Offshoring to Suriname: an opportunity for Dutch companies

Important offshore countries currently are India, China, Malaysia and South-Africa. According to Qualogy, Suriname can soon be added to that list.

What is offshoring?

Offshoring, outsourcing activities to other countries, is expanding tremendously. India, China and South-Africa are examples of popular ICT offshoring countries, because ICT education is good and the costs are low. European and American companies spend dozens of millions of euros on building new software or managing existing software that way. Also design and testing could be completely or partly outsourced, if good agreements are made.

Offshoring is a contraction of offshore outsourcing; outsourcing work to countries overseas or on a different continent. It is also possible to oursource work to nearby countries (nearshoring) or to companies or suppliers in your own country (outsourcing). These are differences an international company like Qualogy, with an office of its own in Suriname, can hardly make. It is difficult to always distinguish which employees of which office are working for which customer on which continent. That is why Qualogy always uses the term offshoring, to avoid confusion.

Why offshoring?

The most important reason is to cut operational costs. Having work done in countries with a lower cost structure reduces the total costs and strengthens the competitiveness. Nowadays it is a means of lowering costs for many companies. And because almost everyone uses it, no one can lag behind. It has become a permanent part of company strategies.

Another major reason is the follow the sun (or round the clock) principle. This involves projects being transferred from time zone to time zone, making it possible to work longer on a project every day (24×7). It allows projects to be finished faster. Dutch software developers at Qualogy can work on projects in the morning, for example until 13:00, after which their colleagues in Suriname can still spend a full working day on them. In this way, each day has a 12 hour ‘throughput time’. A company with three well-chosen offshore locations can even be open 24 hours a day. For example building in Beijing, designing and reviewing in Johannesburg and testing in Paramaribo.

Why to Suriname?

For a start, Suriname itself offers many big advantages for companies considering offshoring. Command of English is good and a helpdesk can also answer Dutch customers in their own language. In addition, they know the Dutch culture better than someone in India or China.

On top of that, a huge supply of labor is available. The many graduates of the Anton de Kom University in Paramaribo can get work at their own level and build a professional career in Suriname. And indeed, for many highly educated Surinamese in The Netherlands work in their own country would even be a reason to go back!

Why now?

The last few years have shown that offshoring has been successful. People also expect the worldwide economic downturn to continue until the second half of 2010. Margins are shrinking and companies need to be creative to save costs and to work more efficiently. That is why companies are interested to move their work to Suriname, especially in this climate. Offshoring is an opportunity to stay ahead of the competition.

The international experience of Qualogy

Qualogy belongs to the top of the ICT consultancy firms for Oracle and Java. Our two hundred professionals hold internationally acknowledged ICT certificates. They advise our customers on the latest technology and the design and implementation of software systems. We work for international companies like Ahold, Canon, ING and KPN but also for power companies like Nuon and Essent.

Qualogy has been ISO 9001 certified, showing our customers that our processes have been documented in a system of quality, and that we can quickly track, correct and prevent possible errors. Which is especially important in offshoring.

Offshoring, the Qualogy way

We have already completed several ICT offshoring projects for Dutch customers. We can essentially maintain the full ICT infrastructure of a customer, both on location and at Qualogy.

The power of Qualogy

Qualogy deploys its vast knowledge and experience also on the market of Suriname. Since 2007 we have our own office there with highly educated and specialized young professionals. International companies can outsource their software work to Qualogy Suriname, while drastically reducing their operational costs.

Growth of Qualogy Suriname.

We believe in actively sharing knowledge and experience, for example through a postgraduate ICT training and the knowledge events we organize. This enables us to guarantee a constant intake of highly educated employees. Qualogy Suriname will continue to grow from 25 to 40 employees over the next few years and spread its wings into the Caribean area and Latin America.

The advantages of offshoring with Qualogy

By now it will be clear that offshoring via Qualogy offers major advantages to Dutch companies:

• stronger competitive position by reducing costs
• faster project throughput and service continuity using the ‘follow the sun’ principle
• short Dutch communication lines without language or culture barriers and without extra management levels
• benefit from our experience with ICT offshoring
• guaranteed ISO 9001 quality of all Qualogy professionals
• the reliability of a Dutch company experiencing consistent and healthy growth ever since 1998

With Qualogy as your offshoring partner your systems and processes are in good hands, so you have your hands free yourself.  Free to respond quickly to market developments, to innovate or to achieve better or more sustainable results.

Please contact us for more information.