g2o has always provided our customers with a viable alternative to offshore development with local and responsive teams that collaborate at your office, or ours, to deliver digital innovation. And now that no one is working in their offices, our team is ready to support you with years of experience managing remote project teams and sprints.
From our beginning, we’ve had an Engagement Lab in Columbus, Ohio. The facility is a co-located, collaborative environment, where our teams provide end-to-end design and development for clients across the United States. Up until recently, hundreds of our “onshore” associates have worked together at client sites or at our Engagement Lab.
But with the onset of social distancing measures, we took to our homes — and remained completely operational and committed to being the partner our customers need during these challenging times. “Survive and thrive” has become our motto, and the outcome we intend to deliver for our customers.
For us, onshoring during the COVID-19 pandemic means that our remote workers in their home offices, or sitting at their dining room desks, are delivering the same quality and expertise you would get if they were co-located with your team.
While COVID-19 may have increased the need for bringing initiatives back, we believe that it has always made sense. Here are three reasons why.
Digital disruption continues to accelerate
Back in the '90s, companies like GE started sending their IT development to overseas technology workers to reduce costs, following a similar model that had worked years earlier for offshoring manufacturing jobs.
But even before the current situation, business needs were changing much faster and more dramatically than decades ago. Customers’ emerging expectations and the new possibilities of digital technologies have been converging at an unprecedented speed. This isn’t going to stop because of COVID-19.
In fact, COVID-19 is accelerating the transformation and we’re likely witnessing a permanent culture change in how many people work, how they buy things, and how they choose to interact with companies.
Agility and collaboration go hand in hand
Design and development teams must be flexible and hyper-responsive. Offshoring, with its inherent differences in time zones, language, and communication styles, combined with high attrition rates, makes collaboration far more difficult than onshore delivery models.
Agile software development relies on cross-functional teams who continuously collaborate with their customers while responding to changes throughout the development cycle. The iterative, collaborative nature of Agile development is not easily replicated with distant offshore teams working across multiple time zones.
At g2o, we have fully embraced Agile methodology. We even help our customers to implement it. Before COVID-19, you would find our Agile teams collaborating on user research, experience design, data architecture, software development — and more — in our Engagement Lab. Now, with recent stay at home orders, you will find these same teams applying the same Agile principles, only they are collaborating remotely from the safety of their home offices. We have pivoted with this situation, and are helping our customers do the same.
Digital experience initiatives require a new type of partner
Today’s digital experience initiatives require a broader set of skills compared to traditional offshore coding and application development. These initiatives require an innovation partner with end-to-end capabilities to design, build, and inform engaging and differentiated digital experiences.
At g2o, we believe expertise is most powerful when combined. We bring together our strengths in in research and design, data and analytics, and modern integrated technology platforms to help our clients exceed their customers’ growing expectations.
Delivering value remotely is not new to us. Now more than ever, it is critical that we work together to help strengthen digital connections with employees and customers and limit business disruption. Our team is ready to not only help you survive the disruption but to come out stronger and ready to thrive.
