Near-Shore. Agile Software Development In Costa Rica and Peru. Your Complete. Outsourcing Solution

Transcription

1 Near-Shore Agile Software Development In Costa Rica and Peru

2 NEAR-SHORE OUTSOURCING Unlike offshore outsourcing, near-shore outsourcing provides competitive advantage for companies seeking to expand their engineering team in neighbouring countries where labour is cheaper while maintaining easier access to their remote team through closer proximity and similar time-zones. Many U.S. companies have learned the hard way that sending their projects to China or India is not always a reliable way to cut costs. It s hard to collaborate with teams that far away, it s expensive to travel and colocate team members and the quality of the work is hit or miss. The benefit of proximity is more than just working in the same, or close, time zone. For projects that require close interaction with the company and its outsourcing partner, near-shoring is an excellent solution with less expensive travel costs and shortened travel time as an added benefit. In today s hectic world, organizations are working overtime to maximize efficiencies worldwide. Most companies have already started the process or are seriously looking into the benefits of near-shoring. Latin America s geographic proximity and shared timezones (Eastern and Central) allows North American companies to increase face-to-face interaction, which in turn promotes success of more complex projects with maximized efficiency and shorter time span. UTAH COSTA RICA PERU THE NEAR-SHORE ADVANTAGE Proximity We are head-quartered in the U.S. and maintain stateof-the-art software engineering centers in the most stable and developed of Latin-American countries: Costa Rica and Peru. The proximity of our centers dramatically reduce travel time and expense as well as communication costs and time-zone complications. It is simply cheaper and easier to work with us. We speak English Our engineers integrate easily into your development team and are trained and experienced in the latest software technologies and development processes like SCRUM and Agile. A high fluency in English allows our staff to seamlessly integrate and become highly productive members of your development team. We work when you work Our offices operate in Mountain (Utah), Central (Costa Rica), and Eastern (Peru) time-zones - you can reach us exactly when you need us at most within an hour time difference during daylight savings. We work hard Costa Rica and Peru are widely recognized as the powerhouses of Latin American developing nations. They are both recognized as having the most stable political systems and economies over many developing nations worldwide and are noted for their friendliness to business and growing middle-class. Our staff are professional, courteous and eager for success in their endeavours.

3 WHY NEAR-SHORING IN COSTA RICA? Costa Rica is within a half-day travel time from most North American locations and it s located on the Central U.S. time-zone. The country is secure, the food is great, the people are nice and the landscape is beautiful. Almost everyone can speak English. Costa Rica is serious about being a leader in high technology. It has nearly 30,000 IT and software development professionals, and 2,500 more graduating each year. Costa Rica boasts the region s oldest democracy, political stability, a modern and dependable infrastructure and an impressive 95% literacy rate. It has a westernized culture historically aligned with the U.S. Costa Rica has a vibrant, higly educated, talented and skilled employee pool. Costa Rican software engineers communicate in a respectful but straightforward way, based on their experience and knowledge. There are over 300 American multinational companies in Costa Rica today, which have been locating large manufacturing and distribution facilities here for many years now; drawn mainly by the investment friendly policies of the government, along with the prolonged political stability of the country. Establishing a good working relationship with your team by meeting with them in person, either in Costa Rica or in the U.S. is an easy and affordable feat. San Isidro, Peru WHY NEAR-SHORING IN PERU? Peru shares many of advantages as Costa Rica: San Jose, Costa Rica A recent article published by Bloomberg News, which classifies Peru as the fastest-growing corporate bond market in Latin America, promotes the Latin American country as one of the safest places to invest in the region. According to another article published by Bloomberg Markets, Peru ranks as the fourth-best emerging country in the world for investment trailing only China, South Korea and Thailand and is rated first in Latin America. Foreign direct investment rose to $12 billion last year. Peruvian middle class is a growing and fundamental part of Peru s bustling economy and has been driven by foreign investment. Peru was one of only a few countries whose stable growth continued despite the last worldwide recession. Since 2009, trade between US and Peru is now governed under U.S-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA).

4 WHO IS EXCEL SOFTSOURCES? Excel SoftSources is a team of software development and quality assurance engineers based in Costa Rica. We offer the convenience and security of working with a reliable U.S. company, plus the benefits of a highly a ff o r d a b l e N e a r - S h o r e outsource development team. All of our engineers pass rigorous screening methods and many hold certifications from vendors such as Microsoft and Sun Microsystems. Beyond hard skills, Excel hires staff with hard-to-find soft skills like communication, team-work and attention to quality. Unlike other providers, our team members are capable of innovating and thinking outside ofthe box, to provide you with a higher degree of performance. Excel SoftSources maintains the business philosophy that the right mix of people, business and technology create value in your organization. This means that Excel provides strong technology skills, business experience, and people with both hard and soft skills. We provide businesses with real people that are capable of working with onshore teams on iterative designs and complex implementations. Excel SoftSources specializes in assembling and managing dedicated teams of highly skilled technical professionals to augment your in-house resources or to-build and operate entire projects. LOWER THE TOTAL COST OF INVESTMENT We strongly encourage IT executives to consider the total cost of investment when considering outsourcing IT initiatives. While there may be less expensive hourly rates available, other factors should be considered such as travel time, team-building capability, active collaboration and strong communication. On the other hand, keeping good resources is always preferable and less expensive than hiring new resources. We strive to find the right people for your projects, which reduces turnover, and increases your return on investment. Due to proximity, we also encourage face-to-face interaction and true teaming that is not available in many other off-shore locations. Excel SoftSources strives to develop long-term and synergistic relationships with customers and thus offers four major pricing models, which allow us to compete with all Near-Shore alternatives. Time and Material Contract Fixed Price Contract Hybrid Contract Managed Service Contract Each different pricing model is designed to provide different benefits to the customer and is favorable under unique circumstances.

5 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT OUTSOURCING SERVICES Excel SoftSources provides the following Software Development Service from its Delivery Center in sunny San José, Costa Rica: Long Term Staff Augmentation Full Software Product Development Custom Applications Development Mobile Applications for iphone and Android E-commerce Solutions Software Quality Assurance We take pride in ourselves for being quite flexible and thus able to adjust our methodologies to suit our clients needs. Due to the fact that we serve from very large clients to very small ones, we tailor our processes and methods to provide the right mix of control, documentation and design of activities. This schema ensures high quality software and the highest throughput without overwhelming our clients with rigid practices. Excel can work with clients using different engagement models that demand differing degrees of upfront participation in application design. Likewise, Excel can also play a key role in software testing from unit-testing to acceptance testing. EXCEL S SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGIES Excel SoftSources offers specialized custom application development services in technology areas, such as Microsoft.NET, J2EE, PHP, Mobile development, etc. These services can assist companies i n t h e i r q u e s t t o e x p a n d development capacity, accelerate time-to-market and build flexible distributed delivery models to negotiate risk.flexible response to change. Our preferred software development and project management methodology is SCRUM, which is an iterative and incremental Agile approach to software project management. It provides the best balance of control and visibility while also allowing flexibility in the software production process; factors that make it ideal to manage software development outsourcing. Of all the methodologies we have tested, SCRUM is the one that works best for offshore development and quality assurance. AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT Excel SoftSources promotes software development in accordance with the Agile methodology, based on the understanding that requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, crossfunctional teams. We promote adaptive planning, evolutionary development and delivery, a time-boxed iterative approach, and encourage rapid and flexible response to change.

6 HIGH GRADE QUALITY ASSURANCE SERVICES Excel SoftSources offers Near-Shore software testing and test automation development to validate application d e v e l o p m e n t, b o t h c u s t o m e r d e v e l o p m e n t a n d p a c k a g e development. These services can both augment onshore testing efforts, or, can be used to outsource testing altogether. Excel test engineers can provide a boost to overall quality, with objectivity and experienced execution. Outsourcing testing allows on-shore resource to focus on development or other priority initiatives. Excel SoftSources tests software using best-practice methods and industry proven quality assurance and control frameworks. Our engineers can plan, design, develop and execute virtually any software test from our Development Center. PROVEN PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES At Excel SoftSources, our project managers plan, organize and direct resources towards the successful completion of all projects. They work directly with the client in matters including, but not limited to, scope definition, resource planning, work effort, risk and issues. In some cases, differing software methodologies work better with different project management approaches. Excel SoftSources tailors the project management approach to the chosen methodology. Thus, Excel will use an Extreme project management approach for an Agile project or a more traditional approach for a classic Waterfall project. In either case, Excel uses best-practices project management processes to drive each work effort. WE ARE YOUR BEST LONG-TERM OUTSOURCING OPTION Excel SoftSources provides a unique and refreshing alternative to traditional outsourcing providers. Our teams are a cultural match and become an extension to your on-shore team. We seek long term engagements, and because we have low attrition rates, we can deliver long term, at lower total costs. Our proximate location makes it a breeze to travel and work in the same day. Our engineers are bright, innovative, and ready to create value for your organization. Excel SoftSources aspires to become the premier Latin American outsourcing provider. Our team is experienced, expert- trained, and looks forward to increasing your ability to compete, and improve business performance.

7 EXCEL SOFTSOURCES PRICING MODELS Time and Materials Contract Time and Material Contracts are the simplest and quickest way to begin an engagement. This is suitable for short-term projects, pure-play staff augmentation or projects where the scope is not well defined. In this case, Excel invoices direct labor only. Basic expenses such as workstations and communications are included. Additional expenses such as software licensing, hardware or other development tools are the responsibility of the client. In this case, project risk is shared by Excel and the customer. Fixed Price Contract Fixed Price Contracts are beneficial when the project scope is well-defined and requirements are welld o c u m e n t e d a n d understood by both ons h o r e a n d N e a r - S h o r e teams. In this case, Excel provides an upfront estimation of the cost to deliver software and assumes risk for performance. Hybrid Contract Hybrid Contracts are applicable when a certain portion of the project has a well-defined scope and requirements, however, some aspects of the project are still being defined and/or the scope has not been fully determined. In this case, Excel performs an estimate and provides a Fixed Price Proposal on the applicable software and can also execute a separate Time and Materials Contract on project scope which is still being defined. Managed Service Contract Managed Service Contracts provide customers with lower project ownership and lower project risk. In this case, the software product is developed Near- Shore and all resources required to support and operate the system are also staffed Near-Shore. In this case, Excel will bill a fixed monthly fee that is augmented with awards and penalties based upon service level agreements. This contract is particularly beneficial for startups and smaller enterprises that do not have the ability to scale their organization to develop or operate the desired capability. Managed Service Contracts are pure-play outsourcing Near-Shore agreements that provide the lowest total cost of ownership to the customer. TESTED AND CERTIFIED ENGINEERING SKILLS Excel SoftSources uses rigorous screening and testing methods before bringing resources into the Development Center. Senior developers typically h a v e 7 + y e a r s o f e x p e r i e n c e a n d a r e globally rated very high in technical skills. In addition, developers are mentored by both team leads and senior management. Senior managers have 10+ years of experience in full life-cycle software implementation and manage the scope, quality, timeline and resources for each project. Senior management also maintains the client relationship and serves as liaison between the client and the development team.

8 COSTA RICA QUICK FACTS Population: Languages: Spanish (official) / English Land Area: 51,060 sq km (19,714 sq miles) Capital: San Jose Time zone: GMT-6 (Central U.S. Time) Educational system is ranked highest in Latin America, according to the World Economic Forum s Global Competitiveness Report Most politically stable country in Latin America according to the World Bank s Study on Global Governance Indicators th place in the AT Kearney Global Services Location Index. Costa Rica gets about 99% of all its electrical energy from Clean Sources. Most popular expression in Costa Rica: Pura Vida! (it means Pure Life!) Life Expectancy: 79 years Literacy rate: 96.2% Education Expenditures: Minimum fixed by law at 7% of GDP CONSIDER IT A WORKING VACATION Excel s Development Center is located in San Pedro, just one mile East from down town San José; which is only 55 minutes away from the beach and at a very short driving distance from many other famous ecotourism attractions. Many of our clients executives travel to Costa Rica on working vacations, to conduct interviews, hold meetings or generally engage their team. Thus, they like to stay at our offices for the work week and spend their weekend at the beach, national parks or many other well known eco-tourism destinations. Costa Rica is a stunning country, offering plenty of opportunities for surfing, horse riding along the beaches, exploring the mountains, rainforests and waterfalls, swimming, and seeing some amazing wildlife, from monkeys to toucans, from whales to macaws.

9 Excel SoftSources continues to grow, hiring only the most qualified engineers in the industry who s p e c i a l i z e i n N e a r - S h o r e o u t s o u r c i n g, v a l u e - a d d e d c o n s u l t i n g, a n d e m e r g i n g technologies. USA Phone: +1 (435) Excel SoftSources 7281 E 1000 N, Huntsville, UT COSTA RICA PERU Phone: Phone: +1 (435) (435) (506) Calle 33, Avenidas 2 y 8, Los Yoses, San José Costa Rica Central America San Isidro Lima Peru South America