Ins and Outs of Software Outsourcing that Everyone Should Know

Outsourcing has become the buzzword of modern business for two reasons – flexibility and cost savings. With the global workforce getting more mobile, companies prefer selecting candidates for software development work not based on their geographical proximity, but based on talent and qualification.

Besides, outsourcing allows significant cost savings as the developer rates in major outsourcing hubs are times lower than in developed Western labor markets. Read on to find out everything about outsourcing, the popular hiring models, locations, and pros and cons of this approach to developing your software.

1. What Is Outsourcing?

The essence of outsourcing is in providing time and cost savings on software development to companies. It is a flexible approach that allows the delegation of core and peripheral development tasks to external providers and enables access to global programming talent.

Thus, as soon as you decide to outsource coding tasks, you can choose among a variety of outsourcing destinations in any corner of the world, depending on your language, time zone preferences, cultural considerations, and budget.

2. Benefits and Risks of Outsourcing

Outsourcing is an excellent solution for those who can’t find the proper talent in their location or can’t afford to pay. Still, this model of recruitment is connected with certain risks unavoidable when working with people on a distance. Here is the brief recap of what you may reap from outsourcing in positive and negative terms:

Pluses

• The great degree of flexibility in terms of task delegation and distribution
• Cost savings
• The economy of the in-house team’s time spent on core business tasks
• Flexibility in payment issues
• Shorter project turnaround
• Access to the global pool of programming talent

Risks

• Challenges with distance management and workflow control
• Time zone differences and challenges of asynchronous communication
• Vendor reputation checks
• Threats of data leakage or business espionage
• Language differences
• A lack of cultural fit
• The danger of hidden costs in case of non-transparent contractual terms
• Lack of full control over product quality

3. Types of Software Development Services You Can Outsource

Unfortunately, not all types of development tasks can be outsourced. But that’s not bad news; overall, you may outsource a lion share of your programming needs, including:

UX/UI design. Today a user-friendly, easy-to-use, intuitive interface is the essential criterion deciding whether your project fails or flies.

So, it’s critical to invest a proper amount of time and money into creating a visually attractive, intelligible, and modern design of your web resource or app to raise customer satisfaction.

Quality assurance. As software development is a process, you can’t do without process controls and quality checks at each step, especially if it goes about to outsource projects.

You can outsource manual and automated QA to keep an eye open for flaws and poor quality from the project’s inception and until its market release.

Web development. Web development is everywhere now, ranging from front-end and back-end software needs of businesses to full-stack programming operations. Whatever your needs are, you can find a reliable, credible vendor for any of these tasks.

Mobile apps. The world has gone mobile now, and having no mobile app or a cross-platform web solution deprives you of a fair share of customers and users.

By outsourcing mobile development, businesses can quickly embrace the mobile segment with workable apps tailored to their target audience’s interests and needs.

DevOps. DevOps is the future of online businesses as they promise sustainable operational improvements and efficient operating increments in an all-in-one solution.

So, if you’re still new to DevOps, it’s high time to start thinking of how it fits your business and your web environment to remain competitive online.

4. Hiring Models in Outsourcing

Now it’s time to get to the basics of outsourcing recruitment. You may be happy to know that this can be done in several ways, depending on your needs, budget, and the length and scale of operation with the vendor you’re planning. Four models are the most common:

IT staffing. If you have a large project and want a separate team to work on it, then you may opt for this model. It presupposes hiring a team specifically for your needs and assigning it to your project only.

Staff augmentation. This alternative is more flexible, presupposing your in-house team’s augmentation with one or several coders you may need for a particular period.

Are you amid the high season in your business niche? Has your best programmer fallen ill? Then staff augmentation is an ideal solution; with it, you can involve new programmers for short-term tasks and expand/shorten the number of involved staff in response to the changing workload.

Outsourcing. In case you need help only with one project and don’t need a separate team to work in it, you can “rent” the outsourcing vendor’s coders for your task’s completion. But it would help if you kept in mind that developers usually work on several projects simultaneously.

Dedicated team. Again, if your software development needs are long-term and require a separate unit for efficient completion of the project, you may ask the vendor to provide a separate dedicated team for you.

The team will work in the vendor’s office, will be the official employees of the vendor, and will work only on your assignments.

5. How to Launch Your Outsourcing Project?

Now that you’re aware of the hiring approaches and alternatives let’s figure out how to set an outsourcing project going. The process usually takes nine steps to start:

• Clarify your project goals and determine the rationale for seeking outsourcing solutions.
• Find the location where you’ll look for your outsourcing vendor.
• Study the local market and the range of offers from outsourcing companies.
• Contact several providers to discuss the details and check their response quality/turnaround.
• Choose the vendor.
• Negotiate pricing terms and work schedules.
• Sign the contract and NDAs (preferably both with the vendor and with each programmer).
• Check the staff’s qualifications and credentials; it’s always imperative to know whether the coders
• suit your requirements.
• Perform the onboarding and start working.