IT staffing or outsourcing has become a new hotcake globally. In the offshore development process, the company hires an IT development team in another country for its software development project. The most prominent reason why hiring an offshore Software Development Team is flourishing worldwide. The primary reason for this boost is the affordability and the myriad of options available. Furthermore, it allows organizations to extend their IT team and helps to fast-track their project.
When should you go for an Offshore Development Project?
If you are a US, UK, or Canada-based organization seeking a software solution for your project or looking to expand your IT team and enter new markets but facing challenges such as – budget constraints, scarcity of talent pool, or not ready to invest in a long hiring cycle, then offshore development can help you.
- Approx 54% of organizations worldwide use offshore support teams to connect with customers.
- Organizations spent $75.2 Billion on outsourcing security last year globally.
- About 78% of businesses globally give positive feedback about their outsourcing partners.
- Every year around 300,000 jobs are outsourced in the US alone
- Around 71% of financial service outsource their services
Key Reasons Why You Should Hire An Offshore Team
1. Time Reduction
Time plays a crucial role in any project, especially for startups; due to cutthroat competition, an offshore software development team not only saves time but also enhances overall productivity. With the devoted development team, you save your time as you don’t require to invest your time in project management and employee welfare as all these procedures are looked after by the vendor company. This also saves your time and effort on training new employees as the outsourced employee already withholds the required skills. This entails you staying focused on your project rather than worrying about anything else.
2. Exposure to a Pool of Talent
One of the major benefits of outsourcing is that it offers you access to a huge pool of talent, as it is a tough task to find proficient developers in Western countries like the US or Europe. This is due to the fact that the best employees are already churned out by the tech giants, which offer them enormous benefits, perks, comfort, and job security, unlike startups. Moreover, with outsourcing, you can have a team of proficient and capable developers who are happy to work with a startup.
3. Cost Effective
If you’re a startup, it’s crucial to check on expenses and be strict with the budget, as expenditures can be suicidal. Most startups end chiefly due to a lack of funds. Conversely, some startups make smart decisions like hiring offshore developers, which saves their costs and many other expenses. The money you save through this can be invested in crafting MVPs (Minimum viable products).
4. Scalability and Flexibility
Scalability and flexibility are major factors when it comes to the in-house team. It is due to the snag that an organization faces in scaling the team and making alterations in the tech stack to comply with the project’s scope. Alternatively, these changes in the traditional approaches are common in any startup environment. Outsourcing developers can be easily moved between projects and are highly flexible, especially while collaborating with an impeccable team like ours.
How To Get Started With Offshore Development?
1. State Your Business Objectives
Ensure that you’re clear about your business objectives. Keep your necessities brief and crisp so that your offshore developers can easily and effectively understand your vision.
2. Evaluate The Skillset
Evaluate the skills and expertise you require to comply with your business intent. Be clear about the tech stack you want to use during your product development.
Most offshore development companies specialize in numerous skill sets as no one is a jack of all trades; hence they require to make a few adjustments.
3. Plan Your Budget
Budget Planning is essential as you must know how much capital is required for the commencement and completion of the project. Consult an affordable offshore team and ask for a proposal for web and mobile app development if you are an amateur.
4. List Down Top Offshore Development Companies
There are numerous offshore companies that offer different advantages. Make a list of countries and companies based on time zones that suits you the best, and offer the best price & ratio quality.
5. Look For Their Proven Track Record
Discover the developer’s track record by checking out their rankings on the websites, their previous projects, and clients’ testimonials. Also, get in touch with their previous clients to know whether they would recommend that team of developers.
6. Ensure That You Have Access To The Latest Code
To be on the safer side and to avoid situations like the developer refusing to release code due to conflicts, we recommend that you must have access to the code. It should be one of the requirements for the developer’s team in your project.
7. Ask For The Outsourcing Company’s Workflow
Asking for an outsourcing company’s workflow is vital to find out about their process to interact with the clients and allocate their resources for the projects. You can also know about how flexible their services are and how they can scale the resources while the project is going on. There is also a possibility that the company’s workflow might not suit your needs. Hence, it’s important that you find it out before hiring the team.
8. Reject The Cheapest Quotes
While looking for an offshore development company, you must focus on cost-effective prices instead of cheap quotes. Cheap rates ultimately lead to poor quality; thus, you may require to rewrite poorly written codes again and hence you may end up paying a huge amount of money till the completion of the project.
9. Refrain From Fixed-Price Payment Models
You must avoid the fixed price payment model, which includes a minimum of 25% of additional costs for covering the risks. Rather you must opt for the time & material model as it permits you eminent flexibility for your project. You’ll know exactly what you will be paying for. Furthermore, you won’t need to intervene for every minute change. Some offshore companies offering the fixed-price model charge extra for serendipity.
10. Don’t Ignore Red Flags
Always look for red flags while selecting a developer or development team; for example, if an organization claims that it can completely fulfil all your requirements, in some cases, it typically means that they haven’t studied your prerequisites or analysed them precisely to comprehend whether they have availability of the required skillset or not.
11. Find A Good Project Management Tool
While handling a project, regular monitoring, keeping checks and tracking progress is crucial; you just can’t rely on exchanging lengthy emails. It would be best if you use advanced and latest collaboration, project management, and tracking tools such as Teamweek, Slack, Trello, Jira, etc. Using these tools, you will be able to track the progress, lead discussions, leave comments, etc.
12. Be Proactive
Being a startup founder, it is crucial to be proactive, especially while working with an offshore development team. It would be best if you are prepared for the next day in advance, especially when you are working with a team in different time zones.
It will boost your confidence and relax a sense of soothe that things are going as per the schedule or plan.
13. Request For Frequent Deployment
Requesting for frequent deployment allows you to get access to better code quality, better error detection, quicker implementation of any changes, faster deployments, and enhanced protection. You can request your developers to show you the demo of the MVP at the end of each sprint, which can be on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.
A Quick Checklist on Hiring IT Development Company for Your Project
There are a few aspects that you must ensure to keep a check upon before opting for an offshore software development company. Here is a checklist that we have formulated to enhance your search process for hiring the best offshore development partner:
- Look for Referrals on the internet
- Discuss programming/coding requirements
- Years of experience
- Checking their track record
- Know about the latest market trends
- Communicate well
- Overhaul capabilities
- Pricing models
- Define post-development support
In addition to this, we advise you to conduct thorough research on whether the offshore company you’re hiring has a proven track record or not, as this shows you their abilities, expertise, competence and reliability in the domain. Furthermore, we advise you to look for offshore development companies by glancing at their portfolios and client testimonials.
Final Thoughts
In the above writeup, we talked about the advantages of hiring an offshore development team, how to get started with offshore software development, why you should employ offshore development and why it’s the best option for a tech startup. The above steps allow startup owners to save time and money while obtaining a high-quality MVP, cost-effective, and proficient offshore development teams.
As we all know that startups are full of uncertainties, so the fixed price model could be a bad alternative for any startup. Additionally, we discussed the factors you must consider while hiring or outsourcing developers. If you’re also a startup owner and are looking to hire a development team, then offshoring is the best choice for you.
9Yards Technology has a large pool of talented and skilled developers, QAs, PMs, and business analysts that can efficiently fulfil all your offshore development requirements. So, if you’re convinced to hire an offshore development team, then contact us for timely fulfilment of goals, ultra-modern approaches, seamless communication, scalability, and 24×7 support.
