It’s one of those rare ‘man bites dog’ stories. I met up the other day with Yuryi Ferber and James Harrison, co-founders of Sao Paulo-based financial services technology consultancy, BRIT Services (BRIT as in ‘Brazilian IT’, ironically). They set up BRIT last year to service the banking and finance sector (mainly front-office software implementation) in Brazil and Latin America after long careers working for other companies in the sector.
BRIT has some 40 staff in Brazil and has just set up its first ‘offshore’ development centre here in the City and aims to have four staff on board by the end of the year. The key reason for expanding R&D to the UK is as much to do with IT wage inflation in Brazil as it is with the bigger pool of talent to fish in over here. Add to this the ease of setting up a new business here in the UK - Ferber was effusive in his praise for the support they got from London & Partners and UK T&I to get up and running in very short order (the bureaucracy is a nightmare for setting up a business in Brazil!). It’s good to hear that the offshore story is not all in one direction!