Outsourcing

What is Outsourcing?

In the simplest sense, outsourcing is a practice where you delegate certain tasks to an external provider instead of using your internal resources. Outsourcing is a common practice in almost every industry today. When it comes to tech, software application development is the most commonly outsourced IT function, according to Statista.

12 reasons why you should consider outsourcing for your software project

Do you have a project with a fixed timeframe? Or do you want business-critical software to be developed quickly and ready for immediate use? Or are you a startup with the goal of getting your software product to market as quickly as possible? If you are in a similar situation, then software development outsourcing is the right answer for you.

Outsourcing developers is a popular solution for short-term and time-sensitive software development projects. With software outsourcing, you can find a software provider that best fits your project and start development as early as possible. Building your own development team, on the other hand, is much more time-consuming, as you need to spend months finding, hiring and training the right talent before the actual development work can begin.

Plus, with software outsourcing, you don’t have to spend time micromanaging everything. When you outsource the project to the software team, it is their responsibility to keep the agreed schedule and deliver the final product on time. Experienced software development companies have proven processes to efficiently develop and deliver software according to the client project schedule. Therefore, with a professional and well-organized software outsourcing company working around the clock, it is guaranteed that your software will be ready for the market, operational and usable in a shorter time than with in-house development.

Outsourcing software development is a cost-effective solution especially for startups and smaller companies that do not have the financial resources to invest in an in-house development team upfront. The cost of in-house development can affect the company’s capital needs and its overall starting position, so outsourcing software development can be a viable solution by saving you huge upfront costs.

Unlike in-house development, you not only save money by not having to spend the entire hiring process, but you also avoid additional overhead, operational, training and management costs that you would have incurred with an in-house team. This means that when you outsource development, you only pay for the development of your product, with no additional costs.

Outsourcing is especially cost-effective for companies operating in Europe or North America, as the outsourced work can cost them only a fraction of the amount it would cost to do the same work in-house, sometimes as much as 70% less. Companies can hire software outsourcing companies around the world and take advantage of the low development rates offered by offshore providers. Not only that, but they can also choose between different types of engagement and pricing models offered by software vendors, such as fixed price with fixed scope, time and materials and dedicated development team, and keep the development costs within their budget.

Software development outsourcing allows you to be flexible in every aspect as you can choose from a wide pool of options. Unlike an in-house development team, you are not geographically restricted when outsourcing. With options that are located off-shore, you can choose a software outsourcing company that is located anywhere in the world.

With the flexibility to hire globally, you can choose an outsourcing team with rates and collaboration models that fit your needs. Regardless of where your team is located, you can easily stay in touch with real-time collaboration tools like Skype, Redmine, JIRA, Trello, Zoom, and Slack.

If you want to stay closer to the development action, you can hire a hybrid software development company that works both onshore and offshore. This way, you get the best of both worlds and a high degree of flexibility.

With software development outsourcing, you also don’t have to worry about scaling your workforce as your needs change from project to project. Whether your project requires a full development team or just a few developers, you can negotiate this with the software outsourcing company and get a team with the right composition for each project without having to worry about hiring or firing employees. This gives you the flexibility to work on projects of different sizes.

The figure below shows how the size of a development team can vary for different projects, and with software outsourcing you can easily scale your development team depending on the size of your project.

Leave development to the experts – the software outsourcing company – and focus on the other core aspects of your business such as long-term goals, growth and operations. Software outsourcing helps reduce the workload of your employees and allows them to handle important tasks that require thorough work, such as branding and marketing, finance, sales, administration and maintenance, customer relationship management, networking, and many others, depending on the nature of your business.

These are the primary goals that are essential for the growth of any business, and focusing on these goals will be much easier without the burden of building and maintaining an in-house team for software development. You can outsource software development and focus solely on building your business and marketing your products, giving you an edge over your competitors.

The technological world is changing rapidly and every day more new technologies and skills become relevant. Even if you have a good team of in-house developers, it is likely that they are not experts in everything and may lack the skills required for a particular software development project. For example, imagine you want to launch a facial recognition app to compete with the best face apps out there. For that, you need a team that is expert in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning mechanisms. Instead of going the route of hiring these experts, you can simply find an outsourcing company with sufficient experience in AI and use their expertise for your project.

When you are looking for outsourcing developers, you are looking for experts in the field and you can find many software development companies around the world that specialize in different technologies and have the necessary staff to successfully launch your project. Therefore, outsourcing development gives you access to a pool of talented and experienced development teams that can expertly create your software product and business applications for you.

The process of software development requires a set of skills that go beyond writing software. Therefore, you need not only a team of developers, but also other professionals such as UX and UI designers to design the interface and navigation of your product. You will also need quality assurance (QA) engineers to test your product at every step of the development cycle and before launch to ensure quality and bug-free operation of your product. You’ll also need a project manager (PM) to manage, monitor, and execute the project to ensure it is completed successfully and on time.

With in-house development, you need to recruit all these skills for your development team, which not only costs you more money but is also time-consuming. So when you outsource the project, everything from project planning, wireframing, UI/UX design, quality assurance to deployment is the responsibility of the software outsourcing company. They would do it all without you having to worry about it.

When it comes to outsourcing software development, you may also choose to outsource one or a few functions of the software development process to third-party vendors. For example, you might have a good in-house team of developers, but you might not have a talented UI/UX designer on your team or a QA engineer. In such a case, you can hire these experts to complement and complete your team. There are software development companies that offer a range of professional services like UI/UX design, QA testing, and support and maintenance independently.

Outsourcing software development leads to increased accuracy in terms of the project schedule and deliverables. When you work with a software outsourcing company, you can set clear deadlines for the various components of the project and know in advance when the final product will be delivered, which allows you to plan other aspects accordingly. Outsourcing software development companies are experienced in dealing with client timeframes, they have experienced and proven development and project management procedures, which means they can accurately estimate the time and resources required for your project. So, with outsourced software development, you can expect an accurate project budget, schedule, and fewer risks of unforeseen expenses and delays. In the end, you get accurate results (i.e. an efficient software product tailored to your requirements) within the specified timeframe.

Outsourcing software development carries fewer risks than choosing an in-house software development team. From an investment standpoint, since outsourcing does not require a large upfront investment, it mitigates a number of financial risks. This is especially helpful for small businesses and startups. Also, since the project is in the hands of an experienced software outsourcing company, the risks of project failure are significantly reduced.

Software outsourcing companies stay on the cutting edge by using the latest tools and technologies. They know the latest technologies for web, mobile and cloud development, the latest frameworks, languages and tools. Most of these high-tech tools require hefty licensing fees for their use and distribution. You can leverage their expertise by outsourcing the software project to them instead of spending a lot of money on acquiring the latest technologies and training your in-house development team. Hiring an outsourcing company that already has the latest technologies, skills and experience will reduce your costs and ramp-up time and deliver high-quality work faster.

Software development is an ongoing process, the software code is never written just once and then it is done forever. In fact, most software projects require ongoing support and maintenance. This is also true for outsourced software development. The finished product that is delivered needs support and maintenance to fix bugs, make updates, and add more features. This makes outsourcing software development a popular long-term solution for maintaining your product. The outsourced team can take care of maintaining your product while you focus on other important aspects of the business. If it’s a product that will be sold to customers, you can focus on marketing and collecting customer feedback, while your outsourced developers focus on improving the product.

In a nutshell

In summary, software development outsourcing has become a popular practice in today’s world due to the many benefits it offers to businesses. It has proven to be a mutually beneficial practice for both companies outsourcing software development and software outsourcing companies.

All in all, software development outsourcing is an easy way to get things done for businesses, especially for smaller companies that cannot invest in building and training an in-house development team, or for short-term development projects that do not require a long-term investment of your resources. In short, software development outsourcing works for most businesses because it’s a cost-effective, time-efficient, flexible and less risky alternative to in-house software development.

FAQ

Software development outsourcing is a suitable option for startups because it allows them to quickly bring their product to market with minimal investment and development costs and within the shortest possible timeframe. However, outsourcing is also a popular solution for established companies as it offers them convenience and flexibility and allows them to develop, promote and market their products more successfully.

Software outsourcing is a cost-effective solution, but how much does it actually cost? The cost of your outsourced project can vary for a number of reasons, such as the requirements of your project, the time and resources needed for your project, and the agreed hourly rate.

Appointing a product owner on the vendor side helps to avoid misunderstandings between the parties. As the customer, you are the one who coordinates all the important processes and controls the results.
Your opinion, combined with the product owner’s reviews and reports and effective communication with the team, can help you gain deeper insight into the development process and its results and adjust them as needed.

To ensure a smooth project handover, we offer the following options:
– Sometimes the best way to transfer knowledge is by bringing together the people who have the knowledge. If face-to-face visits are not possible, remote Q&A is the second best option.
– We will provide you with detailed and clearly written documentation for your project.
– Step-by-step downscaling.