Why Outsourcing Software Development is Your Response to Crisis
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important to focus on the positive aspects of the current situation. In particular, give remote work and outsourcing services due credit.
Before now, 44% of companies haven’t allowed remote work at all. In the times of the global crisis, they have to change their attitude. In this article, we’ll talk about the advantages of remote work and the reasons for enforcing your team with outsourced software development team.
Why outsource your software development project to the third party?
Companies are urged to facilitate remote work for their in-house software engineers. In-housers now have to adopt a new model of work that outsource specialists have already mastered. Now, the ability to work remotely efficiently is essential as never before.
According to A.T. Kearney’s report, East Europe is a great spot to outsource software development services since companies provide value for money (the rates vary from $25 to $50/hour) and there’s a large talent pool to choose from.
Source: Accelerance
So why not collaborate with Eastern European specialists from Belarus, Russia or Ukraine? Here are the advantages you get from IT outsourcing in detail.
Focus on core areas. Outsourcing important but mundane business processes allow you to free internal resources and let them focus on building the brand, invest in R&D and other activities that bring your company profit.
Reduction and control of operating costs. In-house workers need office space and equipment. The list of expenses doesn’t end there. Hiring additional in-house specialists entails providing healthcare and other corporate benefits, payroll taxes, and increased need in management and HR specialists. The ability to cut off these additional expenses is of paramount importance during economical crisis times.
Staffing flexibility. Some departments have cyclical demands in additional resources. For instance, the accounting department during auditing periods and tax season or marketing department during a product launch. Outsourcing is a great way to meet these demands for a particular season.
Access to top capabilities. Outsourced specialists already have experience in remote work. They’ve gained expertise in a narrow field by working with many clients facing similar challenges. So you don’t need to explain to them the workflow and can avoid the cost of chasing technology and training.
Software outsourcing models
There are two service models: staff augmentation and dedicated team model. Both can be used to outsource the development, maintenance, testing of software and marketing.
Staff augmentation
This way you expand your in-house software development team. The model enables you to hire talent globally and manage your augmented team directly. The range of the client’s responsibilities and control is quite large. It includes choosing the contractor that fits your requirements, defining the process, and managing the projects.
Source: Future Processing
Dedicated development team model
The dedicated development team model represents a team that works remotely on a project as a separate unit with its own framework and management. The client is more concerned about the end result and doesn’t have to manage the contractor giving more freedom. This way of collaboration is popular among client companies as it brings more to the table than the staff augmentation model.
Cost efficiency. You don’t need to consider numerous candidates that fit the project and your in-house team. The model suggests that specialists with relevant experience are already there and ready to start working.
Focused approach. The dedicated team is immersed in the project which gives more inventive and diverse input into the solution.
Fast-paced development cycle. A focused development team and a more hands-on approach from the client accelerate the development process.
Searching for outsourcing partners
There are several ways of finding the right candidate: agencies, aggregators and reaching out personally.
Agencies. A client-company can consider an outsourcing agency (e.g., Odesk, Elance). If you are outsourcing for the first time and your project is large, it makes sense to let the agency take the burden of choice off your shoulders. If you have an in-house team or person who can deal with this task, there’s no need to have anyone in between and reach out to a particular specialist or company.
Aggregators. You can find the company to collaborate with using aggregators like Clutch, G2, HubSpot or GoodFirms. These B2B platforms provide ratings and reviews on software development and UX/UI design service providers and allow filtering them according to services and location. Once you found a candidate company, check out its website for the range of services and business cases.
Reaching out. In the case of content services when you need one or two specialists, LinkedIn is an excellent source to fish for talents. If a candidate’s profile isn’t comprehensive enough, you can ask to send you a CV.
How to make outsourcing software development work
Effective IT outsourcing is based on several rules: communication, version control, metrics control, and a unified design system.
Effective communication
Before starting your collaboration determine the means of communication and its frequency. Bear in mind that outsourcing software development doesn’t mean complete delegation of work to a third party. You need to be there when the remote specialist(s) needs clarifications concerning your business specifics. Agile methodologies that most IT companies adhere to let the client get deliverables after each sprint and stay in the loop throughout the whole project lifecycle.
Version control
It allows managing changes to files over time. Version control tools can be used to version code, binary files, and digital assets. Using version control software helps the team to keep track of changes — and keep every team member working off the latest version.
The most popular types of version control:
Metrics control
Metrics are quantitative measurements that help management understand software performance on a project. They may include formal code metrics, Agile process metrics, developer productivity metrics, test metrics, customer satisfaction, and more.
Design system
Working remotely requires the project team to be equipped with design systems that allow collaboration and keeping a unified project design among distributed teams.
On a final note
For 10+ years, we’ve been a remote-friendly company serving the customers across 8 time zones. We have saved tons of business money by using our remote development center. We outsource ourselves, and companies across the world collaborate with us remotely. We are fully prepared to work online and get things going regardless of the epidemiological situation. All human resource management is done remotely keeping excellent communication with our clients and delivering artifacts on time. Hire a dedicated team or contact us to get consultancy on the remote work.
