Unless a company is in the world of information technology or software development itself, chances are that they aren’t going to have the necessary employees in-house to accomplish their goals. If they were to try to employ the full team in the office, costs would quickly add up. This conundrum of needing to develop software but not having the resources to do so at hand is where offshore software outsourcing companies, such as BairesDev, help organizations complete projects in the most cost and time-efficient manner possible.
Just last year, the total contract value of the information technology outsourcing market reached a whopping $66.52 billion U.S. dollars. Offshore software development companies specifically have become an ideal solution for businesses looking to get ahead in this market while keeping expenses to a minimum.
What is Offshore Software Outsourcing?
Offshore software development outsourcing is the practice of hiring a third-party company located in a foreign country from your own to take care of your company’s software development needs. Offshoring typically means that the company is located in a country in which the cost of living is lower than your own, thus meaning the hiring cost is generally lower when compared to an outsourcing company within your own country or a nearshore provider.
These offshoring companies act as either an extension of your current in-house development team (if present) or as the entirety of the team themselves. The offshoring business model is a highly effective way to gain access to a wide variety of skill sets from a vast talent pool while allowing your in-house team to stay focused on core business needs. In addition to reducing costs, this practice also helps in meeting deadlines as scalability isn’t a problem.
Setting Your Company Up for Success with Offshore Development
There are a few simple steps that organizations can take to ensure their partnership with a third-party offshore software development provider is a successful one.
1 – Decide if offshoring will help you accomplish your goals
If your operational costs are getting out of hand or scalability is a major problem, offshoring will help your company complete projects at a faster, more cost-efficient rate. These companies give your business access to a large pool of talented developers and experts to help get the job done.
2 – Fully define your goals
You can’t start a project and set yourself up for success without figuring out what the project goals are from the get-go. This is important when working with a team that is exclusively in-house, but it’s even more vital when working with a third-party team of outsourced developers. They don’t know your company, how you work, or what your goals are. Be sure to have internal discussions and agree on clear, attainable objectives before bringing an offshore dev team into the mix.
3 – Make communication a top priority
One of the biggest ways to set your company up for success when partnering with an offshore development provider is making sure that communication expectations are set from the very beginning. Developers of all kinds need good feedback and a true understanding of the project in order to do their jobs properly.
Being that the offshore development team is obviously not in the office and experiencing in-person meetings and conversations, it’s important that you communicate with them on a regular basis to ensure successful project implementation and completion.
When starting a project with a third-party team, take the time to establish the preferred communication methods (such as Slack, email, and/or Skype), set clear requirements for reporting, and decide on a frequency for meetings. Keeping these communication methods open will also help ensure that the outsourced developers feel like a part of the team instead of out or unproductive. After all, they’re people and not robots.
4 – Choose the right team
It may sound rather obvious, but all companies must take the time to do the research required to choose the best offshoring partner for their development needs. Simply hiring the company with the largest team or biggest portfolio isn’t the best practice for selection. Each company has its own strengths and weaknesses you should take into account in the decision-making process. When interviewing potential partners, make a point of researching their past clients’ experiences, ask for relevant references, and thoroughly examine the work examples that they provide.
Choosing to hire an offshoring software development company is incredibly beneficial to businesses of all sizes and industries. A successful partnership requires a bit of initial work on the hiring company’s side along with continued collaboration in order to accomplish project goals on-time and in the most cost-effective way.