From fixing bicycles, restocking goods in a supermarket, working in a service station or selling saddlery in different departments to doing technological projects for large companies abroad. This is the radical change experienced in the interior of the country by those who have started working in some of the subsidiaries of Uruguayan companies in the ICT sector (information and communication technologies), which provide global services. The gain is in both directions, because the companies find themselves with committed teams and an almost zero staff turnover.
The phenomenon known as onshoring (when a company outsources part of its services within the same country) is a growing global trend in companies that find in "secondary cities" with access to technological infrastructure and adequate education, qualified human resources with more sense of belonging.
According to a report prepared by the consulting firm MVD Consulting to which El Empresario had access, in Latin America more than 70% of the new business centers are located in secondary cities. In Uruguay the movement is slow, but growing. The report reveals that there are eight companies that have offices in the interior, mainly on the coast (Artigas, Salto, Paysandú, Colonia, San José and Maldonado) with an average number of employees that is between 3% and 31% of the total of each company.
To strengthen this process, in May the Ministry of Industry, the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technology (Cuti) and Antel presented the Jacarandá project, which converts Antel's videoconference rooms into coworking spaces to promote work teams in the technology sector in the interior of the country.
Teams that achieve results
INFOCORP (COLOGNE)
Infocorp, a software company for the financial sector, opened its office in Colonia del Sacramento five years ago. The company's search to open a software factory in another place coincided with the need for a team member to return to that department. It started with three people, now there are 25 and the plan is to double the number in 2019, said Ana Inés Echavarren, CEO of Infocorp. "From that office they work for clients in the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Puerto Rico and Chile in the area of maintenance and in total represent 15% of the total turnover of the company," she detailed.
QUANAM (BEAUTIFUL UNION)
Quanam is the first company in Uruguay to use the Jacarandá plan, launched this year, to open an office outside Montevideo. The fact coincided with the need of one of the company's consultants to return to Bella Union (Artigas) for personal reasons, recalled the director, Guillermo Spinelli. "She wanted to resign, so we offered her to work remotely. In March we began to study the project and we opened with six people (in the country the company has 160 employees). Today they are executing projects for Uruguay, but in a month they will be working for Central America. If this works, it will be replicated in other cities," he concluded.
TOP SYSTEM (PAYSANDÚ)
Since 2012, Daniela Samurio has been in charge of the Top Systems office in Paysandú, but she had already been working remotely for the financial software company since 2006. The project started with four people and now there are eight, including engineers, technicians and programmer analysts. "In this office we do all the software process except the sales for clients in Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua and El Salvador. Now one of the team is in Brazil with a bank. Until two months ago we were based in Paysandú Innova, when we moved to a bigger house because the idea is to grow," he said.
ABSTRACT (JUMP)
Abstracta, specialized in software testing, opened in Salto at the urging of one of its partners, Matías Reina, who moved to that city in 2015. The office opened in 2016, has 16 people (there are 65 in total) and executes 95% of its projects for multinationals in the US such as Disney, Toyota or JPMorgan. "The growth and quality of the team is very good, to the point that today it means between 35% and 40% of the total turnover of the company," he stressed. He is also studying the possibility of opening with Jacarandá a "mobile devices laboratory" in Salto.
FX2 (JUMP)
The software company FX2 opened its office in Salto in 2015. Located in the Gepian cowork, it has a team of five people and attends 50% of projects for Uruguay and the rest for abroad, said Marcos Ezquerra, director of the company. "For example, we have a project for Uruguay that is managed from here, but everything is done there. Also from Paysandú we do a functional analysis of one of our products for a company in Mexico. In total, that subsidiary represents almost 15% of the company's total work," he said.
DYNAMIA (SAN JOSÉ)
San José was the place chosen by the software company Dynamia when opening another office. The company began studying the feasibility of this idea in 2016 and finished closing it this year after the opening of UTEC, recalled its CEO, Fabricio González. "They are three people of the 23 that the company owns and for now they share space with another company, but the plan is to move this year to the cowork in that city. They started with short-impact projects, but from that place they are already working for U.S. projects," he reported.
In general, in Uruguay opening an office in the Interior arises from the individual need of an employee in the company in Montevideo to settle in another department, the report said. And the equation ends up closing if the chosen city is located in university areas or with access to tertiary education.
Access to qualified human resources is the main objective pursued by companies, a problem that has plagued the ICT sector for some time. This was made clear by Leonardo Loureiro, president of Cuti, who explained that the teams in these offices work "more motivated and performance can become better". "We want people to study and work wherever they want and we see that this is a trend that will grow, because the biggest benefit is that if people are happy, everything is positive, they work better and are more productive".
As an example, Infocorp, which opened an office in Cologne five years ago, has achieved zero staff turnover. "They are like a family. Because of the teamwork culture in the interior, there is a strong sense of belonging. It is staff with high technical and working skills and with a vocation for service, which is very important because we work abroad and you have to be available during working hours," said Ana Inés Echavarren, CEO of the company.
For Marcos Ezquerra, director of FX2, a company with an office in Salto, in addition to a lower staff turnover, another advantage is that between companies "are warned if a worker can change (employment). In Montevideo they leave almost without warning," he said.
For his part, Matías Reina, founding partner of Abstracta -which opened a branch in Salto in 2016-, emphasized that since there is a greater labor offer "they can choose among the best and not stay with the first thing they find, as sometimes happens in Montevideo".
The benefits of the arrival of these companies entail several positive changes in labor quality because, for example, the pay is the same as in Montevideo. In addition, according to Ezquerra, by starting to work in companies with projects abroad, people acquire knowledge that opens another professional door and "they get more important job proposals. Although it does not happen often, Reina recalled that since they opened in 2016 "three people left for personal growth".
Another possibility that opens up is that workers who start in the Interior can continue their career in Montevideo. "Someone from the team in Montevideo started in San José and then moved to Solymar", illustrated Fabricio González, CEO of Dynamia.
With quality and fidelity, quietly, the Interior is creeping into the roadmap of software companies.
Source: El País
Connect