An IT outsourcing company directly employs or contracts IT specialists which are then assigned to the client. They typically either augment an existing team or form an independent team or even IT department. 

As a professional service, IT outsourcing can be packaged in a variety of different ways. But the underlying model is that specialists directly employed by the provider take on IT functions required by the client organisation.

IT outsourcing can be used as either an alternative or complement to a directly employed in-house IT team.

The term “nearshore” refers to international labour markets that have relative geographic proximity to the client organisation.

For example, Eastern Europe is generally considered a nearshore labour market in relation to Western Europe. Mexico is a nearshore market from the perspective of the USA. 

The term nearshore denotes outsourcing markets as closer than offshore alternatives.

Based in Munich, Germany, our ‘nearshore’ is Eastern Europe, some parts of Southern Europe, Central Asia and the northern fringes of the Middle East. 

If you are based outside of Europe eg. the USA, you can consider us an offshore IT outsourcing provider. 

Among the most commonly cited advantages of nearshore IT outsourcing  include:

• Cost efficient – it can be cheaper to use nearshore IT outsourcing services than to directly employ IT specialists in-house in high salary economies, especially if remote teams are based in nearshore and offshore locations. 
• There is a significant amount of top blockchain talent based in nearshore markets. Take a look over some of our case studies to see the kind of projects we’ve assigned senior specialists to or ask us to put you in touch with some of our blockchain development clients.
• IT outsourcing also allows companies and organisations to only pay for expensive IT specialists when they are needed. Direct employees are an overhead even when not working on strategically important projects.
• IT outsourcing companies are specialists in the recruitment and management of IT teams and experts. It can save organisations that don’t have that in-house expertise a lot of time and money to outsource the recruitment, payroll and management of IT functions.

Despite the advantages IT outsourcing can offer, there are also many scenarios which could mean your needs would be better met by directly employing needed IT specialists. These include:

• Sensitive Data: If your IT projects involve sensitive data (e.g., financial institutions, healthcare organisations), you might prefer to keep IT in-house to have better control over data security and privacy. Regulatory requirements might also dictate this. 

• Complex, Specific, or Unique Technology Needs: If your technology needs are very specific, complex or unique, it may be beneficial to have dedicated in-house employees who understand your systems inside and out.

• Innovation and Competitive Advantage: If IT is a key strategic and IP (intellectual property) asset for your company (like tech companies), keeping IT in-house can help maintain a competitive advantage.

It’s a very broad question involving many potential variables but organisations use IT outsourcing services because it is directly or indirectly more cost efficient than directly employing for the same functions.

The direct cost paid to an outsourcing partner to provide nearshore and offshore IT specialists can often be lower than employing domestically for the equivalent skills.

Indirect cost efficiencies include avoiding recruitment agency fees or the expense of in-house recruitment, the need to set up and manage international payroll, and the flexibility to scale IT resources up and down with project cycles.

We recruit based on client-project needs so can offer blockchain specialists and development services that incorporate any required tech stack. 

However, some of the programming languages, frameworks and tools we have worked with most on blockchain development projects are:

Programming languages

1. Solidity: The programming language most commonly used to create smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. It’s similar to JavaScript and is specifically designed for developing blockchain applications.

2. Go: Google-developed Go, often mistakenly referred to as Golang, is used in Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric.

3. Rust: A high-performance language used in several blockchain projects including Parity and Polkadot due to its safety and speed.

4. JavaScript: JavaScript is frequently used to interact with Ethereum and other blockchains through libraries like web3.js and ethers.js,

5. Python: Popular for its simplicity, Python has several libraries for interacting with blockchain networks.

Tools and frameworks

1. Truffle Suite: A development environment, testing framework, and asset pipeline for blockchains using the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

2. Ganache: Part of the Truffle Suite, Ganache is used to create private Ethereum blockchains for testing and experimentation.

3. Hardhat: A development environment for compiling, deploying, testing, and debugging Ethereum software.

4. MetaMask: A browser-based wallet used to interact with Ethereum’s blockchain and decentralized applications (dApps).

5. Remix: An online Solidity IDE that allows you to write, deploy, and test smart contracts.

Blockchain development involves creating digital ledger systems that store and track transactions across network of computers. These transactions are grouped in blocks, each of which is irrevocably connected, or chained, to the previous one, making alteration very difficult. The technology is best known for underpinning cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. However, it has a vast array of other potential use cases.

Blockchain developers use programming languages like Python, JavaScript, Rust, Go and blockchain-native languages, most notably Solidity, to design these systems. Blockchain development involves, among other things, ensuring security, creating smart contracts (self-executing contracts with the terms directly written into code), and managing the overall blockchain infrastructure.