Main benefits of nearshoring in Latin America for medium-sized companies

Build the capacity you need to realize your ambitions

Midsize companies are finding that their ability to execute no longer keeps pace with their ambitions, and that gap continues to widen.

Faced with increasing pressure to reduce costs, a shortage of talent, and the need to accelerate transformation initiatives, more midsize organizations are turning to nearshoring in Latin America to improve performance, modernize their operations faster, and build more scalable operating models.

During the webinar The Power of Nearshore Outsourcing for the Midmarket, hosted by Grant Thornton | Auxis, more than 700 business leaders signed up to understand why nearshoring adoption continues to accelerate among midsize companies. According to Grant Thornton's CFO Survey Q2 2026, 44% of these organizations already operate or evaluate nearshoring solutions.

"For organizations looking for outsourcing, cost reduction is no longer a differential and has become the basics. Nearshoring has gained traction among midsize companies because it delivers value beyond cost reduction, combining labor savings of 30% to 50%, closer collaboration, greater alignment, access to highly skilled talent, and the agility organizations need to accelerate modernization and growth," says Keith Sayewitz, Partner at Grant Thornton | Auxis para Business and Finance Transformation & BPO.

Cost, talent, and AI pressures converge

The current challenging economic environment has increased pressure on operational and administrative functions, including Finance, Technology, Human Resources and customer service.

According to Grant Thornton's CFO Survey Q2 2026:

• With optimism about the U.S. economy reaching a five-year low, the focus on cost reduction has increased. Currently, 87% of finance leaders are promoting some type of expense cut, compared to 72% in the previous quarter.
• Only 48% of organizations demonstrate confidence in their ability to meet labor needs.
• 67% are expanding investments in technology and digital transformation.
• 42% expect growth in M&A activity in their organizations. However, integration challenges (53%), talent and leadership gaps (29%) and overestimated synergies (29%) remain relevant obstacles to value creation among companies involved in M&A transactions.

Taken together, these trends highlight a growing disconnect between companies' strategic priorities and their ability to turn those priorities into concrete results.

In the midsize business segment, these pressures are even more intense. While large organizations often have the resources to develop specialized capabilities and internal centers of excellence, midsize companies need to achieve similar growth objectives by operating with leaner teams and tighter budgets.

Pressure for costs, transformation and talent are among concerns

Question: What are the biggest operational challenges your organization is currently trying to solve?

“The priorities are clear: reduce costs, modernize operations and accelerate AI,” said Jose Alvarez, Grant Thornton | Auxis Partner for IT Modernization and ITO. “In the midmarket, the challenge is accomplishing all three with lean teams. Nearshoring gives organizations the operational capacity and expertise to achieve these targets while keeping internal teams focused on strategic work.”

Latin America consolidates itself as a strategic hub of capabilities

Latin America’s strengths align closely with the criteria organizations now use when selecting outsourcing locations, which include the ability to support complex work (96%), skilled talent availability (93%), cultural fit (67%) and time zone alignment (61%), according to Grant Thornton’s Q1 2026 CFO survey.

39% of participants evaluate or operate in Latin America

Question: Which option best describes the current stage of your nearshoring journey in Latin America?

These factors offer key advantages as organizations seek to outsource activities that require greater analytical skills, decision-making, real-time collaboration, and expert execution. This includes processes such as customer service, end-to-end financial operations, AI and cybersecurity initiatives in IT, level 2 HR support, healthcare revenue cycle management, among others.

"What we are seeing is that organizations, including large companies, often struggle to execute more complex processes in traditional offshore models," says Keith Sayewitz. "This is not due to a lack of talent in Asia. The main challenge is in collaboration. As work becomes more complex and transformation-driven, companies increasingly want professionals working in similar time zones and functioning as an integrated extension of their teams."

According to Sayewitz, this reality is driving the adoption of hybrid delivery models, in which more complex activities are performed by nearshore teams, while high-volume transactional processes remain in operations in Asia to maximize efficiency gains and cost reduction.

According to a report by SSON and Grant Thornton | Sixty-five percent of organizations evaluating operations in Latin America seek to complement existing structures in Asia or Europe, either to diversify risks or to support the execution of more complex processes.

Funding AI through nearshoring

Increasingly, organizations see the benefits of nearshoring as an accelerator of modernization. Against a backdrop of increasing pressure to reduce operating costs while moving forward with artificial intelligence initiatives, efficiency and transformation are no longer competing priorities.

Midsize companies often lack the budget, technological expertise, or governance structures necessary to implement AI programs quickly and effectively. Therefore, during the webinar, the experts advocated that middle market leaders stop treating outsourcing and AI as independent initiatives and start integrating them into a single business case.

AI outsourcing can reduce costs and transformation risks
Question: Which statement best reflects your organization's approach to transformation?

In the Operate to Transform model, the savings generated by labor optimization and the efficiency gains of outsourcing help fund AI initiatives without the need for new capital investments. At the same time, technology is embedded into operations in a way that aligns with measurable business outcomes.

"Nearshoring makes the Operate to Transform approach even more powerful," says Jose Alvarez. "With more than 90% of AI initiatives falling short of expectations, nearshoring offers the specialized talent, governance, close collaboration, and accountability needed to reduce execution risks."

How to "Operate to Transform" through nearshoring

Midsize companies require a different outsourcing model
For many midsize companies, the discussion is no longer whether to outsource, but rather how to build an operating model that can sustain long-term growth.

The middle market demands a different approach from the one traditionally developed for large corporations. Organizations need the flexibility to start projects gradually, adapt to priority changes, customize solutions to their specific needs, and combine operational execution capabilities with technology expertise, strategic consulting, and close business collaboration.

Fabiana Corredor, Vice-Presidente de Modernização de Negócios e Nearshoring da Grant Thornton | Auxis."Midsize companies don't need to operate like a Fortune 500 company to compete with one," says Fabiana Corredor, Vice President of Business Modernization and Nearshoring at Grant Thornton | Auxis. "Success is not in developing all capabilities internally. It's about focusing internal resources on the competencies that truly differentiate the business, while leveraging specialized expertise to accelerate execution, increase efficiency, and generate more value."

Other topics covered during the webinar on nearshoring for midsize businesses included:

• Availability of talent and what processes to consider in the areas of Finance, IT, HR, customer service, and other business operations.
• Advantages and challenges of the main nearshoring markets, including Costa Rica, Colombia and Mexico.
• Build or hire: own operation (captive) versus outsourcing.
• Key learnings for medium-sized companies.

To understand in depth how nearshoring in Latin America can drive the growth and transformation of midsize companies, watch the webinar.