Page 28 - Nearshoring to Romania

4.3.1 Technology
The development technologies that should be used play an important role in the selection criteria for a
nearshoring partner. Many companies, particularly the smaller ones, focus on a certain platform and/or
development technology, e.g. Microsoft Windows or Linux environments. Your prospective partner
should have ample experience with the required technologies and be prepared to work with them. There
is a tendency among certain communities (especially the younger IT staff) to always want to use the
newest tools and technologies. This can contradict with the interests of the customer, who often is
dealing with legacy systems and cannot always keep all its projects updated at all times.
4.3.2 Agile versus waterfall
When selecting a nearshoring partner, it may be helpful to consider what kind of development
methodology will be used in the cooperation. The traditional waterfall method may seem more suited
for a situation where a team is working remotely. The requirements are clear before the project starts and
the project can run more or less independently until the end of the last phase. An agile methodology may
seem better suited for a local team because it involves a lot of communication between stakeholders. On
the other hand, leaving a remote team to work independently for a longer time increases the risk of
having an unusable product in the end. Whereas the frequent communication that is inherent to an agile
methodology will keep the remote team involved and committed to the local operation. In general
terms, neither method has a clear preference but it would be good to consider the possibilities and see if
the prospective partner is willing and able to use the desired methodology.
4.4 Starting the cooperation
Get off to a good start of the cooperation by some relatively simple measures. A little investment in the
beginning could be very fruitful in the end by ensuring a good start.
4.4.1 Meet and greet
The first thing to do when you start working with your Romanian partner is to arrange a meeting.
Depending on the amount of people involved on either side this could either be at your location or in
Romania. What matters is that the key players know each other personally and know their respective
surroundings. Instead of dealing with a black box that delivers goods or services, people will be dealing
with someone they know. When talking on the phone or through Skype they can picture the other person
in his working environment. Another obvious advantage of an initial meeting is that it provides an
opportunity for an initial knowledge transfer.
4.4.3 Change your language
All communication with the Romanian partner is likely to be in English, while much of the in house
communication is probably in your own language. Once you start working with the nearshoring partner
it is wise to start using English for all aspects of the work that is being nearshored. This includes
documents or information that is initially only targeted at the local office, since much of this may
eventually need to be communicated to the Romanian partner. The earlier in the communication
pipeline the English language is used, the easier it is for all parties involved to unambiguously discuss
the matters.
To this extent, it is also wise to have a uniform way of translating terms from one language to the others,
i.e. to have established terminology in both languages. This prevents misunderstandings resulting from
terms being translated (and therefore interpreted) differently at different moments in time.

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Nearshoring to Romania, NRCC 2013