All You Need to Know Before Building a Distributed Team

Distributed teams have become increasingly popular in recent times, with large tech corporations like Microsoft and Google embracing the benefits of a global workforce.

A recent study showed that before the pandemic, only 7% of U.S employees had the benefit of working from anywhere. Almost a year later, that number has risen to over 42%. The reality is apparent — distributed teams are here to stay.

What are the benefits of distributed teams?

Setting up a distributed team can mean anything — hiring freelancers, engaging with outsourcing agencies, building a team offshore, or even allowing your employees to work from the comfort of their homes.

Irrespective of the model, working with distributed teams has its own set of unique advantages. Some of them include:

• Access to a talent pool that is not restricted by geography
• Access to employees who are trained in advanced skills
• Lower operational costs
• Opportunity to scale at speed
• Ability to focus on the core competencies of your business.

Choosing the suitable engagement model

Based on your unique business requirements, you can choose the engagement model that works best for your company.

For instance, working with freelancers is a fairly straightforward model, but it’s important to remember that they do not ‘belong’ to your business. They’re simply hired on a contract basis and simultaneously work for many different clients. This can sometimes lead to a lack of customer focus, low-quality work, and stretched timelines.

Another engagement model is to work with an outsourcing agency that hires people for ad-hoc projects. While this is a great option for one-off projects that require external capacity at short notice, it isn’t a long-term sustainable solution.

In recent times, the offshoring model has gained significant popularity among businesses. This engagement model allows you to build a dedicated team of skilled employees in countries with a large talent pool, such as India. They are permanent, full-time employees just like your local team, except that they’re based elsewhere.

Lastly, businesses can also leverage the nearshore engagement model to hire talent ‘near’ to home. For example, developers in Paris are very expensive, and the nearshore alternative is to hire developers in Romania that work in a similar time zone but don’t cost as much.

Choosing the right location

Here are our top picks of countries where you can access skilled talent without the sky-high prices associated with hiring locally in the West.

1. India

Also known as the IT offshoring capital of the world, India is one of the fastest-growing tech hubs today.

2. The Philippines

Once known for its booming BPO industry, the country is establishing a solid foundation in the IT space by producing advanced applications integrated with the latest technology.

3. Eastern Europe

Though countries like Ukraine and Romania have fewer developers than tech-hubs like India, businesses can still find skilled talent at lower prices than hiring locally in countries like the UK.

And that concludes our list of the three most important things that you need to know before you can start building a distributed team

• the benefits, the right engagement model for your business, and where to look.

At The Scalers, we help innovative global businesses build highly talented software development teams in Bangalore — the second largest tech ecosystem in the world.