Headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, Tiempo Development is a software development firm that has leveraged its neighborly status with Mexico to deliver custom development services to clients across the US. The company has established software development centers in the cities of Hermosillo, Monterrey, and now Guadalajara, which was inaugurated in September.

Mexico IT spoke with Steven Lopez, Business Development Manager at Tiempo Development, to find out why Mexico is the right choice on the nearshore for his company’s three main operations.

Mexico IT: Tiempo Development has development centers established in Hermosillo, Guadalajara and Moneterry, but what were the attractive elements of each city that resulted in the decision to move there?

Lopez: Our CEO and founder at the time had a CRM integration company that was outsourcing to India. As they moved away from a waterfall methodology to an agile one, he found that India wasn’t really working, so decided to drive to Mexico where he found some engineers, before selling the company and focusing full time on Tiempo Development.

For Hermosillo, which was our first and largest location, it was primarily the proximity to Arizona that was the attraction, from there we expanded to Monterrey and the Silicon Valley of Mexico, Guadalajara. The talent pool in Guadalajara was the reason we opened our new flagship facility there, which is likely to be our biggest center by the end of the year. The access to the university in Monterrey and to be part of the ecosystem there really helped to drive that decision.

Mexico IT: Does each center perform specific development tasks, or are they all capable of working on any projects?

Lopez: When we first launched the centers, they were each focused on different things. For instance, we tried to perform .NET development in Hermosillo and Java in Monterrey, but our customers demanded more from being in the same time zone, which drove the decision to make all centers equal in their capabilities.

Mexico IT: How does the company source its talent in the three locations, and what skills are you looking for?

Lopez: Each location has a team of on-staff, full-time recruiters that are always actively recruiting for positions based on our sale pipeline. Our human capital team also puts on recruiting events, meetups and campus parties at each location to try and attract people to come and take a look, making it easier for our recruiters to get phone calls answered when we chase them up.

The company is always on the hunt for talented, English-speaking resources that can meet the complexity of our clients’ needs. We have junior potions up to senior-level architects and everything in between, with expertise in .NET, open source platforms like LAMP Stack and MEAN Stack, and also Java. Alongside that, we deal with mobile platforms: native iOS and native Android.

Mexico IT: This year, Tiempo added healthcare and financial services to its roster of software initiatives. How much business do you expect to generate within these two markets compared to your mobile apps or data analytics?

Lopez: We’re agnostic when it comes to industries, so we are always looking at where our expertise lie in order to continue growing into different verticals. The company intends to grow its focus in these two areas, growing further into enterprise Software as a service (SaaS) companies this year. We help companies build enterprise software solutions for either internal use, or for independent software vendor (ISV) reseller software which goes out to the world.

A lot of people in the healthcare industry are moving to the cloud and they need to have security in their solutions. There aren’t any firms that can create software that is secure and HIPAA compliant in the healthcare industry, which is something we have a lot of experience with, so we decided to focus in on that as one of the first industry-specific initiatives we took on. Healthcare is booming in the US and everybody wants their information instantly.

Mexico IT: What kind of solutions have you developed or are working on now in these two industries?

Lopez: We developed solutions for one of the top insurance carriers to help their people sell their products out in the field. We also helped healthcare companies build software that enables quicker responses from doctor to patient. Also software that helps people get treatments faster and get their medicine faster.

Mexico IT: How does Tiempo mix its US work sensibilities with the Mexican culture within the three workplaces?

Lopez: We match our US work culture in order to match up well with our clients. We have brought the software development mindset and operations to our Mexico locations. All of our centers have committees, for things like sports or coffee, they also have recreation rooms with gaming devices, foosball tables and ping pong tables. Even though they feel like US places to work, the Mexican work ethic and comradery plays a lot into the atmosphere in the centers; they really like to be part of a team, which comes through in the quality of their work.

Mexico IT: How should other development firms be looking at Mexico when considering nearshore locations to set up shop?

Lopez: Mexico is quickly becoming a viable option because of its proximity, its cultural similarities, and the fact that the talent is there. When we tell customers about Mexico we place emphasis on the value of proximity and how it helps productivity, it really opens people eyes. Some of our customers love dealing with Mexico as an option because outsourcing across the globe is no longer preferred. It’s not uncommon for customers to visit our sites of for our people to visit our customers, which just cannot be achieved easily with offshoring.