The only factors that determine efficiency of offshore development are the quality and costs of engineers. Most of the time, offshore companies are located in another part of the world. For example, a company in Poland can be an offshore company to one in the US. One in Germany would be an offshore company one in Mexico. On the other side, nearshore software development is the polar opposite, paying more attention to a much closer region. There are times when the difference in time between the two firms involved is greater than usual, but as long as the vendor is close enough to the employer, it’s considered nearshoring.