The Best of Both Worlds – The Dual Shore Model

Imagine if you could have all the benefits the offshore model has to offer – high technical competence at an affordable rate - and combine that with the benefits of having expertise in house. Sounds improbable right? Wrong.

With the Dual Shore Model, you are assured the best of both worlds. Here’s why.

The concept of Dual Shore came into being when the challenges common to working across oceans became apparent. Time zone differences, communication disruptions and cultural misunderstandings can sometimes get in the way of stellar work. With the Dual Shore model, these issues dissipate.

 Here’s how:

• At the onshore center: There will be personnel from the production team working directly with the client in the client’s country, preferably at the client’s office to maximize the effectiveness of direct communication. These personnel are often experts in their field but also have exceptional communication and management skills. They will be responsible for collecting the client’s requirements, conducting business analysis, and managing the production team.

• At the offshore center: The production team will receive requirements from onshore personnel. Because they typically have the same cultural backgrounds, the communication with the team will be much easier and smoother.  

Conventional service providers often neglect the communication aspect of their organizations by focusing too much on the technical aspect. However, when they want to scale up their business to span continents, they find they have to shift their approach to one that’s more adaptive and more flexible, and that’s when these seemingly soft skills become hard barriers.

When the dual shore model is already in place, many issues can be dealt with without prolonging the development cycle. The model also allows projects to be developed to the same standard you’d expect if you were to opt for an onshore agency, but at a lower cost. And by receiving support and coordination from the client directly, the onshore personnel can eliminate the organizational and cultural differences between the two shores. Additionally, information can be transferred fluently from the onshore center to the offshore center.

How we apply the dual shore model

At Niteco, one of our most successful projects to date is Bonnier News. Bonnier News is a group consisting of many business units/newspapers in Sweden: Di, DN, Expressen/GT/KvP, HD-Sydsvenskan, BBM, Bonnier News Lifestyle, Bold, Wasp, Marieberg Media.

• Dagens Nyhether (morning news) and Dagens Industri (economy and financial news) and Expressen (evening news) are among the most popular newspapers in Sweden.

Niteco provides software development services for Bonnier News, and currently has eight project teams with more than 30 members: DN.se (Alma), BNP CMS, Service+,  Financial Hub, DN/Di WordPress and Customer Insight.

Technologies deployed include Front-end technologies, .Net, PHP, Java, Node Js, Web API, React, Preact, Episerver, CMS, Azure, Solr, Elastic Search, Akamai, Team City/Octopus, OData, Burst Cache, Redis, Memcached, SQL Server, MySQL, Interactive Graphic Charts, New Relic, Grafana, etc.

Bonnier News was one of our early adopters of this model as we realized that communication remains the key to projects of this scope.

Thanks to the Dual Shore Model, we have been able to deliver the following:

• On time deliverables and no critical issues for two consecutive years

• 24/7 support and fast response to problems

• Implementation of innovative ideas, in both features and technologies.

• Become the Product Owner if needed, when the customer wants us to be fully responsible for certain projects.

As the concept grows in popularity, Niteco is establishing highly specialized teams with exceptional technical competence, not just in Sweden, but in the UK and the United States of America too.

What's better for your business? Fixed price projects or managed resource team? 

Get in touch with us to find out if this could be exactly what your organization needs.