There are many practical reasons that make Costa Rica the ideal nearshore country for staff augmentation, but let’s get to the most important aspect first. You need to know that the outsourced team you hire have the necessary skills and expertise to fulfill the tasks to your complete satisfaction. Well, Costa Rica has a highly educated population, with many university students graduating with computer science and engineering degrees. It is one of the best places you go to find the talent you need to help grow your business. In fact, software development and telecommunications has become one of the biggest contributors to the Costa Rican economy. The country is the No.1 exporter of IT services per capita in Latin America, with well over 22,000 software developers at the last count, and that number is growing quickly. As the economy grows, so do more and more US-based businesses bridge gaps in IT skills via the innovative software ecosystem created by Costa Rican outsourcing firms. Now let’s look at some of the other practical benefits of choosing Costa Rica for staff augmentation.

Similar Time Zones

Companies based in the United States are always going to have a better working relationship with an outsourced partner from Costa Rica just because of the similar time zones involved. Real-time communication is crucial to working effectively together, and that isn’t possible with faraway offshore firms who are either several hours ahead or behind the American working day. Costa Rica is in the Central Standard Time Zone, so it is only one hour ahead of Pacific Time and two hours behind Eastern Time. This means almost the entire working days of both countries overlap, making it much easier to arrange meetings or communicate on the fly as and when needed.

Shorter Distance to Travel

Should there be a reason to meet in person, then arranging travel to Costa Rica is much quicker and cheaper than arranging travel to somewhere out in Asia. There are some popular tourist spots in Costa Rica for Americans, so there are plenty of inexpensive flights that go back and forth regularly between the two countries. Flight times are also much quicker thanks to the much closer proximity.

Almost Everybody Speaks English

Learning English from a young age is a priority in the Costa Rican educational system, so you can rest assured there will be no language barriers between your in-house team and your Costa Rican partners. With so many English-speaking visitors to the country, Costa Ricans speak English a lot, and that’s just your everyday folks. Professional software developers need to speak fluent English in order to be successful, so once again American firms need not worry about communication difficulties. To find out more about why you should consider Costa Rica for staff augmentation, please contact our team at +1 800 974 7219 ext. 202. Alternatively, complete the online form here and a member of our team will contact you.