April 9, 2024
There’s a growing movement in the North American technology industry. Work for professionals like systems engineers, programmers, and architects, has been making a quiet migration back home. Beginning a couple decades ago, there was an enormous spike which offshored a huge amount of work to low-wage and developing countries. Once we had the technology, people a world away could be paid 5 or 6 times less that domestic employees, for similar work. Similar but not necessarily equal. Long View has always held the belief that no matter how large we grow, we will always maintain very close and intimate relationships with our employees and our clients. With that idea ever present, Long View does not outsource any of our work to offshore companies. There’s a few big reasons why, and they’re reflected in the reason behind this industry shift back towards domestic employment.
First and foremost, we believe that our very talented people are the biggest driver behind our excellent customer experience and innovative technical solutions. This factors in to our long standing full-time (vs. contractor) employment model in three key ways. Although those with business models charging lower rates on the surface appear to offer “value at a cost effective price” there is a tradeoff in the ability to provide a hands-on or high touch experience offering the collaboration and communication necessary to produce excellent and consistent results for our customers – this is particularly challenging when time zones and linguistic barriers are thrown in the mix. The results are often projects with scope creep, longer turnaround times and ultimately they are more expensive. Second, Long View supports the continued education and professional development of our employees through education, certifications, conferences, and mentorship. When competitors contract out to far-flung offshore organizations the opportunity for the same development is simply not there. This lack of closeness and career progression would impact our clients by not giving them access to the best local talent we can provide. By having our workforce within North America we can make sure that Long View offers its clients the best educated technical team, with the most recent certifications in technologies that are relevant. Third, the ongoing value Long View provides its clients is also reflected through the strategic partnerships with all of the leading manufactures, cloud providers, ISV’s and software publishers – and this ability is best exhibited at the local level in the business communities where clients and partners alike are side by side for maximum support and value.
Another reason Long View has always believed in domestic hiring is that there are very talented people right here, only they might not live in San Francisco, Calgary, Toronto, Silicon Valley or Vancouver. They are in smaller centers, but no less skilled. Many companies talk about outsourcing offshore because it allows a faster ramp-up time; there are more people available more quickly. While that’s understandable on the surface, our long experience is that the right people are here – if you’re willing to make the investment to find them. Although our team resides primarily in larger centers there are many examples of smaller communities which are home to some of Long View’s best talent. Given the importance we place on our people, this model allows us to provide our clients with the best people in the industry, while giving those, that choose to, the freedom to live where they want to be.
The shift we’re seeing is the technology industry’s pendulum swinging back from mainly offshored workforces, back to a middle ground where the industry is acknowledging the talent at home and beginning to take advantage particularly as the cost for offshore options have increased substantially to a point where the non-competitive argument no longer holds the weight it once did. Onshore outsourcing companies are popping up, with the very idea that Long View has taken from its start 17 years ago – we have great talent right here at home.
Read more about this in The New York Times: Hot Spot for Tech Outsourcing: The United States
ABOUT LONG VIEW:
Long View is one of the most powerful IT solutions and services companies in North America, with offices across the continent. With a clear focus on combining business and technology through our Hybrid IT solutions, including cloud, IT infrastructure, managed services, and end user support, Long View is able to define and customize what the future of IT looks like for our clients. Innovative, flexible, cost-effective, and business focused . . . that’s Long View.
For more information:
Geoff Hogue
Marketing Manager, Long View
E-mail: [email protected]