Why I started New Technology Teams

I usually blog about developments in the labour market from the standpoint of my role as an IT headhunter. But I’m writing this blog as an entrepreneur. This is because I’ve started a new label: New Technology Teams. The following gives me the opportunity to explain what drives me as an entrepreneur to put my time, energy and focus into this new proposition.

In 2019, I started my company: New Technology Search. With New Technology Search, I search and place experience professionals at parties that want to innovate and grow with new IT. What I have learned over the past four years is that my clients’ ambitions cannot be achieved simply by hiring permanent staff. The underlying reason is that the supply in the Dutch labour market is too small and staff turnover in the sector is too high – up to 25 per cent a year in some technologies. For this reason, companies needing many people for their IT projects and programmes are always looking for additional or alternative solutions to their capacity problems.

Now that my clients’ demand has grown broader, I want to respond to this as an entrepreneur. That response is New Technology Teams.

A supplemental service: nearshore teams

I am continuing with recruitment for key positions in new IT. Filling senior, mission-critical positions is a service that is in demand and that is profitable for both myself and my clients. I am now adding a supplemental service to this – namely, providing nearshore teams to parties wishing to scale up.

As an entrepreneur, I am convinced that this is a good moment to start offering nearshore services. Why?

To start with: the world has changed. Since the corona epidemic, remote working has become quite normal. This has resulted in other ways of viewing staffing for organisations and projects. Employees no longer need to live nearby or come to the office by car or train each day. Moreover, with increasing globalisation and shifting generations in the workplace in recent years, English has become fully established as a corporate lingua franca. Many companies work in English and countless projects use English as their working language.

The market has also changed. Rates and salaries in the Dutch IT sector have soared sky-high in recent years. Especially for specific business platforms and technologies. Naturally, this is a question of supply and demand, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to justify. Certainly when you consider that the same quality is available at half the price at a reasonable distance. In concrete terms, this means that you can spend more money on innovation or increase your EBITDA considerably.

Sourcing partner for permanent, interim and nearshore

 So the conditions are right for launching nearshore as part of my services. Nearshore can offer organisations considerable advantages. In addition to extra capacity and cost advantages, entrepreneurs gain a huge degree of flexibility and risk control by being able to scale up or down quickly. You can’t do this with permanent staff.

What’s more, as an entrepreneur, I can be distinctive with the nearshore solutions I offer. Nearshore is widespread in the market for software development, but is rarely offered around business platforms where teams consist of project managers, business analysts, solution architects and developers. And this is precisely where my knowledge, skills and network lie.

Launching nearshore services brings me one step closer to the ambition I had at the start of my company: to be the strategic sourcing partner for entrepreneurs and organisations with ambitions for growth.