How to Equip your Remote Team with Carlos Escutia of Growrk
Hello, everybody. This is George from Shore Stories. Let's imagine you just hired a developer in Cali, Colombia or Corrientes, Argentina. What laptop are they gonna use? Sure.
Georges:They could use their own laptop, but you know you're gonna go down a messy route. Documents, information that belongs to your company. They're gonna have to do stuff on behalf of your company using the personal laptop, all this from, you know, 3, 4000 miles away.
Georges:It's not a good
Georges:look. So this is where GrowWork comes in. GrowWork is a remote IT management company, which does not sound very sexy, but it does come in pretty handy if you need to get a laptop or, you know, other pieces of IT to your staff in far flung parts of the world? What happens if your developer in Montevideo spills mate all over his MacBook Air and you need to ship a new feature tomorrow? How are you gonna figure that one out?
Georges:Anyway, I got the opportunity to sit down with Carlos Escutia, the CEO of GrowWork, to talk a little bit about where he thinks remote work and distributed teams are going as well as how to build a company that has presence in a 150 countries in some of the most far flung places in the world. Anyway, hope you enjoy. Now on to the podcast.
Georges:Well, thank you very much, Carlos, for coming. Hope you're doing great. Yeah. Thanks. I think the first thing we should cover for people who do not know you and who do not know what Growlr is.
Georges:Just a quick introduction to what what you guys do.
Carlos Escutia:Thank you. Yeah. So, I'm Carlos Escucha. I'm the founder and CEO of GoWork. It's the first IT, infrastructure management platform.
Carlos Escutia:So we're globally distributed teams. We provide a number of services, such as IT equipment, procure and asset management throughout the life cycle of those devices in a 150 countries through a SaaS platform. And so we help organizations that are either hybrid or fully remote, better manage that IT infrastructure at the touch of a button. That's in a nutshell what we
Georges:do. That's amazing. So a hun a 150 countries, that is is that not let's mostly, like, 80% of all the countries that exist now?
Carlos Escutia:That's correct. Yeah. That's correct. Yeah. The world of work is it has really changed.
Carlos Escutia:It has been the last few years accelerated by the pandemic. And so, yeah, we, we provide services in more remote locations. Just this year, I can think of a couple and we delivered equipment in the Manta gas can, which is, like, you know, think. But, yeah, it's, it's increasingly that's what it is. It's a sort of a globalized, world where access to opportunity is now global, and you have the right skill set and access to Internet.
Carlos Escutia:You don't have to go anywhere. You can you can stay put.
Georges:So basically, if I'm a client of yours and I hire a designer in Argentina, a developer in Morocco, and I don't know, a PM in Turkey or something like that, I can just say, give them all MacBooks. And on the back end, you guys will go and give them these MacBooks and make sure that it's compliant and all that.
Carlos Escutia:That's correct. So it's it's we'll procure to deliver the exact specs that your the user needs, and uses for any specific wall, which may vary whether you're owning a year or whether you're a designer. But most importantly, we ensure that those devices are properly imaged, with the security software that your organization requires or involved with the mobile device management solution that either you have and you build on, you can also procure that in global. And so we can have access and control every bit of data, information, and they have some, thousand points in in in harmony.
Georges:Gotcha. Gotcha. Very cool. So you, obviously, because of and your company is also remote. Right?
Georges:Like, your team is is effectively how many people are in your company now?
Carlos Escutia:Yeah. We're a, remote first organization. We're close to 100 people now and work in, 20 20 countries.
Georges:Wow. Okay. That that's way more than the last time, like, a few years ago when we chatted. Incredible.
Carlos Escutia:For sure.
Georges:And so you actually must have this really interesting experience. You've had a ring sign seat to both, your own company growing to a 100 people remote, but also you essentially are running the logistics for all your remote clients, at least when it comes to, I management and like, whatever work workstations. Is that the right the right term for it? I'd love to hear from you, like, what's what's been working? Like, what works well?
Georges:Like, what what kind of, I guess, remote work setups you see that work work well for you? Maybe stuff that's not the the pitfalls and things like that.
Carlos Escutia:Yeah. Well, it it varies a lot by the role, that you need to procure the equipment for. Right? And, there's a mix of things. There are companies that employ contractors, and they have a bring your own device, policy where there's certain software requirements that who can opt them to work out.
Carlos Escutia:So what those devices are, at least the information that is being used to work in those devices is properly managed. But increasingly, the type of world that requires a specific device that is company owned because of the sensitivity of the data or or the risk of those devices. You have to procure company owned equipment. Right? So we're talking about high end specs.
Carlos Escutia:It could be Apple, could be Windows, devices that have a lot of power to to help with engineers, designers, people work better. Right? And so those are the the the the the main requirements, but they also the the other thing too is, informally, one of the biggest challenges organizations that hire distributedly is that when everybody was working in an office in a centralized location, that part was an afterthought. Right? The the the part of IT where we just arrived in the first day and your desk is properly set up with the devices that we're gonna be using, the software that that your musician uses.
Carlos Escutia:Whenever there's an issue, there's an IT team on-site or there was an IT team on-site to troubleshoot it for you, right, and minimize that downtime. So what happens when an organization starts scaling, distributing, is that that infrastructure does not longer exist. Right? And so the support that the experience that you would want to provide to those team members does not exist. And so that's exactly what we have been building.
Carlos Escutia:How do you ensure that from day 1, those new employees, those new hires have an excellent, onboarding experience, a frictionless onboarding experience so they can get the ground running. Right? And then the second part to that is how do you minimize the downtime that those, the hires might experience when they come across an issue with their their workstations. Right? So that's exactly what we focus on.
Carlos Escutia:We focus on minimizing that downtime by quickly troubleshooting, providing up this, support 247. But, if it's software related situation or hardware related situation, being able to fix it properly in the end, either help the employee walk through whatever issue they're experiencing or swap a device, right, pretty fast. So that that downtime has been a milestone, but that number continue to be productive and minimize costs incurred to the organization. So that's what we focus on. Those are the main pain points that we help organizations tackle.
Georges:Got you. And so is there an example of, is there is there a company like a client of yours or something that does a really good job of this, that does this very well?
Carlos Escutia:Yeah. We we, help companies span the new markets from 0 to over close to a 1000 employees. Right? And so for them, basically, they didn't know how to do this. They came to us and, hey.
Carlos Escutia:We need, specifically India, which is one of the biggest markets that, we have. And, basically, we have to navigate it. Right? And so for us, we'll just have an infrastructure in place, the knowledge of, how to navigate the focuses of the logistics in that country, the type of equipment that works best in certain areas. So having, for example, one of the big deals, big issues, just to give an example, in India, when there's certain areas, electricity is not, reliable.
Carlos Escutia:Right? And so if if if it goes out, now you have a bunch of team members that can't do any work. Right? Because you don't have access to it to to power source. So we obviously are able to procure this, yeah, the devices that are external batteries, right, to enable those team members to continue working throughout any incrementing electricity issues that they might be experiencing.
Carlos Escutia:That's that's very particular to you. Wind. Yeah. But this particular customer that we helped scale to, close to a 1000 employees, they navigated it all through us. Right?
Georges:Wow. Okay. So basically, you will go and send these people a battery during the like, to manage the the power outage?
Carlos Escutia:Yes. It sends an external battery for sure.
Georges:Got it. Wow. Yeah. I see. So the idea really is to make it as seamless as possible at the as as as far as as far as, like, the client is concerned and as far as the their employees are concerned.
Carlos Escutia:Do you have any oh, yeah.
Georges:Go ahead.
Carlos Escutia:Sorry. Just to expand on that and having a good understanding on the requirements in that particular geography because they vary from country to country.
Georges:Yeah. I guess, I I am curious about how the the number of countries you're in is crave like, it's huge. How do you logistically do all this? Is it partnerships with local providers? Understanding like, work working working at for each country with some local provider, do you do direct work at any point?
Georges:Like, how does that work?
Carlos Escutia:We we have a mix of Okay. We have, internal, infrastructure as well as external to, third party, partners, yeah, that specialize in providing certain services in the home countries. Right? Yeah. Really, the focus of Corework is on building the software required to connect to existing infrastructure in each, of those regions so that it can be standardized and provide a seamless experience to our customers worldwide.
Carlos Escutia:Right? So, really, the the heavy lifting, the work that we do on a daily basis here is how do we provide a standardized SLA of that skill? Right? And it's very difficult as you might ex, you know, expect. How do you standardize this across regions where the way things are done can change drastically, right, from an IT model?
Carlos Escutia:What are we focused on? We're focusing on building new software and building really intelligence around that because there's a layer of AI that we're leveraging on top of all that data to ensure that we can predict certain trends and, get ahead of certain potential disruptions to standardize that level of service at that scale.
Georges:Got you. Got you. Yeah. I I can imagine the logistics are are are challenging at at a at the scale of a 1000 a 1000 employees. I'm I'm also very I'm very interested in we were talking a little bit before I started recording on on remote work in general.
Georges:Obviously, you're a big believer in remote work. It's your company is based around that that concept, and you your company is also completely remote. I I'm I'm curious as when you look at remote work, are there trends, for a com a a company that's interested and is starting to move into remote work for, various reasons. Let's say cost cutting and and and and wanting to open open, like, open it up and and build teams in Latin America, for instance. Do you see certain types of roles go first?
Georges:What kind of roles do you see in that that that are successful there? Like, and and and are there examples that you see of of companies that are are doing this?
Carlos Escutia:Yeah. Oh, for sure. Look. The reality is that distributed work, remote work is seriously, like, with despite everything that you hear about companies pushing to return to the office and all that, there's a world where, you know, we're not mutually exclusive. You can have an office.
Carlos Escutia:You can still have an office, and you can still have a part of your, you know, workforce, work remotely or have that more flexibility. As a matter of fact, it's no longer a, option. Right? If you really want to track and retain, top talent, that's something that you just have to talk about. Right?
Carlos Escutia:And that's the realization that organizations, have come around now. Right? So the trends, it's here to stay, or it will continue to grow in the coming years, enabled by organizations like us. Right? The the system of companies that exist and that are being developed to support work at that scale, distributedly, because it's it's been developed as we speak.
Carlos Escutia:We're we're part of that ecosystem. Right? But the second part to all of it just makes sense, regardless of your position on what they're, oh, now, because the culture and it's important face to face work and technical arguments that you hear
Georges:a lot
Carlos Escutia:of the, people are obsessed with, working in an office. It just doesn't make sense when you really think from, first principle right there. Today, you're all connected online. You are working remotely even if you're on the same building. You're you're you're you're on calls all day with, team members in all their rooms or in other floors or in other parts of the country of the world.
Carlos Escutia:Right? And so that's just that's just they are already happening. But most importantly, there's a big driver, which is cost. Right? How how can you drive cost down in in one of the big levers that you can pull is embracing that remote flexibility because that will enable you to obviously reduce your real estate footprint and the cost along that.
Carlos Escutia:Right? But most importantly, you will have access to way wider tool of talent that, otherwise, you wouldn't have access to. And why is that important? Because it will enable you to find the right talent faster in at a fraction of the cost that you probably would incur if you were to focus on hiring one of those big markets in the area, in New York, in Europe. Right?
Carlos Escutia:With, with, with embracing remote work, distributed work. Now you have access to talent that is really hungry. That's, that's that's one of the other kind of advantages of working and building your organization with the Strepid team. You are giving opportunities to very talented folks. Right?
Carlos Escutia:And one that you're doing them a favor. They're very talented from a technical standpoint. And, they're hungry. They're hungry to grow. They're hungry to learn, and they are grateful to work for you.
Carlos Escutia:You don't get any of the entitlement that you normally find or come across in in place like the Bay Area. Right? And and I have some experience with that problem built up user organization, there. Right? And so, you notice this, differences, and to me, it's just a no brainer.
Carlos Escutia:I think those are really that that, the the reasons why, this trend has continued to scale. So what are the roles that are are growing? Obviously, technical ones, engineering, developers, designers, pretty pretty fast growing in places like India, Latin America, the Middle East, which is a surprising region for us. And we just seen an explosion in the Middle East. There's a lot of problems walking in Egypt.
Georges:Really? Which which country specifically out of curiosity? Egypt.
Carlos Escutia:Egypt is Egypt is, is a very good tool for technical talent. It's, one of the the insights. Right? But you also get the development of sales teams as well in lower cost regions of the world where language skill is English is is very good, the command of it. And so we see basically the trend on those hiring those those positions, to marry them.
Georges:Yeah. You were saying that you you're helping a a client with SDRs. My initial thought would have been that SDRs are not the role that you send non English speaking country, but in your experience, it's been fine.
Carlos Escutia:Yeah. Yeah. Because there are there are places in Latin America, specifically where you are in a similar time zone. There's a US based companies. So The command of the English language is great.
Carlos Escutia:Those are, like, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, even Brazil. We we have to rank both Argentina. It's one of the most, I would say, proficient in terms of benchmarking and educated and talented and well for ourselves. Yeah. We see all this trend.
Carlos Escutia:We see obviously, customers that are building ML teams in certain countries, to basically and this is just another reality of distributed work. Right? Yes. There will be a shift from my cost to low cost if it's possible, and that's happening already as we speak. And so what that means is that people in higher cost, centers will have to figure out a way to be more competitive so that, you can level up and be at that level.
Carlos Escutia:Having that organizations having that optionality to build those things and all the cost regions. Right?
Georges:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Absolutely.
Georges:I I I it it's it is interesting that companies, like, the people in higher cost of living areas do need to think a little bit about what their what the value add is or choose companies. There are companies now that have become, like, pure return to office and basically leverage to do those. Although, I do hear a lot of stories about people going back to an office and then doing Zoom calls all day long in in our
Carlos Escutia:Yeah. That that doesn't make sense.
Georges:A good goal.
Carlos Escutia:It it then it doesn't make sense. And a lot of those companies eventually have to memorize an issue in the bush. But, but look, it's now you can you can get into those fights and arguments into why one thing is better than the other, but look, I think it's just a natural momentum that's here to stay, and you'll see those shifts happen.
Georges:Yeah. My my I've seen a lot of these little fights on Twitter and stuff and and whatnot. Yeah. My my point of view on that is that you could choose either one. But if you are gonna choose 1, like, you really need to lead into the advantages of each one.
Georges:Right? So if you're gonna go back to the office, really, you you you first of all, doing, like, a 100% back to the office and not some hybrid thing seems ridiculous. Like, I don't know why you need to physically be in the office for every unless you don't trust your employees or something like that. But but, like, if you're gonna do back to the office, you need to have a lot of, like, in person, whatever it is, the hallway conversations that people have to talk, say, that's for innovation or whatever. And you have to do a lot of that.
Georges:And if you're gonna go remote, you you should lead into the advantages of remote, AKA, like, go to a place where the cost is substantially lower and not, like, pay somebody remotely to work. I don't know, in Jersey City, if you're a New York based company, you're not really reaping that advantage. At least that's the way that's the way I look at it. And it does seem like there's some companies who have gone back to the office, but a lot of them have not. And I think the the pressure, the financial pressure that companies are dealing with now really pushes them more and more towards towards something more and more remote.
Carlos Escutia:For sure.
Georges:Yeah. Do you The other thing too. Yep.
Carlos Escutia:The other thing the other part to that too, is that is that really a sacrifice or a trade off? The more examples or case studies or success stories that you start that you will hear in the coming years about organizations that haven't built fully remote or the big portion of their workforce working remotely will, will increase. Right? And so when you started using those examples, they're like, alright. Well, it can be done and why not?
Carlos Escutia:Why don't you those guys be us? Right? And so you have this this gradual shift in mentality and mindset, it's just happening as we speak. And so, you know, really, to me, it's just a natural consequence of moving in a digital world, and that's just how it is. You have to embrace it and allow it.
Carlos Escutia:Right?
Georges:Yeah. No. Absolutely. I think I see this too from from Gringo jobs' perspective. Like, there are a lot of our clients are at least were hesitant to remote, and they got into it.
Georges:They saw the advantages, and now it's just become part of the way the company operates. And now they're, they're just, they're just, they're
Carlos Escutia:just. Yeah. For sure. And it doesn't mean that there's real value by the way on working with your team face to face. Right?
Carlos Escutia:What I think though, is that we get a lot of weight on that, a lot more than it should. Right? Sure. You can you can meet with your team members every once in a while, every few months. Right?
Carlos Escutia:And that's as good as it's going to get. You're gonna get the same productivity. You're gonna get the same inspiration, culture building, problem solving that you're looking for. You were if you were in a, in an off-site. At least that has been our experience.
Carlos Escutia:Right?
Georges:Yeah. I saw that you guys did an event in Mexico City relatively recently. Is that true?
Carlos Escutia:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We we did a global off-site. We brought all of our team members to Mexico City.
Carlos Escutia:We also, invited some of our partners, you know, as a just to to to hang out really and tell us a little bit more about, you know, the working on. And for for us, what the objective was to for the team exactly to meet face to face and work on the hardest challenges that we are experiencing as an organization as we scale with a bucket to provide a better solution to our customers. Right? And so there's big value for that. Right?
Carlos Escutia:But but, again, we don't have to see each other every day. Right? A few minutes is enough. And and and I think I think to be honest with you, just the team really values a lot more at that time, right, than each other. And this is something that we have been doing already every year.
Carlos Escutia:This is the the the this is this is the 3rd and the 3rd one.
Georges:But you guys meet every year, all of you together.
Carlos Escutia:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I think we are also at a point now where as we scale, probably bringing everybody to one place is gonna be a lot more harder logistically.
Carlos Escutia:At least regionally, we kinda organize, meetups with, team members in those countries that are in those areas so that they can also collaborate closely. And and, again, this is just once or twice, maybe 3 times max all year type of thing. And that's enough.
Georges:Yeah. You find that that does enough for, like, yes, team building culture bond, all that?
Carlos Escutia:A 100%.
Georges:Yeah. I would I would tend to I would tend to agree. I feel like, especially when it's not that often, like, when people don't meet that often, there is that kind of, like, excitement because you actually have worked with this person and spent many hours and you wanna like hang out in the flesh as opposed to cause I've back in the day, I've done I did a lot of like off sites for jobs that were in person where I was working every day with the same people. And then we go, I don't know, to a campsite or something. And it's, it's fine, but it's weird because it's like, I see you every day anyway.
Georges:You know what I mean? It's sort of like not the most exciting. It's weird. You know what
Carlos Escutia:I mean? Yeah. Yeah. A 100%. Yeah.
Carlos Escutia:No. No. And and and and dynamic is completely shifted and shifted when, you do those topsides and everybody is remote because, as you said it, everybody is eager to see who you really are in, you know, in real time, right, instead of virtual digital avatar here, so to speak. And and I think that's one of one of the weirdest kind of experiences that you can have as an organization, but it's fully remote. Like, you're used to working with people for years, a year, a little more than a year.
Carlos Escutia:You'd never see them in real life. And when you meet them for the first time, you're like, oh, you're taller or shorter.
Georges:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true.
Carlos Escutia:Yeah. Yeah. See that?
Georges:Yeah. The height thing is definitely because you don't know the heights off Zoom.
Carlos Escutia:Right.
Georges:Or anything. So, yeah, you do you do like it is like like weird little weird little things like that. But it's actually amazing because there are people that you know oddly well, like, compared to
Carlos Escutia:Yes. Other
Georges:like, you really do know you've spent a lot of time, and you've dealt with, like, difficult problems, and you've had to do, like, and then it's like, oh, wow. Look. You're so you're so sure or whatever it happens to. Yeah. Whatever it whatever it happens.
Georges:Whatever it happens to be. No. That have you have you know like, I guess, in your experience, I've I've talked to a lot of companies that do, like, there's 3 different kind of level, like, levels of remote that I've seen. There's, like, full remote. There's remote in a certain country, and then there's, like, a, we build a remote office in one city.
Georges:Do you have any, like, opinions on what works better? Or, like, is it depend case by case?
Carlos Escutia:It depends. It depends on the type of service organization that you are. It's not the same thing being a fully digital organization software organization than someone who actually does have a physical component, let's say, manufacturing. Right? We do, by the way, have manufacturing customers in the food industry, for example.
Carlos Escutia:Right? And so, yeah, they're they're there's a part of their team of the workforce that they can work remotely, and that's exactly what they're doing. Right? So it depends on what the type of organization that you are, the type of services or business that you want. That's really what is going to dictate whether you can embrace a fully remote structure or hybrid or a great majority of in office on location on-site company.
Carlos Escutia:Right? But, yeah, it's it's all across the board. I think the common theme is just having that idea of embracing the most flexibility. To what degree will be dictated by the type of company that you are. But but having a forum of it, you know, from what flexibility, it's it's it's critical.
Carlos Escutia:Yeah. Attracting the same problem these days.
Georges:Yeah. That makes that makes that makes sense. I'd love to hear a little bit about, like, your plans at at GrowWorks because you guys have really set yourself, obviously, a very sort of crucial element in, let's say, like, the remote work ecosystem, right, of service providers. Where do you go from there? Are you guys just going to keep on growing the sort of the IT management side of things?
Georges:Are you going to grow into other stuff? Like where do you, what are your, what are your plans?
Carlos Escutia:Yeah. Yeah. We we don't want to be a platform that does everything, right, for everybody because that the reality is that the type of problems that we have to solve in the IT space are very deep and and and and and wide. Right? And so if you start distracting yourself with HR solutions and other things that other platforms do, you end up trying to solve a lot of problems and and not being that effective.
Carlos Escutia:Why? And so, really, the demands of our customers are pretty high and the type of issues that we have challenges that we have to solve are are not small. So we're very focused on the IT space. So specifically for us, we go where we're really what we're building here is a next generation IT services management. Right?
Carlos Escutia:But it goes beyond what we do today. Today, we're, we got our stock, whether it was, IT procurement, asset management, you know, in these countries. Right? Deliveries, storage, retrievals, end of life management, and security compliance management. Right?
Carlos Escutia:I ran all that. Really for us, the next step or what we're already doing, for example, is that we're providing device management solutions, software solutions that enable our customers to stay on top of the secure risks. Yeah. While the role as you scale in a distributed architecture, that's one of those things. But there's just a lot of other services and solutions that are required in a distributor organization that do not exist either.
Carlos Escutia:Right? A lot of what you do, what you get is, in your country. Having that reach, at that scale globally, it's, it's, it's a lot of work, a lot of infrastructural needs to be built. And that's what we're focused on. I think that, there's a lot to do in that space for us.
Carlos Escutia:The next 5 year road map is dictated around enhancing in the services and solutions that we provide around 3 meet that an IT team might meet, with mainstream workforce. And there are many services that we'll be launching, on the coming months and years to support that.
Georges:Very cool. Alright. Well, I think that kind of wraps everything up. I I'd love to give the audience opportunities to reach out to you or anything. Is there any place that they should reach out?
Carlos Escutia:Yeah. No. Thank you, George, for, patience again. And, yeah, you you can reach out to me directly on LinkedIn. I'm I'm a I'm pressing door.
Carlos Escutia:We and we can also go on our site, do no work.com, and just schedule a free demo and check out platforms, see what we do, and figure out this is something that to leverage your organization.
Georges:Very cool. Alright. Well, thank you very much, Carlos, and have a good one. You have arrived at the
Georges:end of the podcast. Thanks for listening. And if you did enjoy it, please like and subscribe on whatever platform you're using, and please stay tuned for the next one. Thanks.
