Building a Bridge Over the Ocean: A Deep Dive into Polish-American Cooperation with Team Alerts Allan Wilson

Can effective intercontinental cooperation occur on a daily basis? How to convince the client that distance is not a problem? There are many misconceptions and blockers preventing companies from the United States from engaging in cooperation with a Polish company. These may include difficulties related to time difference, language barrier, tax issues, etc.

On the other hand, the tempting aspects are prices and the availability of high-quality experts. Poland is one of the fastest-growing economies in Central and Eastern Europe. It has approximately 80,000 tech graduates every year, making it an option for outsourcing software development, and more and more companies from the United States are looking for suppliers from our country.

In conversation with our guest, Allan Wilson, we explored the advantages and disadvantages of Polish-American cooperation, alongside Allan’s experience with Boldare.

Allan Wilson is an owner and founder of TeamAlert. Our cooperation began in 2019.

TeamAlert is a workplace panic button system. The majority of their customers are municipalities, mental health, education, and religious organizations. When employees feel alone during a threatening situation, TeamAlert provides a one-button method to let multiple resources know that they need help.

Iza: Allan, before we start, can you tell us what were your needs, and what prompted you to look for a technological partner at all?

Allan: Our main internal software developer was leaving, and I decided I wanted to try outsourcing our software development as opposed to doing it in-house. I realized I was stuck with the thought process and if something happened to that main engineer then we were without a good backup. I needed more options and redundancy in case they were not available.

Iza: What was the reason you turned your eyes towards Poland at all?

Allan: In doing my research, I realized that many US-based software development companies outsourced much of the work to external partners. As an entrepreneur with a programming background, I wanted to see if it was better to work directly with the companies they outsource to as opposed to them being the middleman. I went to a review platform, clutch.co, and searched for the top companies in the medium size range. I picked one choice from Europe and one from India along with one local company and two other US-based companies. I knew from past reading that Poland had some great technical schools and had some great developers so that made me feel comfortable picking a company in that region.

Iza: Was there anything you were afraid of?

Allan: My initial concerns were language barriers, time zone differences, payment options (currency), and legal protections. It ultimately boiled down to deciding if I could trust a vendor located so far away and from a different culture.

Iza: So what was the ultimate argument for you to decide to cooperate with a company from Poland? Why Boldare?

Allan: It ended up being customer service and a hard work ethic. Boldare ended up coming in second only because I was initially too scared to pick a vendor so far away. After the first vendor started rocky and Boldare’s continued check-in and genuine care about our project when the first company stumbled, Boldare was able to step in and pick up the project and has been running with it ever since.

Iza: If one of your friends asked you about cooperation with a Polish company, what would you say, where should they start?

Allan: I would say that I have had better experiences working with Boldare than I have with a few software developers that I have worked with in the United States. I would recommend they use a review site like I did to get some honest feedback, but I would definitely recommend Poland as a great option.

Iza: What should they pay particular attention to? Can you give us a few tips?

Allan: I think the biggest thing is to find out upfront about how communication will work and times that will overlap to meet. Because time zones play a big factor in communication with a vendor in Poland, I would spend as much time as you can finding ways to timeshift conversations such as using tools like Slack. This was one of the biggest things for us to get used to.

Iza: Thank you very much for the conversation and your open statements.

I’m very glad that you assess our cooperation so positively and that, thanks to this conversation, we were able to dispel a few misconceptions that could have been potential blockers before seeking a provider in Poland.

In our portfolio, we currently have several clients from the United States, including Panoram Digital, DTIQ, and Nbox.

At Boldare, we highly value our cooperation with them and ensure that communication is efficient above all, as well as occasionally meeting face to face, like today with Allan, whom we invited to our headquarters in Gliwice for a week of joint work and integration.

Interested? Schedule a non-binding consultation with our expert to explore cooperation possibilities with Boldare.