The infrastructure to support outsourcing to Chile is solid although concentrated mainly in the industrial areas. Depending on what your outsourcing plans are, you may want to visit the area or do a video interview over skype to get a sense of connectivity.
Flying to Chile and getting to a vendor can take time take but is much easier to deal with than travelling to China or India. Working in Chile is not be extremely complex, challenging, or dangerous. Most vendors operate from some of the country’s most industrially advanced areas with decent standards of living and acceptable infrastructure.
Advantages of Chile
Chile is known to be moderate in their rates as opposed to Argentina and Brazil who are known to be high. The rates no matter if high or moderate are generally great when one takes into consideration what the package entails and the turnover rates are also very good.
Technical capabilities in Chile are generally above average. Technical workers generally have a good knowledge of current technologies. There is no shortage of resources such as Java / .NET / C/C++. Legacy technology skills and enterprise applications skills are less common.
One of the most significant advantages of Latin America is little to no time difference. There are similar holiday structures and bridgeable language differences all make a significant difference.
Language Issues
Language and cultural differences can create some challenges when outsourcing to Chile. English is not spoken as well as one would expect so language barriers may be something to prepare for. Written English seems to be better across the board.
Skill availability for high tech occupations depends on Countries and Cities in Latin America. In general it could be characterized as medium to low. Generally one could build a small team of Java or .NET developers in a somewhat reasonable timeframe. But size of the talent pool is microscopic when compared with India and China. The quality of the pool helps to some degree make up for its size, but only to some degree. When searching for a run of the mill skillset the time frame would be quicker than searching for a more specific skill may take time. Legacy technology skills and enterprise applications skills are even less common.
