When doing business in Cairo, one of the big mistakes would be trying to transform Cairo into a European look alike. One would lose so much in the process, because Cairo and the Egyptians have so much to offer.

If one wants to get the full potential out of working with distributed teams in Europe and Cairo, it is essential to have a company culture that enables cooperation; the way to achieve that is to dive deep into the vast pool of resources. However, remember to hire people, not just resources, and ensure you have the right environment and the (2 Big C’s)!

When it comes to working Nearshore/Offshore, Culture, and Communication – the (2 Big C’s) – are vital aspects of the process. In Egypt, particularly in Cairo, cultural readiness is already in place compared to other destinations.

However, it is hard to find a vendor that has taken the initiative and invested massively into building a company with the culture, being the core of it, and offering a future invaluable cross-cultural corporation.  

CrossWorkers have managed to create a company culture through ongoing training and education based on the past +13 years of experience – aiming both at business understanding and geographical cultural understanding. And Scandinavian ownership and management have been instrumental in this process.

The Scandinavian Management culture has been embedded into management on all levels and has successfully created a work culture focused on a constant pursuit of efficiency without missing out on the most indispensable ingredient in all organizations – the people.

 The Scandinavian influence is reflected through transparent processes and routines, and the other (Big C) – Communication, a pillar in the day-to-day efficiency of any customer working with distributed teams. At CrossWorkers, we offer a combination of efficient understanding systems, training, and real-time access to communication tools and equipment.

Cultural understanding also means fully comprehending the basic conditions of a thriving business environment on the client side, and since 2018, GDPR has been an incorporated part of the European market. However, GDPR has not yet fully integrated into the Egyptian IT community. And for European companies, it is an absolute need to secure and support the GDPR agreement; but also ensure the actual implementation and understanding right down to the youngest developer. Because at end of the day, the responsibility always falls back on the customer with the risk of catastrophic consequences.

For an organization with European background, GDPR is already an incorporated routine with a constant focus on training, monitoring, and ensuring everybody stays updated.

Ongoing training and knowledge sharing have always been the core of CrossWorkers, whether European experts share cultural insights, Egyptian IT gurus give insights into new technologies and methods, or two colleagues help guide each other to finding the best solution for a customer in the fastest way. It’s a type of culture that needs to be enabled, supported, and maintained in a structured way. It’s a sharing culture where tools are available for both employees in Cairo, as well as, customers in Europe.

The professionalism of a European company’s staffing should go hand in hand with keeping up the values of its employees. When selecting a vendor, remember to ensure aligned values. Good office environment, hardware, work-life balance, and the combined benefits have to match not only the need to be attractive but also the need to correspond with customer values based in a European context, which resembles the DNA of CrossWorkers.

So, all in all, CrossWorkers might not be a one-to-one Scandinavia in the middle of Cairo, but we believe we are pretty close. And in the current financial status and societal problems we face in Europe, the Egyptian solution emerges as the obvious and most convenient one. Read more here to understand why!