer something others cannot. There is little point outsourcing to a country with no proven track record in IT innovation. Spain’s IT is ahead of other regions in many ways – for example government services have been online for over two years whereas most countries are only in the early stages of projects like these. On top of this, Spain isn’t saddled with legacy systems which enabled the country to leapfrog many others in Europe. Particularly in areas such as banking – Spain is home four of the top five European banks in terms of cost income efficiency ratios and this is largely down to our approach to IT. Spanish IT staff have a proven record in delivering innovative, successful IT projects on time and on budget. The likes of IBM, Accenture and Barclays are already taking advantage with IT hubs in the region. Our goal is to make this kind of success available to everyone.”
About Valueshore Spain
Valueshore Spain (valueshore.org) is a collaboration of 25 of Spain’s leading IT consulting firms aimed at promoting the region as a nearshore hub for innovation in Western Europe. Founded in 2008 by the AEC (the Spain association of consulting firms), its members represent over 80% of the total turnover of the management and technology consultancy market. The group also employs over 60% of the professionals in this sector.
Valueshore Spain aims to make outsourcing to Spain easy by providing companies with access to the information they need. This includes organising site visits, providing legal support and offering independent quality control of an outsourcing project.
|
