Outsourcing: Martin Migoya, CEO Of Globant (Part 2)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Rajesh Nair

Sramana Mitra: And that’s where you have succeeded, in doing mobile and social apps and user interface (UI)-intensive stuff and so forth, yes

Martin Migoya: Yes, exactly right.

Sramana:There are two questions that come to mind based directly on what you have just said. First, It is very difficult to work with remote developers, I guess remote partners, when you are dealing with issues like UI, dealing with aesthetics and design and things like that. So, if you look at the history of outsourcing, that is probably one of the areas that has seen the least amount of outsourcing. What are your comments about that?

Martin: Well, that is changing. That’s where we come in; that’s what we bring to the table. Argentina, in fact all of Latin America, is very well recognized for its current talent and the way people design software products. We all work in the same time zone. That gives us ample opportunity to stay connected with customers, getting feedback, going back and forth with the applications and  prototypes and things like that. I would say that those two things have really configured success in terms of how to create a distributed art for those applications.

Sramana:OK. The second question is, You talked about ideation, and you are participating with your customers on the level of developing ideas. Would you talk more about that? What are you doing differently?

Martin: Well, what we are doing here is we are not stopping with the request but acting proactively to meet our customers’ needs. The first step is to understand their needs well and then create ideas for them that they have not requested. We remain proactive throughout the process. We try to understand their problem areas and then come up with solutions that can really change their games. This is one of the core things around innovation at Globant. The relationship we share with our customers is not just a reactive relationship where we receive an order to do a specific number of things; rather, our preferred way of engagement is wherever we can create the product together, wherever we can add value to the equation by creating ideas, prototyping them, producing them, and putting them live, we will walk that extra mile.

Sramana: So in terms of the workforce, are you entirely in Argentina or do you have local people servicing these accounts in the U.S. as well as interfacing with the Argentina team?

Martin: No, we have people all around Latin America. We have people from Mexico to Colombia to Uruguay, and of course in Argentina. We have a big portion here in Argentina, but there are talented people distributed across Latin America. We have a very efficient model to reach out to smaller towns and interior parts where many talented people live. So, instead of bringing the people to where the opportunities are, we are trying to take the opportunities to where the people are. It is not just an Argentinean thing; it is a Latin American thing. Every country on the continent has a great talent pool that we can tap into, and our challenge is to reach people in order to bring them to where the opportunities are.

Sramana: Well, I guess you are answering a question that I was going to get to. The question I asked, though, is what about the client services part? It sounds as though you are working largely with United States clients.  Do you have a lot of people in the U.S. close to the clients who are interfacing with your Latin America workforce?

Martin: We have a lot of American employees, too. We are creating jobs in America; that is for sure. We need to be close to our customers. Sometimes, Globantants from all around the world go to the U.S., and sometimes local Globantants in the U.S. deal with our customers. This is something we take very seriously. We really want to distribute every opportunity all around these places, including the U.S. I would say about 25% to 30% of our people are in the U.S., and the rest are here in Latin America.

Sramana: OK. Now, would you talk more about the distribution of the workforce in Latin America? Because it sounds as though you have people all over the place. If you would, describe  in more concrete terms what your distribution is and what are the dynamics of that distribution, that would be great.

Martin: We have offices all over. For example, in Uruguay, we have an office in Montevideo. In Colombia, we have a presence in  Bogotá. In Mexico, we have an office in Monterrey and a couple of other places. Then in Argentina, we have several different locations, like Buenos Aires, La Plata, Rosario, and so on.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Outsourcing: Martin Migoya, CEO Of Globant
1 2 3 4 5 6 7