Outsourcing Software Development: How to win

Ayo Oladele
iTwis
Published in
4 min readJun 11, 2020
Outsourcing software

Outsourcing of software development is the new trend in the IT world, several businesses are switching to custom made software choosing the best tech stacks that help their business the most.

Having been around for so long with yet many success stories, if you are not well informed you might make some errors. The main obstacles come from choosing a well-experienced developer or team to meet your deadline.

Importance of Outsourcing

What do I stand to gain?

  1. Digital solutions for business process automation and service delivery.
  2. Startups and regular IT firms can shed workload and easily meet up with deadlines.
  3. Outsourcing some parts of a software project or the entire work enables businesses to reduce software development costs.
  4. Project stakeholders can pace up with the project and still follow through with their primary business challenges.
  5. It helps software products to hit the market in a short time without getting overwhelmed.

How to avoid failing

As Product or project owner. There are factors to consider when you are outsourcing to a software development team. This will help you choose the best team and lead your project to the light.

Winning ways of outsourcing

Choose a team only after doing a Market Research And Reference Check

Always make sure you research the market before you make any move on the project. This will reveal what is ideal for your project type. You should have an idea of how outsourcing works

Furthermore, be sure that your requirements are in tune perfectly with your business goals. Also, ensure that the development team you choose provides the related service that you desire as well as relevant experience.

In all, choose an IT team based more on work records and not the workforce. Therefore read references from credible and reliable sources. You can interview former clients, see feedbacks, and public reviews.

Understand the Project Cost

The main objective of outsourcing is cutting the production costs of software. However, don’t be pennywise and pound-foolish. So you have to be pretty focused here because the low rate developers lack experience and skills.

“Choose development teams based on Skills, consider experience first before lower cost.”

Be sure you have a realistic and responsible financial plan for project funding. Here is a simple analysis:

A developer that charges $50 an hour to complete a task in 4 months is a choice over a developer that charges $35 but takes about a year to deliver.

Flee from very cheap software development freelancers, teams, agencies, and vendors. Ignoring this may result in a very bad quality of the project or a fail. To avoid this you might think of the milestone payment system.

Finally, you can avoid unnecessary costs right from the start. Only engage a prospective development partner if they spell out every task and its number of hours clearly.

Covering for technical personnel

The main reason for your outsourcing could be the total lack of a software development team, hence if you don’t have adequate knowledge of IT, then you need some “technical dude”.

The need for a tech-savvy consultant if for your good he or she can monitor the project, overseeing all technical details that seem confusing for you. Other tasks can be ensuring the quality of service and product. However, you don’t need this person if you trust the agency

Longterm partnership

Most times short-term partnerships fail because software development projects don’t have enough time for execution and sometimes budget.

Don’t sign a short-term contract, it can cause your software project to be completed in a rush to meet up with delivery and deadline. While in the rush, missing vital development details or poor view of your business goals can be a costly result.

Have it in mind, it is best to seek a long-term partnership while outsourcing a software development project. You will be compensated by having a lasting relationship plus quality software. Warm relationships are essential for business and partnership furthering commitments and agreements.

Be a motivation to your team, keep the spirits high

Encourage and give credits to the software development team as often as you can, not when the project is over. Give bonuses to them when they finish milestones successfully, this is the best energizer morale booster.

Appreciated the development team, despite the fact that they get paid. Contracting through outsourcing makes your partners, and they deserve good treatment and respect. Software development has various stages and challenges. Be nice to your developers and support them.

Outsourcing That Project?

After all said and done, avoid all the lapses while outsourcing your development project by selecting a team that complements your business goals.

Outsourcing has helped to pace up with increasing requests for software customization and upgrading. It is a continual and users want the best result all the time. this why you should consider a long-term partnership.

Choosing a software development team relies on careful deliberations. The emerging development team should share the same views with you about the project and help you actualize it. It is at your best to choose a partner you can trust.

iTwis provides custom software development services that cover a vast range of business needs. Our partners and clients are business owners from different private sectors. We have shown a strong capacity in IT consulting and delivered as a trusted software development team

Our consultant would be glad to discuss your software development challenges and come up with the most suitable solution designed for your business needs.

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Ayo Oladele
iTwis
Editor for

Senior IT Consultant. IT Law| Sales & Marketing | Account Management | IT Business Strategy & Partnership | Copywriting