February 18, 2025 • 44 mins
Step into the future of global talent strategy with Brian Samson on the Global Leadership Innovation & Tech Podcast. This episode unpacks the rise of nearshoring—a game-changing approach that’s redefining efficiency, collaboration, and cost-effectiveness in international business with host Tosin Sho.
Brian breaks down the differences between nearshoring and traditional offshoring, revealing how companies can leverage regional talent pools without compromising quality. From the U.S. tapping into Latin American expertise to Australia’s strong ties with the Philippines, he provides a fresh perspective on how geography can work for businesses, not against them.
Beyond the numbers, we explore the real-world complexities of outsourcing. What are the cultural, political, and logistical challenges of nearshoring call centers to Latin America? How do European hotspots like Romania and Portugal stand out with their English proficiency and business-friendly policies? Brian shares invaluable insights from years of experience, helping companies navigate these challenges for seamless project execution.
But this isn’t just about cost-cutting—it’s about the evolution of global talent sourcing. With Argentina producing engineers who rival top U.S. talent, and AI reshaping the outsourcing game, we examine the shifting priorities in hiring: from affordability to quality and critical thinking.
Join us for a deep dive into the intersection of business, technology, and geopolitics—because understanding where talent comes from is just as important as who you hire.
🔗🔗Connect with Tosin Sho 🔗🔗
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tosinshobukola/
Company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/apreecourt-solutions/
📢 Don’t forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS for more insights on Latin America’s growing tech scene! 🎧🔥
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
We'll see you next time.
Good morning and welcome to theClit Podcast.
(00:45):
I am happy to be here today andthis is one of the best
sessions we're having after sucha long break and tonight I have
a wonderful guest with me.
His name is Brian Brian Sampson, and this is a really, really
interesting podcast because I amin the future and he is about
12 hours behind me, so he'sstill way in the day where he is
(01:10):
and it's next morning where Iam.
But again, that is what it is.
Thank you, ryan, for joiningthe podcast, and can you tell me
where you're joining us fromtoday?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I am in Hawaii.
Good, good, good good.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So you live in the city, so you're always on
vacation all year round.
And how's the weather in Hawaii?
Good, good, good good.
So you live in the city, soyou're always on vacation all
year round.
And how's the weather in Hawaii?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, I'm actually on a stand-up paddleboard right
now.
This is just my Zoom background.
Oh, really, no, I'm justkidding.
Yeah, it's a beautiful place tolive, though.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I've lived here for about seven years, nice nice,
nice Is that where you're fromoriginally, originally from
Chicago, oh, all the way crosscountry.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
So it's wonderful to have youon the podcast.
And then let's get to it.
So today we will be talkingabout the principle of
outsourcing and nearshoring andhow we use the global economy to
(02:06):
maximize the talents that wehave.
Invariably so, we know that inthe big cities and in the big
countries, the cost keeps goingup and at some point, getting
employees to work I think in theearly 2000s we used to have
things around globalization.
(02:26):
It was popular then, but thatwas to the Far East and that
came up with its own challengesright.
So either culture, language, sothose challenges, I think, have
now brought us to devise newmethods of outsourcing right,
brought us to devise new methodsof outsourcing right.
And today we are seeingoutsourcing to other countries
(02:49):
like Africa, other countries inAfrica and other countries in
Latin America.
So can you tell me yourexperience around nearshoring,
outsourcing and things aroundthis area?
But before we do that, will youtell us about yourself?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Sure.
Thank you again for having meon your show.
So my name is Brian and I havebeen in the talent acquisition
space for about 20 years.
The last 10 have been runningbusinesses that I own, and I've
(03:29):
had the good fortune to have alittle bit of a global education
.
I did my MBA at both UCLA inCalifornia and National
University of Singapore, andwhile I was there we had quite a
few sessions in India and Chinaand, of course, singapore.
And in addition to that, youknow, I spent an entire year
(03:52):
living abroad, have lived inArgentina, launched companies,
and then have just lived indifferent places in the States
and then married someone whogrew up in Japan and then
married someone who grew up inJapan.
So, yeah, so I think all ofthat has kind of gotten me out
of where.
Where I grew up was kind of asheltered experience, you know
(04:13):
in the center of the country,you know outside of Chicago.
So that is really kind ofshaped my viewpoint of learning
more about cultures, learningmore about where the world is
going, nuances, all that stuff.
But what I do today is I run abusiness that's focused on
(04:33):
nearshoring, and we'll talkabout nearshoring, I'm sure, a
lot on this show but whatnearshoring really is.
It's a way to look at talentfrom a regional level.
It means you're not goingacross an ocean.
I'm sure your audience hasheard all about offshoring.
You kind of alluded to thatwith the Far East.
I mean, 20 years ago at least,the book came out by Thomas
(04:58):
Friedman called the World isFlat and it almost talks in the
way like AI is talked abouttoday as this new revolutionary
thing that's happening.
In the late 90s, early 2000s youwould see back offices in India
and the Philippines.
Singapore was a big back officefor banks in London, kind of a
(05:21):
clearinghouse, and time zonedidn't matter In fact, being on
an off schedule, almost like weare today.
Tosin, you know we're 12 hoursapart right now.
That was actually advantageous.
You know, one office would worka full workday and then
basically pass the baton to thenext office.
(05:42):
Follow the sun.
That's right, follow the sunExactly.
What's different aboutnearshoring?
And it's not a Latin Americathing, it's a regional thing but
it's really about just likewhen Singapore was kind of
growing up and going fromdeveloping to developed as a
(06:03):
country.
It was less expensive, laborwas cheaper, so a developed
country like the UK would useSingapore as their clearinghouse
, their back office.
You know from a different partof the world, but if they were
going to do nearshoring, usuallyyou have developed versus
(06:26):
developing.
So in a case like Singapore isa developed country today, an
expensive country, they mightnearshore to Malaysia or
Indonesia, cheaper countries onthe same time zone.
You could say the same thinglike Australia might near shore
(06:47):
to the Philippines very similartime zone, huge differentials in
cost of living.
In the US that's Latin America.
So you've got all theseinteresting talent pockets,
large population across thecontinent, all in the same time
(07:08):
zone at a less expensive cost.
So that's where I focused mybusinesses, that's where I
focused my career and I thinknearshoring is really
interesting and it can beapplied no matter where you are
in the globe.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Beautiful, I love the concept and it can be applied
no matter where you are in theglobe.
Beautiful, I love the conceptso truly.
It's the same pushing out thetalent out of a domiciliary
country, but invariably stillputting it within a regional
time zone, and that's amazing.
Yeah, I remember having aconversation with a friend a few
(07:42):
days ago and he says they are aglobal company.
They recruit from anywherebecause for them cost is not a
problem.
Yeah, but the challenge is thaton monday it's diwali in india,
on tuesday is saint patrick'sday in america.
Yeah, on wednesday china ishosting some memorial whatever.
(08:04):
On Thursday it's Memorial Dayor whatever in the UK, and then
Nigeria, where they are from,suddenly remembers a national
day or a holiday on Friday.
So it's zigzag.
And then it also brings the HRand all these other things
around it.
But I guess the nearshoring isa little bit better, because one
(08:26):
other critical thing is culture, which nobody ever talks about,
but it's really, really major.
I mean, there are somecountries where they never say
no.
They never say no, even whenthey are dying, they will never
say no.
And if you're not aware, youwill think, oh, but he never
said no, no, so which means he'saligned and that's.
(08:47):
I think.
I love this concept.
And another thing this tells meis that even when concepts are
new, when concepts are new this,they require some time to be
refined before we get to thatpoint where it's like fine wine
and this is an amazing conceptfor anybody who is considering
(09:10):
outsourcing or leveraging onglobalization, great.
So let's use Latin America, forexample, as a case study.
As a case study, what countriesare great candidates for
near-sharing in Latin Americawhere they've got considerably
(09:31):
good infrastructure, they've gotgood talent?
I know Argentina might be.
And then there's this othercountry not Brazil, I forget
their name right now.
There's this other countrywhere they seem to have a lot of
intelligent guys Sao Paulo, isBrazil, I can't recall.
But what's your experience like?
(09:52):
What countries do you thinkhave good opportunities or
candidates for near-sharing inLatin?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah, I love this question and the reason I love
it is because there's actuallyquite a few different countries
in Latin America and they allhave pros and cons, they all
have trade-offs, and I want toeven go back to how I was
explaining.
Say, like Singapore versusMalaysia, right, you have a
(10:18):
developed country and adeveloping country and,
depending on there's a lot ofdifferent things you might have
as a criteria if you're hiring.
Cost might be the number onefactor, or maybe it's the
ability to travel easily to thatcountry.
(10:38):
Let's say you wanted to set upan office there, or it could be
having a stable currency or, youknow, having geopolitical
stability.
You know there are things likecustoms and getting hardware in
and out and around the country,and then you talked about like
(10:59):
infrastructure, like internet,things like that.
So there's kind of like thoseconsiderations and then there's
talent pockets.
So every country has some prosand cons.
A country that I've spent a lotof time with this year and went
to Mexico City just about amonth ago is Mexico.
(11:20):
So Mexico happens to be thelargest trading partner for the
US and there's all sorts of automanufacturing plants.
Toyota is huge there, but it'sactually been a place that major
companies like Oracle have setup shop too, so if you go to say
Monterey, mexico, it's a big IThub, lots of engineers Now.
(11:46):
What's interesting, though, soMonterrey is a direct flight
from a lot of cities in the US,so it's easy to get to.
Hardware is as easy as usingamazoncom you can buy a laptop
on Amazon and have it shipped toyour engineer in Mexico.
The downsides to Mexico arewage convergence, so there's a
(12:12):
lot of competition in citieslike Monterey.
Now the secret is out.
It's not a secret anymore, so alot of major companies are
there, and what does that do?
That drives up wages.
And then you have this dynamicof do you want to have a near
shore operation and let peoplework from home?
(12:34):
Fantastic, but what if you wantthem to be in an office in the
center of Monterey?
Well, monterey is a verydifficult city to own a car.
It's very cost prohibitive, thebuses take forever, doesn't
have the greatest publictransportation, so it's very
(12:58):
tough, right?
Mexico is also a country wherepeople are tied to the pension
system, so what that means isthey don't want to go off and do
like a contract, they want tostay as, like a real traditional
employee.
Yeah, and not everybody wantsto set up an entity in Mexico.
(13:25):
They just want to access thetalent.
So culturally that's a littlebit more difficult.
Let me contrast that with acouple other countries.
We won't do every country inLatin America, but just a couple
others.
This is a country that I livedfor about a year and it's a
(13:49):
country that has a reallycomplicated financial story, a
very complicated economic story,decades and decades of
government mismanagement,corruption, inflation through
the roof so bad that if you werewalking the streets and you
want to do eat at a restaurant,they won't give you a menu with
(14:10):
printed prices.
The prices are written in chalkso they can erase it and
quickly recalculate based on theexchange rate and inflation
that day that day.
But it also has a populationthat has gone through all that,
(14:33):
so they have tremendous abilityto overcome adversity, things
that would really make anyone inthe US anxious.
Is this the normal day for them?
It's very, you know, not a bigdeal.
So they can handle hard things.
They can.
They're very flexible.
They have a lot of grit, a lotof critical thinking, because
they have to find ways aroundall this government red tape and
(14:54):
kind of like overly complicatedprocesses, and they don't want
to be tied to an Argentinecompany.
They want to work directly with, say, a US company and work asa
contractor, so they want to getpaid in USD.
They have no desire to be tiedto, say, a pension system.
(15:15):
And I'll talk about two others,costa Rica and Nicaragua,
because that's Central America.
And Costa Rica was the country Iwas talking about, because
that's Central America, andCosta Rica was the country I was
talking about.
Okay, great, yeah.
So Costa Rica, near and dear tomy heart, it's where I proposed
to my wife, that's where we gotengaged, and beautiful country
(15:42):
you know rainforest and cloudforest and sloths and all sorts
of beautiful nature yeah, allsorts of beautiful nature, yeah,
all sorts of beautiful nature.
And you also have a lot of techcompanies like Intel and
Microsoft, and all these guyshave gone there.
But it's not cheap.
It's like the most stablecountry in all of Latin America.
(16:02):
They have no standing army.
They're allied closely with theUS.
It's not a hugely populouscountry either, so not a large
talent pool, and because it's sostable, the downside of that is
(16:25):
it makes it more expensive.
Now let's look at its neighbor,nicaragua, which is a country
that is utilized a lot for whatwe call BPO, business process
outsourcing.
I think like call centers,customer service type of
environments, and the Englishthere is fantastic.
It is super aligned with USculture.
(16:47):
They're often watching US showson Netflix and watching that in
English.
If you were on a call centertype of call with somebody in
the Philippines or India, youwould probably know it, but you
(17:09):
wouldn't necessarily know it ifyou were on the call with, say,
a customer service agent inNicaragua.
Their English is that good,that Americanized.
They know all the slang, thecolloquialisms, and it's very
inexpensive, but it's not ahotbed for technical talent.
(17:29):
It's really more call centerand there's a lot of volatility
with it's not a stable country,the government.
There's a lot of, let's say,instability and volatility in
that country.
So when you say instability andvolatility.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Is it similar to that of Argentina or it's more of
like the gangs?
Or which part?
Is it economic or social?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah, good question.
I would actually say more thecitizens are not safe from the
government.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Really.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, yeah, it can be a scary place, that's more like
the villa, possibly.
So when you're, say, an Americancompany, and you're thinking,
maybe I want to nearshore toLatin America, it's not a one
size fits all.
You want to think about what ismy budget?
(18:25):
Do I want the arbitrage?
And, by the way, the morevolatile, the bigger the
arbitrage opportunity.
That means if you can find highvalue, the price you pay for
that value is much lower.
But the more stable, the lessarbitrage opportunity.
So you have to think about itlike that Can my person bring
(18:47):
their own hardware?
Do I need to ship themsomething?
Do I need to fly there and seethis person or vice versa?
Do I have to do I need to shipthem something?
Do I need to fly there and seethis person or vice versa?
Do I want to have them fly toChicago and come to our
headquarters?
You know, once a year and youknow.
Do I want office space?
Is office space expensive?
Are there lots of people thathave that skill set that I'm
(19:10):
looking for?
So there's a lot of differentconsiderations, but I will say
that in this day and age, timezone is a huge factor for
companies.
They are willing to pay apremium because, as you
(19:38):
mentioned at the outset, asia ischeaper than Latin America, but
the trade-off of being on thesame time zone and having the
ability to do collaboration haveall your messages answered in
real time on Slack that's a hugevalue that companies are
willing to pay a premium for,and it applies all across the
world.
You know, if you're in London,maybe you'll use a team in
Poland.
(19:58):
If you're in Singapore,malaysia, you know, so on and so
forth.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, got you.
I think for Europe.
We have Poland, we havePortugal.
Portugal is really great andthen we have Romania.
We have Romania coming upsilently but really really
strong, because in Romaniayou've got a lot of talent where
it's English and something else.
And something else is notSpanish, it's not German, it's
(20:27):
not French, so it has to beEnglish if they want to go
global.
They speak really really greatEnglish.
In my days at Microsoft, we hada lot of stuff happening in
Romania.
They are really quite greatguys.
Of course, the costs I meanDublin is there for tax purposes
, but you would get a 50% rebateif you did Bucharest Then, of
(20:53):
course, I think that's alsogreat.
Portugal also, because of theirgolden visa, they've got a lot
of tech talent, so I thinkthat's a great balance over
there.
That's good, awesome.
But I think when you mentionedsomething about the cheap, I
always ask of what is the exactcost?
So if you, you were outsourcingto the far east, if you were
(21:17):
outsourcing to the far east,what are the challenges in terms
of?
Sometimes some people, some ofthese guys, are not thinking in
English.
So the message is you have toreally really speak like you're
talking to a five-year-old nowand then.
(21:38):
Sometimes, in some culturesit's okay to be two days late.
In some cultures it's okay tobe one day late now.
In some cultures, if you missthe deadline, you're toast.
Yeah, yeah.
If you miss the deadline,you're toast.
Yeah, yeah, right, if you missthe deadline, you're toast.
So I guess that when we talkabout the cost of cheap, when we
(21:59):
talk about the cost of cheap,cheap is relative.
If you're cheap dollar-wise butyou miss deadlines, you are not
cheap to me that's right.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
That's right.
You have to look at the wholecost.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Exactly.
You are not cheap to me, that'sright, that's right.
You have to look at the wholecost.
Yeah, exactly so.
And again, if you're cheapdollar wise but it takes me a
lot of hassle to move moneyacross then for me that's really
not cheap, yeah, so, yeah, youknow a couple of things that we
could weigh and everything, butagain, at the end of the day, we
(22:33):
really need to know whatmatters to us.
So, like you said, if it'sbusiness process, that's okay,
but if it's hardcore coding orhardcore tech strategy or
hardcore design, icy design orwhatever it is, I want to do
that.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Sometimes you say it's a give and take thing yeah,
yeah, maybe what I'll add thereis, you know, when you have an
abundance of labor.
So say, a country like India,which is over a billion people,
india probably graduates moreengineers than the US has.
Engineers, right Like there'san abundance and they're cheap.
(23:13):
Engineers right Like there's anabundance and they're cheap.
So maybe like $1,000 a month fora new grad engineer or
something right, maybe a littlemore for a senior engineer, and
gosh, I mean, that's like 110th120 at the price of someone in
the US.
So there's this like naturalinclination to well, let's just
(23:34):
throw 20 engineers from India atthis US company.
But I think the world ischanging.
I think the world is a littlebit more quality focused today,
so there's more of a premium onjust where can I get the best
talent in the world period.
(23:54):
I don't need a lot of people, Ijust need the best people, and
that's a different equation.
Of course, india has someamazing, incredible engineers,
but the mentality, though, isstill throw bodies at the
problem, not talent.
Critical thinking, yeah, notcritical thinking.
(24:16):
You know where?
I think argentina has quicklykind of recognized clever
critical thinking.
They, they want their, they,they want to compete directly
head-on with the best engineersin the US.
They want to design thesoftware, architect the software
, be just as good as a fullstack developer, kind of head to
(24:42):
head, and then that's the truearbitrage right.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
So what is the major reason you see from
organizations for wanting tooutsource or near shore?
Because in the US, for example,you have your HCOLs, which is
high cost of living areas, youhave your NCOLs and you have
your LCOLs.
Now what really stops me frommoving my roles to an LCOL or
(25:14):
MCOL build where land is cheap,taxes low and probably the
government is more accommodatingand friendlier?
Why do I have to go through thestress of pushing stuff out of
country?
What is the major attractionand what is the major benefit
for me?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, well, think there.
There's a lot to consider there.
So it might not even be a goodoption for you.
It's not a good option foreverybody.
Let me.
Let me talk about why it wouldnot make sense and why it would
beautiful.
So, and I'm going to have a?
(25:53):
U centric answer, but hopefullythere is application across the
globe.
That's not a problem.
Yeah, so let's rewind the tapeto.
The US has had a very volatileeconomy the last couple of years
.
Okay, and there's a couple ofdifferent points of peaks and
(26:13):
valleys and how that impacts thething.
So you want to think aboutlabor supply.
So 2021, the market was floodedwith capital.
Unemployment was at an all-timelow Average.
Talent was getting multipleoffers.
(26:35):
The best talent was gettingrecruited like crazy, but
companies had so much capitalthat they were paying whatever
they could to get talent.
But the thing was talent wasscarce to get talent.
But the thing was talent wasscarce Because, you know, for
every, every candidate, therewere multiple job openings.
(26:59):
So that meant that price wasn'tan issue, but access to talent
(27:32):
was the issue.
So companies were starting tolook outside right and again it
wasn't a matter of cost.
Now, asia tends to lead withcost.
First, hey, outsource your jobsto the Philippines or India or
Vietnam, china, whatever,because we're cheap, they don't
tend to lead with.
Hey, we have the best talent,they tend to lead with, we have
the cheapest talent.
So in a market where you haveenormous amounts of capital,
that's not really appealing.
You just want you want todeploy the capital and get the
best talent you possibly canafford.
(27:53):
So Latin America wasinteresting because the talent
was good and there was moresupply.
So capital was a non-issue, butsupply of labor was.
That's why nearshoring startedto become a thing.
Near shoring started to becomea thing.
Then let's look, maybe a yearand a half later kind of the end
(28:26):
of 2022, early 2023, you almosthad like a rubber band effect
with capital in the US.
You started to have, you know,all that government spending in
2020, 2021, catch up, inflationshot up, interest rates shot up,
investors pulled back, socompanies had less capital to
work with, but then, at the sametime, unemployment is a little
(28:50):
bit higher too.
So you're kind of likeright-sizing.
You know supply and demand allthe time.
Now what was interesting withthe labor supply is, let me use
some real numbers.
So let's say, you're a softwaredeveloper in 2019, kind of the
(29:11):
last real year we've had in thisworld, right?
And then you have COVID of 2020and so on.
2019, software engineer inChicago is maybe making $120,000
USD a year as a salary.
2021, all of a sudden, thatsame engineer they're not that
(29:31):
much better.
All of a sudden now no longerjustify paying an engineer
$180,000, an average engineer$180,000 because they have less
(29:59):
capital to work with.
So now they kind of have thesetwo choices they can either try
to negotiate and get that 180kengineer to go backwards.
That's very difficult to do.
Right is human nature.
Once we've reached a level, wewe don't really want to justify
(30:26):
it.
We we want to say it's becausewe were, we were worth it.
We don't want to say no,actually I just got lucky
because of the economy and allthe costs went up.
I don't want to say that it'salways intrinsic.
I just got really good atcoding and everybody noticed
right, exactly so.
So you don't want to, you don'twant to go backwards, so that's
what we had.
I just got really good atcoding and everybody noticed
(30:47):
right, exactly, so you don'twant to go backwards.
So that's what we had in 2023.
Companies had less capital butwages had gone up so high but,
by the way, cost of living hadalso gone up high, so it would
even be hard for people to takea step backward, because they'd
(31:08):
take a huge step backward.
So you kind of had this likewhat we call like a Mexican
standoff who's going to movefirst and, uh, and if that
engineer would not reduce therate, then you're looking for
labor supply that met my price.
So that could be India, it couldbe Latin America, it could be
wherever.
(31:28):
But the other thing thathappened in 2023 is you are
coming out of three years in arow of remote work, no offices.
So it wasn't really a big dealto have a remote team anymore.
But, with all things beingequal, you'd rather have that
(31:52):
person on the same time zone,because in 2021, 2022, you could
afford to have people from allacross the us because you't care
where they worked, you couldafford them and everybody worked
in the US.
So it was all like roughly thesame time zone.
You know, three hours was thebiggest difference.
(32:13):
You didn't want to give upworkday collaboration anymore.
So the next best option wasLatin America, and that's where
Latin America is today.
It's got enough talent, enoughlabor supply at the price point
(32:35):
without sacrificing quality ortime zone I love that.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
I love that.
So it makes a lot of sense whenwe begin to see these kind of
trends.
And of course, like you've said, we've seen a lot of layoffs.
So what is invariably happeningis yes, ai is there, but of
course there's less money, eventhough it's much more in volume
or in quantity, but in valueit's a little bit less.
So, rather than tell theengineer to take a pay cut which
he will do, because sometimesit's safer to have a job than
(33:07):
not to they just lay off andthen redirect.
We've seen that with a lot oforganizations who lay off in the
US and then make a commitmentto invest in another economy.
I mean, yes, it's a big, boldstatement, but of course we know
what's going on.
Yes, so I wouldn't mentionnames here, but that's what
exactly is going on.
(33:28):
Beautiful.
So what do you think would bethe future of this?
Now, a lot of things have comeinto the mix.
Like you said, remote work isno more alien, putting work out
of country is no more alien,it's now second nature.
What do you see as the futureof these?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
of these things.
I really believe that nearshoring the 2020s are the decade
for near shoring.
Either you're in polandsupporting uk, or portugal, like
you said, supporting uk, orargent Argentina supporting the
US, or Malaysia supportingSingapore.
The 2020s is really the decadefor nearshoring.
(34:10):
The 2030s, that's a little toofar for me to predict.
Now, ai is, you know, funnyenough.
I almost think of this likeCOVID.
So how did I know that COVIDwas a thing?
When it was late March and Ihad team members in Nicaragua,
(34:37):
colombia, argentina, california,texas, so all over the states,
all over Latin Latin America, sopeople that lived hundreds, if
not thousands, of miles fromeach other, and we all got it
right.
We all got it.
So, wow, this is a global thing.
(35:00):
You know, like everybody it's,it's spreading like and and I
think AI is almost like that youknow where.
It's not like a US thing, it'snot a China thing.
It's a global thing, and itdoesn't matter if you're in
Africa or Poland or Mexico.
All this stuff is accessible,so you can train up on AI and be
(35:27):
competitive.
And I think the thesis thatwe're hearing is AI won't take
your job.
It's actually the person that'susing AI will take your job.
So that's the dangerouscombination is wow, if you could
(35:48):
have nearshoring the same timezone with a capable person who's
also leveraging AI, so they'resignificantly more productive.
That is a killer combination.
So I actually think that talentin the US and other developed
countries UK, singapore, germany, these high cost places it's
(36:15):
going to be tight because you'regoing to compete with people
that are in the same time zone,less expensive and having the
same horsepower of AI.
So if you're in the States andyou're not using AI and the
company has an alternative tosay, hire somebody from Mexico
(36:38):
that is using AI, it's going tobe a losing battle for that
person in the US, got you?
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Got you, got you.
So you are suggesting that we'regoing to see more of this and,
with the rise of AI, this isgoing to continue.
Yes, that's amazing.
So I think this is someinsightful stuff.
For me personally, so it madesense when we started talking of
the near-sharing versus, versusoffshoring or outsourcing.
(37:07):
But in light of thisconversation, I begin to see
more.
I promise you, the time zonequality thing for me is a big,
big thing.
I promise, because, imagine, Ihave a colleague who is in the
West and he works with a companyin somewhere in the GMT time
(37:32):
zone and he mentions that everyMonday and Friday he has to wake
up at 2 AM just to catch upbecause he's senior, but he
needs to meet his team who is inthe gmt plus or minus one, two
time zone.
Now if that team was someonelatam, or vice versa, if that
(37:53):
team because the company isactually the company is actually
in the gmt time zone.
So if that team was in portugalor nairobi, kenya or Egypt or
Warsaw, poland, that wouldn't behappening.
That wouldn't be happening.
But again, these things beginto come.
So and, like you said, I'mreally happy.
(38:15):
I promise you you've hit a lotof soft points today, because
it's difficult for some people,especially where you're from, to
be able to contextualize at theglobal scale.
But you have been super spot on, in my opinion.
I would have rated Costa Ricahigher than Argentina, but
(38:35):
Argentina is giving the vibes oflike an African country where I
come from originally, which isNigeria.
So I never knew it was thatdynamic.
Which is Nigeria.
So I never knew it was thatdynamic.
I think it's a little bit moredynamic than Nigeria because I
mean, at least we still get toprint out stuff, because you can
kind of predict though rightnow it's a bit topsy-turvy, but
under normal circumstances youcan still predict but a couple
(38:59):
of changes are going on, whichis making it very, very similar
to Argentina.
But Nigerians also are alwaysjust looking for the next
innovation because they dealwith a lot.
So that's exactly the same inArgentina.
So I knew that in Lebanon andEgypt and Nigeria was the same.
Now I've found the LATAMversion of resilience and
(39:22):
flexibility, which is Argentina.
Thank you for that.
Thank you for that.
Thank you for that.
Great Okay.
So I think this has been a verybeautiful session so far.
It's not the kind of excitingtopic that you want to talk
about, but again, it's not.
But it's really reallysensitive and really really cost
related.
So the last thing that I wouldask you for is that.
(39:47):
So, on this podcast, we usuallyhave a challenge.
We usually have a challenge.
So, because this is thebeginning of a new season, we
didn't have so many challengesfrom the last season, so I leave
a thought or a challenge forthe next speaker.
(40:07):
Yeah, so we set you uptypically because we don't tell
you ahead of time, so you've gotto think on your feet, right?
We don't tell you challengeahead of time and we don't tell
you to prep a challenge ahead oftime, so you've got.
This is the part where we getyou thinking on your feet, as it
were.
So I'm going to make it simple.
I'll make it simple and I'mgoing to ask a geopolitical
(40:28):
question.
With the way things are goingon now, today, what do you see
will happen in 2025?
What direction do you see thegeopolitical terrain of the
world going in 2025?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Well, it's election week in the US, as we talked
about before the show, andthere's a lot of different
things that are going to happenin the US, but I think my
prediction is the mostsignificant is the US is going
to pull back from both directand proxy wars.
(41:06):
So we have what's going on inUkraine, we have what's going on
in Israel, we have what couldpotentially happen in Taiwan,
north Korea all that.
I think the US is going to pullback from a lot of that and
there'll be repercussions rightEither in Ukraine.
That means that becomes aEurope problem and Europe is
(41:28):
going to have to address that.
Without the US's treasure andarms, I think in the Middle East
, israel is probably going to beable to do what it wants and I
think a lot of direction mightbe towards Taiwan, china, north
Korea.
You know what's happening overthere.
(41:49):
You'll probably have a lot ofpreventative carrier groups.
That was a geopoliticalquestion.
But I think the world is tiredof war and America.
I think this is a good thing,because America has been at war
for a long time.
America seems to only know howto do war and it's almost a
(42:12):
money laundering operation.
So we'll be able to redirectsome of these resources towards
us and, hopefully, innovation,and I think America is at its
best when we're leading ininnovation and we can spread
that across the world.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Beautiful, and what impact do you see AI having on
nearshoring, outsourcing,offshoring?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
I think we touched on this earlier AI is accessible.
So if AI is accessible, itmeans you can touch it whether
you're in India, or it means youcan touch it whether you're in
India or Pakistan or Egypt,Argentina, wherever you are in
the world.
Ai is accessible, so it allowsyou to compete head on, and
(42:55):
especially with those indeveloped countries that are not
using AI.
It's a huge weapon.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
It's a huge weapon.
I love that.
I love that Good.
Thank you so much, brian.
This has been an excitingconversation.
I'm happy that it's been very,very, very structured and a lot
of deep thoughts, but I love theflow of the conversation and I
must say I'm happy to have youhere and I hope to have you back
(43:23):
one of these days.
Again, thanks everyone forjoining us on this episode of
the Glitz podcast.
It's been brian sampson, who isa near sharing consultant based
out of out of hawaii in theunited states, and it's been an
exciting time and I hope thatyou will be joining us again.
So please like, share,subscribe and give us your
thoughts and comments and againwe will bring you some other
(43:45):
exciting conversations withother amazing thought leaders
and I believe that this is oneof the best things that will
happen in the world today.
And, brian, thank you so much.
It's been exciting to have youand everyone.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time.
Good morning and welcome to theClit Podcast.
(00:45):
I am happy to be here today andthis is one of the best
sessions we're having after sucha long break and tonight I have
a wonderful guest with me.
His name is Brian Brian Sampson, and this is a really, really
interesting podcast because I amin the future and he is about
12 hours behind me, so he'sstill way in the day where he is
(01:10):
and it's next morning where Iam.
But again, that is what it is.
Thank you, ryan, for joiningthe podcast, and can you tell me
where you're joining us fromtoday?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I am in Hawaii.
Good, good, good good.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So you live in the city, so you're always on
vacation all year round.
And how's the weather in Hawaii?
Good, good, good good.
So you live in the city, soyou're always on vacation all
year round.
And how's the weather in Hawaii?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, I'm actually on a stand-up paddleboard right
now.
This is just my Zoom background.
Oh, really, no, I'm justkidding.
Yeah, it's a beautiful place tolive, though.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I've lived here for about seven years, nice nice,
nice Is that where you're fromoriginally, originally from
Chicago, oh, all the way crosscountry.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
So it's wonderful to have youon the podcast.
And then let's get to it.
So today we will be talkingabout the principle of
outsourcing and nearshoring andhow we use the global economy to
(02:06):
maximize the talents that wehave.
Invariably so, we know that inthe big cities and in the big
countries, the cost keeps goingup and at some point, getting
employees to work I think in theearly 2000s we used to have
things around globalization.
(02:26):
It was popular then, but thatwas to the Far East and that
came up with its own challengesright.
So either culture, language, sothose challenges, I think, have
now brought us to devise newmethods of outsourcing right,
brought us to devise new methodsof outsourcing right.
And today we are seeingoutsourcing to other countries
(02:49):
like Africa, other countries inAfrica and other countries in
Latin America.
So can you tell me yourexperience around nearshoring,
outsourcing and things aroundthis area?
But before we do that, will youtell us about yourself?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Sure.
Thank you again for having meon your show.
So my name is Brian and I havebeen in the talent acquisition
space for about 20 years.
The last 10 have been runningbusinesses that I own, and I've
(03:29):
had the good fortune to have alittle bit of a global education
.
I did my MBA at both UCLA inCalifornia and National
University of Singapore, andwhile I was there we had quite a
few sessions in India and Chinaand, of course, singapore.
And in addition to that, youknow, I spent an entire year
(03:52):
living abroad, have lived inArgentina, launched companies,
and then have just lived indifferent places in the States
and then married someone whogrew up in Japan and then
married someone who grew up inJapan.
So, yeah, so I think all ofthat has kind of gotten me out
of where.
Where I grew up was kind of asheltered experience, you know
(04:13):
in the center of the country,you know outside of Chicago.
So that is really kind ofshaped my viewpoint of learning
more about cultures, learningmore about where the world is
going, nuances, all that stuff.
But what I do today is I run abusiness that's focused on
(04:33):
nearshoring, and we'll talkabout nearshoring, I'm sure, a
lot on this show but whatnearshoring really is.
It's a way to look at talentfrom a regional level.
It means you're not goingacross an ocean.
I'm sure your audience hasheard all about offshoring.
You kind of alluded to thatwith the Far East.
I mean, 20 years ago at least,the book came out by Thomas
(04:58):
Friedman called the World isFlat and it almost talks in the
way like AI is talked abouttoday as this new revolutionary
thing that's happening.
In the late 90s, early 2000s youwould see back offices in India
and the Philippines.
Singapore was a big back officefor banks in London, kind of a
(05:21):
clearinghouse, and time zonedidn't matter In fact, being on
an off schedule, almost like weare today.
Tosin, you know we're 12 hoursapart right now.
That was actually advantageous.
You know, one office would worka full workday and then
basically pass the baton to thenext office.
(05:42):
Follow the sun.
That's right, follow the sunExactly.
What's different aboutnearshoring?
And it's not a Latin Americathing, it's a regional thing but
it's really about just likewhen Singapore was kind of
growing up and going fromdeveloping to developed as a
(06:03):
country.
It was less expensive, laborwas cheaper, so a developed
country like the UK would useSingapore as their clearinghouse
, their back office.
You know from a different partof the world, but if they were
going to do nearshoring, usuallyyou have developed versus
(06:26):
developing.
So in a case like Singapore isa developed country today, an
expensive country, they mightnearshore to Malaysia or
Indonesia, cheaper countries onthe same time zone.
You could say the same thinglike Australia might near shore
(06:47):
to the Philippines very similartime zone, huge differentials in
cost of living.
In the US that's Latin America.
So you've got all theseinteresting talent pockets,
large population across thecontinent, all in the same time
(07:08):
zone at a less expensive cost.
So that's where I focused mybusinesses, that's where I
focused my career and I thinknearshoring is really
interesting and it can beapplied no matter where you are
in the globe.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Beautiful, I love the concept and it can be applied
no matter where you are in theglobe.
Beautiful, I love the conceptso truly.
It's the same pushing out thetalent out of a domiciliary
country, but invariably stillputting it within a regional
time zone, and that's amazing.
Yeah, I remember having aconversation with a friend a few
(07:42):
days ago and he says they are aglobal company.
They recruit from anywherebecause for them cost is not a
problem.
Yeah, but the challenge is thaton monday it's diwali in india,
on tuesday is saint patrick'sday in america.
Yeah, on wednesday china ishosting some memorial whatever.
(08:04):
On Thursday it's Memorial Dayor whatever in the UK, and then
Nigeria, where they are from,suddenly remembers a national
day or a holiday on Friday.
So it's zigzag.
And then it also brings the HRand all these other things
around it.
But I guess the nearshoring isa little bit better, because one
(08:26):
other critical thing is culture, which nobody ever talks about,
but it's really, really major.
I mean, there are somecountries where they never say
no.
They never say no, even whenthey are dying, they will never
say no.
And if you're not aware, youwill think, oh, but he never
said no, no, so which means he'saligned and that's.
(08:47):
I think.
I love this concept.
And another thing this tells meis that even when concepts are
new, when concepts are new this,they require some time to be
refined before we get to thatpoint where it's like fine wine
and this is an amazing conceptfor anybody who is considering
(09:10):
outsourcing or leveraging onglobalization, great.
So let's use Latin America, forexample, as a case study.
As a case study, what countriesare great candidates for
near-sharing in Latin Americawhere they've got considerably
(09:31):
good infrastructure, they've gotgood talent?
I know Argentina might be.
And then there's this othercountry not Brazil, I forget
their name right now.
There's this other countrywhere they seem to have a lot of
intelligent guys Sao Paulo, isBrazil, I can't recall.
But what's your experience like?
(09:52):
What countries do you thinkhave good opportunities or
candidates for near-sharing inLatin?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah, I love this question and the reason I love
it is because there's actuallyquite a few different countries
in Latin America and they allhave pros and cons, they all
have trade-offs, and I want toeven go back to how I was
explaining.
Say, like Singapore versusMalaysia, right, you have a
(10:18):
developed country and adeveloping country and,
depending on there's a lot ofdifferent things you might have
as a criteria if you're hiring.
Cost might be the number onefactor, or maybe it's the
ability to travel easily to thatcountry.
(10:38):
Let's say you wanted to set upan office there, or it could be
having a stable currency or, youknow, having geopolitical
stability.
You know there are things likecustoms and getting hardware in
and out and around the country,and then you talked about like
(10:59):
infrastructure, like internet,things like that.
So there's kind of like thoseconsiderations and then there's
talent pockets.
So every country has some prosand cons.
A country that I've spent a lotof time with this year and went
to Mexico City just about amonth ago is Mexico.
(11:20):
So Mexico happens to be thelargest trading partner for the
US and there's all sorts of automanufacturing plants.
Toyota is huge there, but it'sactually been a place that major
companies like Oracle have setup shop too, so if you go to say
Monterey, mexico, it's a big IThub, lots of engineers Now.
(11:46):
What's interesting, though, soMonterrey is a direct flight
from a lot of cities in the US,so it's easy to get to.
Hardware is as easy as usingamazoncom you can buy a laptop
on Amazon and have it shipped toyour engineer in Mexico.
The downsides to Mexico arewage convergence, so there's a
(12:12):
lot of competition in citieslike Monterey.
Now the secret is out.
It's not a secret anymore, so alot of major companies are
there, and what does that do?
That drives up wages.
And then you have this dynamicof do you want to have a near
shore operation and let peoplework from home?
(12:34):
Fantastic, but what if you wantthem to be in an office in the
center of Monterey?
Well, monterey is a verydifficult city to own a car.
It's very cost prohibitive, thebuses take forever, doesn't
have the greatest publictransportation, so it's very
(12:58):
tough, right?
Mexico is also a country wherepeople are tied to the pension
system, so what that means isthey don't want to go off and do
like a contract, they want tostay as, like a real traditional
employee.
Yeah, and not everybody wantsto set up an entity in Mexico.
(13:25):
They just want to access thetalent.
So culturally that's a littlebit more difficult.
Let me contrast that with acouple other countries.
We won't do every country inLatin America, but just a couple
others.
This is a country that I livedfor about a year and it's a
(13:49):
country that has a reallycomplicated financial story, a
very complicated economic story,decades and decades of
government mismanagement,corruption, inflation through
the roof so bad that if you werewalking the streets and you
want to do eat at a restaurant,they won't give you a menu with
(14:10):
printed prices.
The prices are written in chalkso they can erase it and
quickly recalculate based on theexchange rate and inflation
that day that day.
But it also has a populationthat has gone through all that,
(14:33):
so they have tremendous abilityto overcome adversity, things
that would really make anyone inthe US anxious.
Is this the normal day for them?
It's very, you know, not a bigdeal.
So they can handle hard things.
They can.
They're very flexible.
They have a lot of grit, a lotof critical thinking, because
they have to find ways aroundall this government red tape and
(14:54):
kind of like overly complicatedprocesses, and they don't want
to be tied to an Argentinecompany.
They want to work directly with, say, a US company and work asa
contractor, so they want to getpaid in USD.
They have no desire to be tiedto, say, a pension system.
(15:15):
And I'll talk about two others,costa Rica and Nicaragua,
because that's Central America.
And Costa Rica was the country Iwas talking about, because
that's Central America, andCosta Rica was the country I was
talking about.
Okay, great, yeah.
So Costa Rica, near and dear tomy heart, it's where I proposed
to my wife, that's where we gotengaged, and beautiful country
(15:42):
you know rainforest and cloudforest and sloths and all sorts
of beautiful nature yeah, allsorts of beautiful nature, yeah,
all sorts of beautiful nature.
And you also have a lot of techcompanies like Intel and
Microsoft, and all these guyshave gone there.
But it's not cheap.
It's like the most stablecountry in all of Latin America.
(16:02):
They have no standing army.
They're allied closely with theUS.
It's not a hugely populouscountry either, so not a large
talent pool, and because it's sostable, the downside of that is
(16:25):
it makes it more expensive.
Now let's look at its neighbor,nicaragua, which is a country
that is utilized a lot for whatwe call BPO, business process
outsourcing.
I think like call centers,customer service type of
environments, and the Englishthere is fantastic.
It is super aligned with USculture.
(16:47):
They're often watching US showson Netflix and watching that in
English.
If you were on a call centertype of call with somebody in
the Philippines or India, youwould probably know it, but you
(17:09):
wouldn't necessarily know it ifyou were on the call with, say,
a customer service agent inNicaragua.
Their English is that good,that Americanized.
They know all the slang, thecolloquialisms, and it's very
inexpensive, but it's not ahotbed for technical talent.
(17:29):
It's really more call centerand there's a lot of volatility
with it's not a stable country,the government.
There's a lot of, let's say,instability and volatility in
that country.
So when you say instability andvolatility.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Is it similar to that of Argentina or it's more of
like the gangs?
Or which part?
Is it economic or social?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah, good question.
I would actually say more thecitizens are not safe from the
government.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Really.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, yeah, it can be a scary place, that's more like
the villa, possibly.
So when you're, say, an Americancompany, and you're thinking,
maybe I want to nearshore toLatin America, it's not a one
size fits all.
You want to think about what ismy budget?
(18:25):
Do I want the arbitrage?
And, by the way, the morevolatile, the bigger the
arbitrage opportunity.
That means if you can find highvalue, the price you pay for
that value is much lower.
But the more stable, the lessarbitrage opportunity.
So you have to think about itlike that Can my person bring
(18:47):
their own hardware?
Do I need to ship themsomething?
Do I need to fly there and seethis person or vice versa?
Do I have to do I need to shipthem something?
Do I need to fly there and seethis person or vice versa?
Do I want to have them fly toChicago and come to our
headquarters?
You know, once a year and youknow.
Do I want office space?
Is office space expensive?
Are there lots of people thathave that skill set that I'm
(19:10):
looking for?
So there's a lot of differentconsiderations, but I will say
that in this day and age, timezone is a huge factor for
companies.
They are willing to pay apremium because, as you
(19:38):
mentioned at the outset, asia ischeaper than Latin America, but
the trade-off of being on thesame time zone and having the
ability to do collaboration haveall your messages answered in
real time on Slack that's a hugevalue that companies are
willing to pay a premium for,and it applies all across the
world.
You know, if you're in London,maybe you'll use a team in
Poland.
(19:58):
If you're in Singapore,malaysia, you know, so on and so
forth.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, got you.
I think for Europe.
We have Poland, we havePortugal.
Portugal is really great andthen we have Romania.
We have Romania coming upsilently but really really
strong, because in Romaniayou've got a lot of talent where
it's English and something else.
And something else is notSpanish, it's not German, it's
(20:27):
not French, so it has to beEnglish if they want to go
global.
They speak really really greatEnglish.
In my days at Microsoft, we hada lot of stuff happening in
Romania.
They are really quite greatguys.
Of course, the costs I meanDublin is there for tax purposes
, but you would get a 50% rebateif you did Bucharest Then, of
(20:53):
course, I think that's alsogreat.
Portugal also, because of theirgolden visa, they've got a lot
of tech talent, so I thinkthat's a great balance over
there.
That's good, awesome.
But I think when you mentionedsomething about the cheap, I
always ask of what is the exactcost?
So if you, you were outsourcingto the far east, if you were
(21:17):
outsourcing to the far east,what are the challenges in terms
of?
Sometimes some people, some ofthese guys, are not thinking in
English.
So the message is you have toreally really speak like you're
talking to a five-year-old nowand then.
(21:38):
Sometimes, in some culturesit's okay to be two days late.
In some cultures it's okay tobe one day late now.
In some cultures, if you missthe deadline, you're toast.
Yeah, yeah.
If you miss the deadline,you're toast.
Yeah, yeah, right, if you missthe deadline, you're toast.
So I guess that when we talkabout the cost of cheap, when we
(21:59):
talk about the cost of cheap,cheap is relative.
If you're cheap dollar-wise butyou miss deadlines, you are not
cheap to me that's right.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
That's right.
You have to look at the wholecost.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Exactly.
You are not cheap to me, that'sright, that's right.
You have to look at the wholecost.
Yeah, exactly so.
And again, if you're cheapdollar wise but it takes me a
lot of hassle to move moneyacross then for me that's really
not cheap, yeah, so, yeah, youknow a couple of things that we
could weigh and everything, butagain, at the end of the day, we
(22:33):
really need to know whatmatters to us.
So, like you said, if it'sbusiness process, that's okay,
but if it's hardcore coding orhardcore tech strategy or
hardcore design, icy design orwhatever it is, I want to do
that.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Sometimes you say it's a give and take thing yeah,
yeah, maybe what I'll add thereis, you know, when you have an
abundance of labor.
So say, a country like India,which is over a billion people,
india probably graduates moreengineers than the US has.
Engineers, right Like there'san abundance and they're cheap.
(23:13):
Engineers right Like there's anabundance and they're cheap.
So maybe like $1,000 a month fora new grad engineer or
something right, maybe a littlemore for a senior engineer, and
gosh, I mean, that's like 110th120 at the price of someone in
the US.
So there's this like naturalinclination to well, let's just
(23:34):
throw 20 engineers from India atthis US company.
But I think the world ischanging.
I think the world is a littlebit more quality focused today,
so there's more of a premium onjust where can I get the best
talent in the world period.
(23:54):
I don't need a lot of people, Ijust need the best people, and
that's a different equation.
Of course, india has someamazing, incredible engineers,
but the mentality, though, isstill throw bodies at the
problem, not talent.
Critical thinking, yeah, notcritical thinking.
(24:16):
You know where?
I think argentina has quicklykind of recognized clever
critical thinking.
They, they want their, they,they want to compete directly
head-on with the best engineersin the US.
They want to design thesoftware, architect the software
, be just as good as a fullstack developer, kind of head to
(24:42):
head, and then that's the truearbitrage right.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
So what is the major reason you see from
organizations for wanting tooutsource or near shore?
Because in the US, for example,you have your HCOLs, which is
high cost of living areas, youhave your NCOLs and you have
your LCOLs.
Now what really stops me frommoving my roles to an LCOL or
(25:14):
MCOL build where land is cheap,taxes low and probably the
government is more accommodatingand friendlier?
Why do I have to go through thestress of pushing stuff out of
country?
What is the major attractionand what is the major benefit
for me?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, well, think there.
There's a lot to consider there.
So it might not even be a goodoption for you.
It's not a good option foreverybody.
Let me.
Let me talk about why it wouldnot make sense and why it would
beautiful.
So, and I'm going to have a?
(25:53):
U centric answer, but hopefullythere is application across the
globe.
That's not a problem.
Yeah, so let's rewind the tapeto.
The US has had a very volatileeconomy the last couple of years
.
Okay, and there's a couple ofdifferent points of peaks and
(26:13):
valleys and how that impacts thething.
So you want to think aboutlabor supply.
So 2021, the market was floodedwith capital.
Unemployment was at an all-timelow Average.
Talent was getting multipleoffers.
(26:35):
The best talent was gettingrecruited like crazy, but
companies had so much capitalthat they were paying whatever
they could to get talent.
But the thing was talent wasscarce to get talent.
But the thing was talent wasscarce Because, you know, for
every, every candidate, therewere multiple job openings.
(26:59):
So that meant that price wasn'tan issue, but access to talent
(27:32):
was the issue.
So companies were starting tolook outside right and again it
wasn't a matter of cost.
Now, asia tends to lead withcost.
First, hey, outsource your jobsto the Philippines or India or
Vietnam, china, whatever,because we're cheap, they don't
tend to lead with.
Hey, we have the best talent,they tend to lead with, we have
the cheapest talent.
So in a market where you haveenormous amounts of capital,
that's not really appealing.
You just want you want todeploy the capital and get the
best talent you possibly canafford.
(27:53):
So Latin America wasinteresting because the talent
was good and there was moresupply.
So capital was a non-issue, butsupply of labor was.
That's why nearshoring startedto become a thing.
Near shoring started to becomea thing.
Then let's look, maybe a yearand a half later kind of the end
(28:26):
of 2022, early 2023, you almosthad like a rubber band effect
with capital in the US.
You started to have, you know,all that government spending in
2020, 2021, catch up, inflationshot up, interest rates shot up,
investors pulled back, socompanies had less capital to
work with, but then, at the sametime, unemployment is a little
(28:50):
bit higher too.
So you're kind of likeright-sizing.
You know supply and demand allthe time.
Now what was interesting withthe labor supply is, let me use
some real numbers.
So let's say, you're a softwaredeveloper in 2019, kind of the
(29:11):
last real year we've had in thisworld, right?
And then you have COVID of 2020and so on.
2019, software engineer inChicago is maybe making $120,000
USD a year as a salary.
2021, all of a sudden, thatsame engineer they're not that
(29:31):
much better.
All of a sudden now no longerjustify paying an engineer
$180,000, an average engineer$180,000 because they have less
(29:59):
capital to work with.
So now they kind of have thesetwo choices they can either try
to negotiate and get that 180kengineer to go backwards.
That's very difficult to do.
Right is human nature.
Once we've reached a level, wewe don't really want to justify
(30:26):
it.
We we want to say it's becausewe were, we were worth it.
We don't want to say no,actually I just got lucky
because of the economy and allthe costs went up.
I don't want to say that it'salways intrinsic.
I just got really good atcoding and everybody noticed
right, exactly so.
So you don't want to, you don'twant to go backwards, so that's
what we had.
I just got really good atcoding and everybody noticed
(30:47):
right, exactly, so you don'twant to go backwards.
So that's what we had in 2023.
Companies had less capital butwages had gone up so high but,
by the way, cost of living hadalso gone up high, so it would
even be hard for people to takea step backward, because they'd
(31:08):
take a huge step backward.
So you kind of had this likewhat we call like a Mexican
standoff who's going to movefirst and, uh, and if that
engineer would not reduce therate, then you're looking for
labor supply that met my price.
So that could be India, it couldbe Latin America, it could be
wherever.
(31:28):
But the other thing thathappened in 2023 is you are
coming out of three years in arow of remote work, no offices.
So it wasn't really a big dealto have a remote team anymore.
But, with all things beingequal, you'd rather have that
(31:52):
person on the same time zone,because in 2021, 2022, you could
afford to have people from allacross the us because you't care
where they worked, you couldafford them and everybody worked
in the US.
So it was all like roughly thesame time zone.
You know, three hours was thebiggest difference.
(32:13):
You didn't want to give upworkday collaboration anymore.
So the next best option wasLatin America, and that's where
Latin America is today.
It's got enough talent, enoughlabor supply at the price point
(32:35):
without sacrificing quality ortime zone I love that.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
I love that.
So it makes a lot of sense whenwe begin to see these kind of
trends.
And of course, like you've said, we've seen a lot of layoffs.
So what is invariably happeningis yes, ai is there, but of
course there's less money, eventhough it's much more in volume
or in quantity, but in valueit's a little bit less.
So, rather than tell theengineer to take a pay cut which
he will do, because sometimesit's safer to have a job than
(33:07):
not to they just lay off andthen redirect.
We've seen that with a lot oforganizations who lay off in the
US and then make a commitmentto invest in another economy.
I mean, yes, it's a big, boldstatement, but of course we know
what's going on.
Yes, so I wouldn't mentionnames here, but that's what
exactly is going on.
(33:28):
Beautiful.
So what do you think would bethe future of this?
Now, a lot of things have comeinto the mix.
Like you said, remote work isno more alien, putting work out
of country is no more alien,it's now second nature.
What do you see as the futureof these?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
of these things.
I really believe that nearshoring the 2020s are the decade
for near shoring.
Either you're in polandsupporting uk, or portugal, like
you said, supporting uk, orargent Argentina supporting the
US, or Malaysia supportingSingapore.
The 2020s is really the decadefor nearshoring.
(34:10):
The 2030s, that's a little toofar for me to predict.
Now, ai is, you know, funnyenough.
I almost think of this likeCOVID.
So how did I know that COVIDwas a thing?
When it was late March and Ihad team members in Nicaragua,
(34:37):
colombia, argentina, california,texas, so all over the states,
all over Latin Latin America, sopeople that lived hundreds, if
not thousands, of miles fromeach other, and we all got it
right.
We all got it.
So, wow, this is a global thing.
(35:00):
You know, like everybody it's,it's spreading like and and I
think AI is almost like that youknow where.
It's not like a US thing, it'snot a China thing.
It's a global thing, and itdoesn't matter if you're in
Africa or Poland or Mexico.
All this stuff is accessible,so you can train up on AI and be
(35:27):
competitive.
And I think the thesis thatwe're hearing is AI won't take
your job.
It's actually the person that'susing AI will take your job.
So that's the dangerouscombination is wow, if you could
(35:48):
have nearshoring the same timezone with a capable person who's
also leveraging AI, so they'resignificantly more productive.
That is a killer combination.
So I actually think that talentin the US and other developed
countries UK, singapore, germany, these high cost places it's
(36:15):
going to be tight because you'regoing to compete with people
that are in the same time zone,less expensive and having the
same horsepower of AI.
So if you're in the States andyou're not using AI and the
company has an alternative tosay, hire somebody from Mexico
(36:38):
that is using AI, it's going tobe a losing battle for that
person in the US, got you?
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Got you, got you.
So you are suggesting that we'regoing to see more of this and,
with the rise of AI, this isgoing to continue.
Yes, that's amazing.
So I think this is someinsightful stuff.
For me personally, so it madesense when we started talking of
the near-sharing versus, versusoffshoring or outsourcing.
(37:07):
But in light of thisconversation, I begin to see
more.
I promise you, the time zonequality thing for me is a big,
big thing.
I promise, because, imagine, Ihave a colleague who is in the
West and he works with a companyin somewhere in the GMT time
(37:32):
zone and he mentions that everyMonday and Friday he has to wake
up at 2 AM just to catch upbecause he's senior, but he
needs to meet his team who is inthe gmt plus or minus one, two
time zone.
Now if that team was someonelatam, or vice versa, if that
(37:53):
team because the company isactually the company is actually
in the gmt time zone.
So if that team was in portugalor nairobi, kenya or Egypt or
Warsaw, poland, that wouldn't behappening.
That wouldn't be happening.
But again, these things beginto come.
So and, like you said, I'mreally happy.
(38:15):
I promise you you've hit a lotof soft points today, because
it's difficult for some people,especially where you're from, to
be able to contextualize at theglobal scale.
But you have been super spot on, in my opinion.
I would have rated Costa Ricahigher than Argentina, but
(38:35):
Argentina is giving the vibes oflike an African country where I
come from originally, which isNigeria.
So I never knew it was thatdynamic.
Which is Nigeria.
So I never knew it was thatdynamic.
I think it's a little bit moredynamic than Nigeria because I
mean, at least we still get toprint out stuff, because you can
kind of predict though rightnow it's a bit topsy-turvy, but
under normal circumstances youcan still predict but a couple
(38:59):
of changes are going on, whichis making it very, very similar
to Argentina.
But Nigerians also are alwaysjust looking for the next
innovation because they dealwith a lot.
So that's exactly the same inArgentina.
So I knew that in Lebanon andEgypt and Nigeria was the same.
Now I've found the LATAMversion of resilience and
(39:22):
flexibility, which is Argentina.
Thank you for that.
Thank you for that.
Thank you for that.
Great Okay.
So I think this has been a verybeautiful session so far.
It's not the kind of excitingtopic that you want to talk
about, but again, it's not.
But it's really reallysensitive and really really cost
related.
So the last thing that I wouldask you for is that.
(39:47):
So, on this podcast, we usuallyhave a challenge.
We usually have a challenge.
So, because this is thebeginning of a new season, we
didn't have so many challengesfrom the last season, so I leave
a thought or a challenge forthe next speaker.
(40:07):
Yeah, so we set you uptypically because we don't tell
you ahead of time, so you've gotto think on your feet, right?
We don't tell you challengeahead of time and we don't tell
you to prep a challenge ahead oftime, so you've got.
This is the part where we getyou thinking on your feet, as it
were.
So I'm going to make it simple.
I'll make it simple and I'mgoing to ask a geopolitical
(40:28):
question.
With the way things are goingon now, today, what do you see
will happen in 2025?
What direction do you see thegeopolitical terrain of the
world going in 2025?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Well, it's election week in the US, as we talked
about before the show, andthere's a lot of different
things that are going to happenin the US, but I think my
prediction is the mostsignificant is the US is going
to pull back from both directand proxy wars.
(41:06):
So we have what's going on inUkraine, we have what's going on
in Israel, we have what couldpotentially happen in Taiwan,
north Korea all that.
I think the US is going to pullback from a lot of that and
there'll be repercussions rightEither in Ukraine.
That means that becomes aEurope problem and Europe is
(41:28):
going to have to address that.
Without the US's treasure andarms, I think in the Middle East
, israel is probably going to beable to do what it wants and I
think a lot of direction mightbe towards Taiwan, china, north
Korea.
You know what's happening overthere.
(41:49):
You'll probably have a lot ofpreventative carrier groups.
That was a geopoliticalquestion.
But I think the world is tiredof war and America.
I think this is a good thing,because America has been at war
for a long time.
America seems to only know howto do war and it's almost a
(42:12):
money laundering operation.
So we'll be able to redirectsome of these resources towards
us and, hopefully, innovation,and I think America is at its
best when we're leading ininnovation and we can spread
that across the world.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Beautiful, and what impact do you see AI having on
nearshoring, outsourcing,offshoring?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
I think we touched on this earlier AI is accessible.
So if AI is accessible, itmeans you can touch it whether
you're in India, or it means youcan touch it whether you're in
India or Pakistan or Egypt,Argentina, wherever you are in
the world.
Ai is accessible, so it allowsyou to compete head on, and
(42:55):
especially with those indeveloped countries that are not
using AI.
It's a huge weapon.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
It's a huge weapon.
I love that.
I love that Good.
Thank you so much, brian.
This has been an excitingconversation.
I'm happy that it's been very,very, very structured and a lot
of deep thoughts, but I love theflow of the conversation and I
must say I'm happy to have youhere and I hope to have you back
(43:23):
one of these days.
Again, thanks everyone forjoining us on this episode of
the Glitz podcast.
It's been brian sampson, who isa near sharing consultant based
out of out of hawaii in theunited states, and it's been an
exciting time and I hope thatyou will be joining us again.
So please like, share,subscribe and give us your
thoughts and comments and againwe will bring you some other
(43:45):
exciting conversations withother amazing thought leaders
and I believe that this is oneof the best things that will
happen in the world today.
And, brian, thank you so much.
It's been exciting to have youand everyone.
Thanks for listening.
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