ISO certification is an excellent way to confirm that a software or mobile app development company has the expertise and experience necessary to adopt the most effective security procedures. While cutting personnel, software outsourcing began to save expenses and gain access to highly trained workers. However, with talent in many places throughout the world on the rise, organizations are looking for more than simply a low price when selecting a software outsourcing partner.
Companies are looking for a comprehensive bundle of services that includes industry expertise, technological know-how, software development skills, security skills, and a strong social media presence. Companies cannot fight with their main rivals if they do not possess all of the elements in place, thus choosing a software partner based only on price is no longer a viable option. Companies will seek partners with a diverse set of technological talents.
Consulting, design, programming, testing, and deployment support will all be provided by a single software outsourcing custom software development firm. As businesses explore ways to save costs and improve efficiency, software outsourcing has grown in popularity. Development companies who want to flourish in the software development market require a partner like FortySeven software professionals that can help them at every level of the process.
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They have a lot on their plate which needs to be handled while ensuring seamless development work. If you are also a product manager, here are some challenges you might have faced or come across.
Check out how you can overcome these challenges by outsourcing. Building any product requires tech expertise and in-depth understanding. Without someone with a complete understanding of technology, choosing the right tech stack, library, or framework for development could be a task. And this is where many product managers or entrepreneurs find themselves hassling. How Outsourcing helps: There are several software outsourcing companies offering technical expertise to startups and other small businesses.
These companies can bring years of experience and expertise to the table. They can even act as your technology partner to help you become technologically mature to withstand all other tech challenges. Successful software development requires prior planning and a roadmap that lays down all the steps in the development process.
You need to be able to layout a well-strategized plan to initiate and successfully complete the development. How Outsourcing helps: Here, outsourcing enables startups and the assigned product managers to work with a team that knows the development process and follows the ideal approach, agile software development for example.
During the initial stages itself, the offshore company lays down a complete plan, at least for the first few sprints to achieve the development goals within the said time. They plan everything and map the development roadmap and even ensure seamless execution.
Another challenge product managers face while taking their software development from the initial MVP stage to a full-fledged product is the cash flow. They need to ensure that not only is the initial funding enough for the initial sprints but they get more funding as they progress. You cannot splurge in the development and need to be as efficient as you can be in the development. How Outsourcing helps: Outsourcing saves costs in more than one way.
Moreover, you have a technology partner who can build an MVP faster and help you secure investments as well. Another advantage of outsourcing is that it frees you from worrying about development and lets you focus on the pitch to secure more funding. Many startups and small businesses find themselves unable to scale. They either lack the required resources, skills, technical expertise, or simply the experience it takes to scale a product.
It requires a bigger team, greater investment, enhanced technology stack, and whatnot. However, not every product manager has the resources to fill in the requirements. How Outsourcing helps: Outsourcing to an experienced software development company can help you through each phase of the development. Most outsourcing companies offer the flexibility to scale teams up and down. They offer you the freedom to hire more developers into the team and scale it up when the product moves to the next phase of development.
It requires special care, maintained conditions, and constant monitoring. Product managers do not have that much expertise to manage the infrastructure to build and scale the product. How Outsourcing helps: Outsourcing helps businesses manage the complete IT infrastructure. They have IT specialists, and IT admins who manage the servers 24x7 to ensure your product never faces any downtime. In addition to the challenges listed above, there are several challenges that are faced by enterprises, product companies, startups, SMBs, and others with their software development.
These could be simple business challenges or challenges that hinder growth for an organization when scaling software. No matter what, outsourcing software development helps overcome several challenges, some of which are listed below. Many businesses lack the direction and clear vision they need to go ahead with their product development. They have either not planned the development or are unable to move as per the planning. Be it the CTO, product manager, or enterprise technology head, lack of business direction can be a setback in the growth.
By outsourcing software development one can have a clear focus on the business growth and future goals. Many organizations, especially product companies, and digital agencies find it difficult to handle several projects at once owing to restricted resources. Such situations call for them to either give up on the project or expand their teams.
How Outsourcing helps: One can always join hands with an offshore software development company or hire dedicated teams as an extension of their in-house team. Not just that, one can even hire single developers to fill in any gap in technology. Another major challenge that smaller organizations like startups face is the limited office space that they have.
The smaller space does not allow them to expand their team in case they have any new tech requirements or want to set up a totally new office for the development team. This means, any expansion in terms of the development team would require them to invest in expanding infrastructure, which could elevate the costs. How Outsourcing helps: Outsourcing companies take over the complete project, saving you from expanding infrastructure or investing funds in the same.
You can hire dedicated developers who will work just like your in-house team and help you with the work. Many organizations feel that they can handle all tasks within their available in-house resources. However, this leads to overworked and overwhelmed staff. They end up being neither creative nor innovative with their work.
Moreover, they lose focus and are unable to deliver the promised quality. You might even see your in-house staff juggling between different projects and tasks. How Outsourcing helps: You hire a team to handle the extra work while the in-house resources do what they are best at. They can focus on the business aspects of the organization while the remote product development team can handle the development work.
They know their requirements and have an idea of the product they want to build. However, they lack the IT strategy to move ahead with the same. How Outsourcing helps: Outsourcing companies act as technology partners for the organization and can help with the development task.
They can assist businesses in forming the right IT strategy that is aligned with their business goals. While outsourcing is known to simplify your business process, it does come with some challenges that might seem like nothing to some but be super daunting to others. Working with startups, enterprises, CTOs, and organizations of all scales, we have come up with a list of the biggest challenges that are commonly encountered during software development outsourcing.
Outsourcing, while in general, is the same for all industries getting a service done by another organization , the way you implement it varies with the way of working of each organization. Many organizations come across different challenges in their work and operations which compel them to outsource software development. They need to identify the gap before they jump into devising a strategy for their business.
Apart from conflicting company cultures, there might also be a change in the methodologies. There are different methodologies like scrum, waterfall, agile, etc.
Cultural and regional barriers become an imminent challenge despite the growing inclination towards globalization and outsourcing. There can be different corporate differences between the in-house and the outsourced teams or remote developers which might impact different aspects of the business.
However, businesses can organize training programs and make their teams ready for outsourcing. The next challenge that many companies face when outsourcing their development work is project management. In many cases, you are supposed to manage the entire team while in others you can get fully managed teams. It is important that you give special regard to project management. In many cases, the CXOs or the software owners are able to share every detail about their software in-depth.
But where they lack is sharing the business context. It is very important that you also share your business context. Knowing the target users, market, demographics, and what value you intend to get from this software product would help the outsourcing company to serve you better. Governing the project can be a lot for many product managers, considering the many tasks that it entails.
In fact, governing the projects could be a hassle, leading to ineffective governance. They might not be able to handle the project or even find it hard to manage the in-house developers as well as the outsourced team. However, when you outsource to an experienced team, they provide project managers who govern the project and ensure everyone is working as planned in each sprint. There are several companies that have successfully outsourced but later get too dependent on that company.
This is unhealthy and called vendor lock-in. For effective outsourcing, it is important that your partner outsourcing company is efficient in knowledge transfer post-development. While outsourcing can help overcome several business challenges, there can be a different set of challenges that it might come with. However, with the right outsourcing practices and a professional outsourcing partner, one can. While outsourcing software development, having a well-planned strategy in place is imperative to ensure you are not left with any confusion during the process.
No matter what the initiative, having a goal in mind can help you scale. You need to set up a specific goal that would have a realistic yet challenging value. Without a goal that is in line with your business plan, you might risk the software development outsourcing going in the wrong direction. No goal in mind would only lead to wasted time, cost, and resources.
You need to have real objectives to ensure that your outsourcing endeavor is leading the right way. When outsourcing software development, there are a number of long-term goals that can help you make the most of the opportunity. There could be many goals that can help you in the long run. Some companies might start outsourcing as it could help them get software development services at a smaller cost. It might help cut down the overall costs of the development. Many other companies believe that outsourcing can help them scale up their teams quickly.
Outsourcing can help in fulfilling any type of long-term requirement of a developer or a team of developers. Another long-term goal that you might want to set is regarding maintenance. You need to form a long-term outsourcing relationship with a vendor to ensure your software is not just fully maintained but also upgrades as and when any new technology is launched. In the long run, you want to achieve quality codes for your software from a software outsourcing company that also helps you cut down your overall software development budget.
Apart from the long-term goals that most people talk about, there are some short-term goals as well that you can set up based on your requirements. These could be as simple as getting on-demand support or on-demand developer for your software.
You might have a small project at hand that needs completion within a specific period. However, due to a lack of developers, it is taking longer. Hiring a remote developer for those particular hours can speed up your development. The next goal for any software development would be to plug the technology gap. Most organizations, startups, and enterprises choose to outsource their software development to integrate the latest technology in their development work.
You can get an API or application program interface, a plugin, a small module, or any other thing developed for your software. This could help when the API you need is to be developed using cutting-edge technology that is yet not present in your in-house team or even in your local region.
Outsourcing can also help you with migration. When you want to migrate your website, web application, mobile application, or any other digital product from one platform to another and upgrade it, outsourcing can be very helpful. It can speed up the process of migration and help you become digitally advanced. Even when you are planning for digital transformation , joining hands with an external technology partner can speed up your digitalization efforts.
With goals in place, you can move ahead with your software development outsourcing plan. This is where the technical co-founder of your startup can help you choose the right strategy to choose.
The first step towards successful software development outsourcing would always be about strategy. If you have adopted the right outsourcing strategy , your outsourcing efforts are bound to succeed. But if you have had a wrong start, your outsourcing efforts would not last long. There are several strategies that businesses adopt depending on their requirements and their work. Every organization has a gap that it seeks to fulfill through outsourcing. This could be a short-term gap or a long-term one, a project requirement, or a technology gap to fill in for a client project.
Different organizations have different requirements which we have depicted using various scenarios. Let's talk about these in this section. These are those organizations that have a core team of developers or programmers sitting in their office but are lacking technical expertise.
They need a specific technology added to their project. This could be new technology or something that your in-house team is lacking.
Many even have some technology challenges which cannot be solved by the in-house teams. This can be solved by hiring remote developers for the project. They can hire specific tech experts from across the global talent pool and find the right people to work for their project. Whether you want to fill short term technology gap or build a long-term outsourced, cost-effective center of excellence, hiring developers, or setting up an extended team is the best solution.
So, depending on your requirements, you can get core developers or a complete team of developers, designers, project managers, QA testers, and others. You can easily hire developers and build your extended teams for software development and add additional expertise to their projects. Make remote team members an asset to your organization and leverage the value that they can deliver. Many organizations do not have a technical team in their office for software or product development.
They need to set up an ultra-powerful team dedicatedly working on their project but at a lower price. The best part here is that there would be a project manager over the team to make sure everything goes as planned. One of the best parts about outsourcing is that it lets you choose between different engagement models based on your tech requirements.
You can even build complete dedicated teams with developers, project managers, designers, quality assurance engineers, and others for your project. The organization can have as much involvement as it wants. It can discuss requirements directly with the project manager and ensure the work is done as described.
It can even have meetings with the developers if needed. This is when you have too much on your plate to handle the development of this product or software. These are organizations that either needs some software outsourcing company to build their software completely or hand over a project to an external company. They need a trusted vendor to build the software from scratch and manage it until it scales. In such cases, you will require a team that will manage the end-to-end product development and will hand the product over on its development.
For startups and SMEs with smaller team sizes and just a few people at the management level, managing an offshore team or remote developer could pose more challenges than being beneficial. Depending on your requirements and the involvement you want, you can get end-to-end product development.
Development: This is the stage where the actual software is developed by the developers. When outsourcing development , your idea of the software is transformed into a full-fledged software with its APIs, web, mobile, and cloud apps. Scaling: This is the stage where your software is up-to-date and ready to rule the market. It would include everything from inbound to outbound strategy to generate demand. The biggest advantage of outsourcing the complete project to a software outsourcing company is that it will ensure clear deliverables and reduce friction.
All you need is a clear goal, a well-developed outsourcing contract with the scope, and other things listed clearly. This would help in the end-to-end development of the software in a more streamlined and speedy manner.
In such situations, a company can take the managed product development approach. You share the product idea with the company and discuss the requirements. The vendor handles everything from MVP development to scaling the product and launch. This is a situation that most startups find themselves in after the seed funding round.
They have an MVP or a very basic version of the product. However, now they need to scale up the product and get product development with new features and functionalities which they are unable to develop with the existing resources. They need expert assistance from technology partners or need to hire a technical co-founder to scale the product.
One of the easiest ways for product managers to scale their products without expanding their infrastructure or tech expertise is to hire extended teams. IT offshore companies offer extended teams that act as your in-house team, just sitting in an offshore location. You already have a team who built the MVP , now you need more developers, technology experts, and engineers to scale it. This can be easily done by joining hands with a software development outsourcing company.
Another scenario that most startups find themselves seeking assistance from an offshore IT company is when they are launching a tech product but do not have the required technology expertise.
They need a technology partner or need to hire a CTO or technical co-founder to help with everything technology. Such situations call for the organization to hire technology partners.
Many IT companies help startups from scratch to build their MVP, get validation, ensure cash flows, all the time assisting with the development and other technology aspects. This is another scenario when a company is looking to modernize its existing legacy applications. They need to modernize their existing software or systems by infusing the power of the latest disruptive technologies.
This is when organizations look for an external software development company to handle their project from the middle to modernize them.
They might need the company to develop a particular module of their existing software or need an outsourcing company to help with digital transformation.
This is where they need to find a digital transformation enabler. Such companies have teams to help with any type of external support like:.
Single-Page Application. Mobile Responsive. Here, you might need an interface for your software, want to have a new plugin developed using a new-age technology, or anything else. This is a great strategy as you can keep your in-house team working on the core of the software while the remote team of developers can build the independent module or work on your smaller project.
Depending on your situation, you might just need a single remote developer for your in-house team or you might need a complete team of all the developers, testers, designers, and everyone to turn your software idea into a reality.
In fact, for some projects, you might have everything jotted down and can even give the entire project away to an offshore software development company.
When outsourcing, you need to be careful as to how you undertake the entire transition to ensure it succeeds. Performing due diligence before outsourcing or choosing an offshore software development company is also important. But even before that, you need to be sure if outsourcing is the right solution for you or not.
Timing is a huge factor in outsourcing success. Outsourcing when your company is neither ready nor in need of an external source can be harmful. The same goes if you refrain from outsourcing despite all signs telling you to outsource. So, let's find out first when is the right time to outsource and when a company should avoid outsourcing. Many startups, enterprises, and CTOs come to us with the same question. They are not sure if it is right for them to outsource product development or hire an in-house team to do the job.
If you are wondering if software development outsourcing is for you or not, keep reading to know if it is right for you to outsource. Why exactly do you want to build this product? Is there an obvious gap in the target market? Do users ask you about this product or its particular functionality?
What methods, approaches, and tools may help you accomplish your goals? How do you want to build your product? The how-related questions may be rather tricky to answer. It may be easier for you to answer them together with a co-founder with a technical background, or with your engineering partner. When you know for sure why you want to go ahead with your objectives and how to turn your idea into a real application, you can see what exactly you should build.
Different companies use different templates; each project is unique and may require additional elements to be added to the brief. Explain who you are and what you do. Say a few words about your company and the industry you work in.
Describe brand details and even mention some of your competitors to help readers and potential partners better understand you and your mission. Describe your project by answering Why? Write down everything you can about your idea, vision, plans, and even design. Provide context and examples to ensure you and the readers of your brief will be on the same page. SMART is an acronym for essential features of management objectives:. Who are you building your product for? Can you imagine the real user of your future product?
Or do you make data-driven decisions and have analytics that demonstrate who will use your app? Set a due date. When would you like your app to be up and running, available in the App Store and Play Store? Can you define a deadline? To set a realistic deadline, break your project into a series of milestones.
For example, here is what the key milestones may look like:. Release of the first version includes all the aforementioned phases and may take up to 1 year from the start of project discovery.
Note that this table is only an example based on our experience. To set a date for your application release, you need to talk to your development partner. In this section, you can only describe desirable dates and your available budget. You can later add details and more accurate data after a discussion with your development partner. Your efforts should lead to a measurable result.
Think about how to quantify your goals and provide your vision in this part of your brief. Once you add these elements to your software project brief, you will get an initial version of your project plan.
Download our project brief template and take the first step towards effective software project planning.
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