An article in the Wall Street Journal realistically describes the state of affairs in Latin America. It describes Latin America’s quiet revolution this way:

Most of Latin America is, however, undergoing a period of unprecedented political and economic transformation. In Chile, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, the Dominican Republic and, yes, Mexico … there has been a quiet but substantial movement toward the creation of societies that are characterized by increased economic opportunity, social mobility and political democracy.

Noticeably missing is a discussion of Columbia which is becoming another outsourcing destination for American companies in Latin America.

Clients are expressing continued interest in developing their software in Latin American countries because of the closeness in time zone and distance. This article gives a good sense of how close the various countries are to the U.S. politically and culturally too.

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Redwood City, CA – [Business Wire] February 8, 2008 – Accelerance, the company dedicated to taking the risk out of outsourcing software development globally, has expanded its presence in Latin America, approving eight new members – two each from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico – to join its Global Partner Network. The network now has more than 40 members throughout Eastern Europe, India, Latin America, North America and Southeast Asia, providing services for 19 leading software technologies. Argentina and Chile are new country destinations for the Accelerance Global Partner Network. The Accelerance Global Partner Network member directory is now online for prospective clients to get an overview and sense of depth and breadth of the global network.

A leading provider of software solutions for the purchasing life cycle selected Accelerance to help them build a team in Latin America with the objective of enabling real-time communication and improving retention. While the client already offshored to India, they thought it made good business sense to also leverage their Latin American neighbors. The company turned to Accelerance for the expertise they needed to accomplish this expansion goal quickly and easily. 

Steve Mezak, Accelerance CEO and author of the awarding-winning book Software Without Borders and the Steve Mezak Blog said, “Many U.S. companies are looking toward Latin America for a safe, practical way to add software development resources within the same – or closer – time zone.”

Mezak is frequent speaker on outsourcing software development. This month his company will sponsor the SD Forum Event, “Software Engineering Management SIG,” featuring guest speaker, Dr. Ivar Jacobson, founder of Ivar Jacobson Consulting. On March 7, Mezak will present “Offshoring: Pro’s and Con’s” at the SD West 2008 Conference in Santa Clara, CA.

Accelerance, Inc. offers consulting, coaching, tools and processes to help clients select offshore, near-shore and onshore outsourcing vendors quickly and safely. The Accelerance Global Partner Network of 40 expert software development vendors in 20 countries provides software development services for 19 leading software technologies. Accelerance also guides customers in contract negotiation, offshore engagement set-up, and on-going software development oversight.

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Professional programmers from Latin America that have emigrated to the U.S. are looking back to their home countries as a source of software development talent. 

Why? 

Because their experience with other outsourcing destinations suffered from a lack of English skills, cultural and time zone differences. Besides that, travel to places like India takes too long and is too expensive. 

You can read about some of these Latin entrepreneurs in the Outsourcing in Local Time article in a recent issue of Red Herring. 

An advantage of outsourcing to Latin America is the ability to implement a collaborative Agile software development process with your nearshore team because of the significant overlap of workday with the U.S. 

Meanwhile, the governments of Central and South American countries are encouraging these increased business ties with the U.S. Recently the government of Chile visited Silicon Valley to promote outsourcing to Chile.

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This morning’s San Jose Mercury Newspaper had an article entitled Selling Chile to the Valley about a recent visit to Silicon Valley by Chilean officials to promote business with relationships and outsourcing to Chile.

Outsourcing to Chile is ranked #7 on The 2007 A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index which ranks the top 50 global locations for outsourcing using 43 measurements grouped into three broader categories of financial attractiveness, people and skills availability, and business environment.

That is an excellent ranking and an increase from #9 in the 2004 report. The report rates these locations for all kinds of outsourcing such as call centers and business process outsourcing (BPO) in addition to software development.

A sidebar in the paper also mentions Chile’s elevator pitch for doing business in Silicon Valley — the top five things to know about Chile. It has:

1. A stable social and economic environment.

2. Several strong engineering schools.

3. An advanced telecommunications infrastructure.

4. Lots of free-trade agreements, including ones with the U.S., China and the European Union.

5. The same time zone as the East Coast of the U.S.

Accelerance is expanding the Global Partner Network by adding qualified partners in South America. If you know of excellent software development vendors in Chile and elsewhere in South America, then contact me through this blog, or at the Accelerance website.

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