Symend

Executive Summary

Symend was a victim of its own success. They had built a complex platform of bespoke solutions for each of its enterprise customers but needed a faster simpler unified platform that could scale. Led by a CTO with 25 years of industry experience, they needed to continue supporting the legacy systems and bring in a whole team to build the new version. They could not hire enough engineers fast enough so they used a global labor strategy leveraging offshore and nearshore resources. They needed to have very high quality engineers and quickly onboard. Outforce (formerly GTA) expedited the global vendor selection process for Symend saving months of research and due diligence. The speed of the process and the quality of the resulting shortlist lead Symend to completely rethink its labour strategy and they doubled down on outsourcing. Symend got the rebuilt product up and running which enabled more diverse scalable sales and a new round of funding. 

Challenge

Symend’s CTO recognized the need for a sophisticated labor strategy beyond local hiring. The challenge was:

• Starting from scratch to leverage offshore/nearshore resources was daunting
• TIme - required a complete rebuild in a short window to get financing.
• Quality - market was peak, availability of senior engineers was too hard to recruit and too expensive in most markets

Solution

Symend chose to partner with Outforce because of Outforce's:

• Extensive, knowledge and database of global and local outsourcers
• Close relationships with various companies around the world
• Expertise in vendor selection, assessment, and risk mitigation

Results

By working with Outforce, Symend achieved:

• Quickly narrow down from countless options to a strategic and diverse shortlist of five potential vendors across Asia, Latin America, and Europe
• Final 5 interviews between narrowed to two well-qualified partners, instead of being forced into a single option
• Efficiently evaluate and compare the skills and compatibility of these vendors through a symmetrical process led by outforce
• A reduction in vendor selection from a potential six months to just 2 weeks
• Fast integration of selected offshore developers – just two weeks from contract signing to full integration into sprint stand-ups
• Satisfactory contributions from the new offshore resources, in line with the company’s expectations

“The first thing I'd say to any CTO is, if you don't have a more sophisticated labor strategy than just hiring good local talent, you're not doing yourself justice. It's a global market now. Partnering with Outforce, we could quickly and effectively extend our talent pool globally, mitigating risks and saving invaluable time and resources.” - CTO, Symend

Conclusion

For Symend, a calculated global labor strategy was essential in today's competitive market. Partnering with Outforce allowed Symend to expedite and simplify the process of selecting and integrating offshore talent. This partnership not only reduced time-to-market but also provided a valuable risk mitigation strategy.

With Outforce’s data-backed insights and global relationships, Symend was able to efficiently navigate the complexities of international labor markets, aligning with the CTO’s belief in Agencies based on team skills rather than geography. Whether for small venture-backed companies or large corporations, outforce’s expertise proves invaluable for companies aiming to adopt a labor arbitrage strategy that includes offshoring.