Software development outsourcing isn’t a new business model, and the IT or software offshoring market size is growing steadily. Should you follow the trend and capitalize on this opportunity?
Do you want to develop a solution at a moderate cost and in a short time? Or be sure of the developers’ expertise, avoiding the hiring and training hustle? Consider outsourcing software development.
Startups, small and medium companies, and even industry giants turn to vendors at different stages of their life cycles. This way, companies reduce cost and time-to-market, drive innovation, and focus on core functions.
How can your business benefit from outsourcing? It allows you to speed up time-to-market, strengthen your team with niche expertise, focus on strategic business goals, etc.
Software development outsourcing is delegating certain tasks to an external vendor instead of using your in-house resources. Now, it is a common practice in nearly every industry. When it comes to the tech field, software application development is the most commonly outsourced IT function.
In other words, Software engineering outsourcing refers to the on-demand hiring of external companies to handle the solution development, maintenance, and support. Instead of relying solely on an in-house team, organizations delegate specific tasks or projects to external service providers, often located in different countries or regions.
Couple of years ago, cost reduction was the main reason for outsourcing. Today, the situation has changed, considering the focus on core business, access to talent, a faster time to market, improved quality outcomes and innovation are coming to the fore. But there are other reasons to outsource software development for startups and established businesses?
Software engineering outsourcing is a smart way to access the technical expertise you lack. With a product idea in mind, you can get an all-inclusive package of consulting, analytical, marketing, design, and development services.
Such instant access to technical talent, knowledge, and skills allows you to start developing your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in the shortest possible time.
Project planning, cost estimation, wireframing, software development, UI/UX design — outsourcing companies can gather a cross-functional team according to your project needs, manage the development process and bring your idea to life.
When you decide to outsource your product development, you are not limited by your geographical location. Your primary criteria can be the team’s skills and competencies.
View the company’s portfolio, read customer reviews, and ask about products the company has successfully built. All of this will help you find the perfect team for your project. No matter where they are located, this huge pool of talented developers will make your product development as efficient as possible.
What’s more, hiring from a global talent pool allows for embracing cultural diversity and driving innovations with people’s ability to think differently.
Software development outsourcing enables you to find the perfect balance between price and quality. Depending on your outsourcing destination, you can accurately tailor your development budget.
If you begin your project by building your own startup development team, consider the average time-to-hire in advance. Web developers aren’t the only specialist you need to hire. To create a technically powerful product that will be in high demand by the market, you also have to hire business analysts, UI/UX designers, QA engineers and marketers.
Additionally, your project may require highly specialized skills, for example, if you want to employ Elastic search or VR (virtual reality) or AI (artificial intelligence) or any latest technologies. Looking for them on your own will significantly delay the time to market.
On the other hand, software development outsourcing companies usually have a complete team on board, or they can quickly recruit the necessary specialists much faster than the company with no hiring expertise will do it on its own.
When you assign your project to an outsourcing agency, the project is coordinated by a project manager who is responsible for the day-to-day management of outsourced software development projects. The project manager is a bridge between the development team and the product owner.
Once you have approved the project plan and estimate, it is the responsibility of the project manager to keep to the agreed schedule and budget. Usually, the PM has already tried and tested methodologies for managing remote teams as well as in-house teams.
It will be the job of the PM to plan the sprints, set the deadlines, control the delivery, schedule, and prepare feature demos. Changes, suggestions, comments, complaints – you can address them to the project manager and get a quick response.
Effective communication is at the heart of seamless project development. Fortunately, an outsourcing agency has the tools and platforms for effective communication and collaboration already established and functioning. Preparing a collaboration environment for your project will require minimum time and effort — a workspace in Slack, a project on GitHub, a board in Jira or Trello — and you are basically all set.
Outsourcing to offshore locations can provide the advantage of round-the-clock development and support services. You can ensure progress by leveraging time zone differences even when your in-house team is not actively working. This way, you complete the project faster and improve customer support.
Collaborating with outsourcing partners from different cultural backgrounds and with versatile expertise can spark creativity and bring fresh perspectives to your product. This diverse collaboration fosters innovation, encourages out-of-the-box thinking, and enhances the overall quality and uniqueness of the solution.
Developers with niche expertise and a progressive technology stack rarely work in-house (or do it for a very high fee). Attract such specialists with flexible remote conditions and exciting projects, allowing them to bring valuable insights and best practices. As a result, you can create innovative solutions that will revolutionize your industry.
It is paramount for a startup to adhere to the principle of lean development and remain flexible. Following agile methodology allows you to deliver a product with no resource waste resulting from incorrect management, poor communication, excessive complexity, or other issues related to project coordination.
The Agile methodology favors the lean approach. In the most common model, the product development process is broken down into sprints that usually last two weeks. Each sprint has a goal (the product increment), which is typically a feature or functional component. After the product increment is developed, it is then tested and demonstrated at the end of the sprint.
Agile allows for revision on the go and adapting the development process to changed requirements. Over the lifecycle of a project, this reduces the need to redo finished components to a minimum.
In the course of project development, the scope of the project may either grow or reduce, driving the necessity to change the project course. In such a case, the initially selected team should be scaled up or down, which is pretty challenging if you develop software in-house.
If you need to reduce the team, you will either have to dismiss people and risk being unable to replace their skill set in the future or continue paying their salaries to keep them onboard for future projects.
With software development outsourcing, you can avoid these problems because the agency usually has sufficient staff to cover your project needs. Similarly, reducing the team is no problem for an outsourcing agency since they may be running more than one project at the same time and can assign a colleague to another project.
