Brazil¦s time zone creates a number of distinct advantages for the US market. First, since more of the working day overlaps between the US and Brazil, real-time collaboration becomes much easier than it is between, for example, workers in the US and India - which lies 10.5 time zones east of the US East Coast. Ad-hoc collaboration, consultation, and emergency response are all much easier when onshore and offshore teams have similar natural schedules.

Nightshift staffing, as Indian firms must do to service US clients in real time, is only a partial solution, as nightshifts not only increase costs, but also are unattractive to most workers.

Executives travelling between the US and Brazil also experience little or no jet lag, and while this seems a minor point relative to the other factors involved in an outsourcing project, we know from experience that this point alone can be enough to make or break a business deal.