Reversing Trend, Company Moves Jobs From Asia to Bridgewater

After years of following the standard business practice of seeking the lowest cost employees overseas, Bridgewater-based software development company Mantra Information Services is reversing course.

In October, the company ended a four-year experiment by closing offices in India and is seeking to replace the workers with local talent—"sending jobs onshore," if you will.

The six-year old company made the move after concluding there's more to the costs of labor than wages.

“Everyone tends to think that the offshore software development is cheaper because they only compare labor costs,” Mantra CTO Maulik Shah said. “But when you add costs associated with the management overheads and productivity differences, cost savings vanish or become negligible.”   

The company reported finding rising employment costs, employee retention issues, time zone differences, and low productivity levels as the main reasons behind the company's decision to move the jobs back to Stateside.

“The US market is extremely competitive and every business wants quickest time to market with top notch quality which is only possible when you have project teams with up-to-date technical skills and in similar time zones with the ability to have face-to-face meetings when required,” Shah said.

By "reshoring," Mantra has been able to strengthen its ability to respond quickly to customers' demands, eliminate inefficiencies and most importantly bring jobs back to the USA and do their part to reduce the New Jersey unemployment with high-paying jobs.

Mantra started about six years, focusing on custom web and mobile applications and software, according to Marketing Manager Asher Weinstein.

"Most of our work is enterprise applications for companies but we have also been working on our own products such as a new job portal called Employyd, a new photo sharing app, a web-based construction management program and a social portal for houses of worship," Weinstein said.

To help with these projects, the company is looking to fill seven positions in sales and development at its headquarters on Routes 202/206.