Introduction
For years, the nearshoring conversation has revolved around cost.
And while cost savings are certainly a part of the story, it is rarely what clients talk about after they’ve built a successful team. What we hear instead are stories about: finding a candidate that wasn’t available (or affordable) in a local market, hiring someone whose quality & attitude exceeds some U.S. hires, and about having additional capacity to invest in the business.
That’s why we believe that the best nearshoring strategies don’t start with budgets; they start with people. Because in the end, the greatest value doesn’t come from spending less. It comes from finding talent that helps your business achieve more.
Access to Specialized Talent
Most companies don’t turn to nearshoring because they can’t find candidates locally. They turn to nearshoring because they can’t find the right candidates at the right cost.
In highly specialized fields, local talent pools can be limited. Sometimes there simply aren’t enough qualified professionals available. Other times, demand has significantly outpaced supply and costs are not in the budget.
When companies need to look beyond their local market (and consider a remote hire), a bigger question emerges: why let borders limit the search?
The time difference between New York and Los Angeles is 3 hours… countries like Costa Rica or Colombia sit squarely between NYC and LA. If remote collaboration is already part of the equation, expanding the search region beyond East and West to North and South can dramatically increase access to qualified talent while maintaining real-time communication and alignment.
The difference is choice, and better choices often lead to better hires.
We’ve seen this firsthand with a healthcare-focused organization entering the U.S. market that needed more than a support representative. They needed someone capable of helping build operations from the ground up. Through nearshoring, they hired a Costa Rica-based operations leader with experience at large multi-national healthcare companies and direct experience in launching teams, building contact center infrastructure, creating KPI frameworks, managing budgets, and recruiting founding teams. What began as a hiring need became a strategic hire that helped establish and scale an entire support operation.
Experience Runs Deeper
Another common misconception is that nearshoring is best suited for entry-level or transactional roles. Many companies initially approach the region expecting to fill basic operational positions, only to discover a talent pool filled with experienced professionals who have held leadership, specialized, and highly strategic roles.
What often surprises them is the depth of experience they find – and there is a reason for this.
The companies that have invested most in LATAM (Latin America) over the last few decades are large multi-nationals. Think Amazon, Unilever, Accenture, PwC, Citi, HP, Intel, Heineken, Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Microsoft, IBM, DHL, and Bayer.
What is often overlooked is how these companies operate in LATAM, having built large-scale shared service centers and specialized hubs that support critical global functions. As a result, professionals gained experience with enterprise-level systems, global KPIs, SLAs, and integrated processes. A pricing professional from 3M understands how pricing supports a global operation. An Accenture professional supporting NVIDIA brings experience from sophisticated data and technology environments. An Equifax finance professional has worked within highly standardized, metrics-driven processes.
So, while companies may initially be looking for additional capacity, they frequently discover professionals who bring valuable expertise and new perspectives from industries and organizations they’ve worked with before. That’s not simply staffing. It’s added knowledge and skills for your organization.
For example, within BMNS, one professional we placed previously served as a Customer Service Team Manager at Amazon before joining a family-owned chemical distribution company as a Customer Care Coordinator. While the title suggested a more traditional support function, the value extended far beyond customer interactions. He brought operational discipline, scalable processes, leadership experience, and best practices learned within a global organization, helping elevate the way the company approached service and internal operations.
People Create Growth
At some point, every successful nearshoring strategy stops being only about staffing and becomes about growth, capability, and creating the kind of team that can move the business forward. With any company, this starts with hiring the right people – and that is no different when hiring in LATAM.
The organizations creating the most value aren’t treating nearshore professionals as external resources or temporary solutions. They actively invest in people, integrating them into their teams and creating environments where they can contribute beyond their job descriptions. When that happens, people don’t just execute tasks. They start solving problems, improving processes, sharing ideas, and helping organizations scale.
In fact, we’ve seen this pattern repeatedly across our client base. When looking at clients with more than one employee with BMNS, 70% of them have employees in their nearshore teams across 2+ departments/functions, such as Customer Service, Finance, Operations or other business areas. What often begins as a solution for one hiring need evolves into a broader strategy for organizational growth.
Some of the strongest client relationships develop when companies intentionally create a sense of belonging for their teams, regardless of geography. Whether it’s sending employee appreciation gifts, sending down SWAG, organizing virtual celebrations, hosting team lunches during visits, or making regular trips to spend time with their teams in person, these investments build stronger engagement, deeper trust, and long-term commitment.
U.S. business often invests in their people… and the best nearshore partners do the same. Anyone running a team knows that people perform at their best when they feel connected to the mission and valued by the organization they support.
And that’s why the best nearshoring strategies start with people. Not because cost doesn’t matter, but because talent, expertise, and human connection are what create lasting results.
Looking Beyond Cost
When evaluating nearshoring partners, one of the clearest indicators of long-term success is how they talk about people.
If every conversation centers primarily on lower costs, reduced labor expenses, and savings percentages, it’s worth asking what happens after the hire is made.
The most successful nearshoring engagements aren’t built on finding the cheapest talent available. They’re built on finding the right people, supporting their development, and creating an environment where they can make a meaningful contribution over time.
At BMNS, we put a great deal of effort into investing in our people and their experience. From team-building activities and holiday celebrations to employee recognition, social responsibility initiatives, and strong internal communication, we intentionally create an environment where people feel valued and connected. Not because it’s expected, and certainly not because it’s the easiest path, but because we’ve seen the impact it has. When people feel supported, they tend to be more engaged, more committed to their work, and more invested in the success of the clients they support.
A people-first approach tends to produce stronger retention, greater engagement, and higher-quality outcomes because it prioritizes long-term value over short-term savings.