Effective Strategies for Outsourcing Software Development
Outsourcing software development can save your company vast resources and time when done correctly. Companies often outsource software development tasks offshore because they get access to a skilled and experienced workforce at drastically lower costs.
Outsourcing software development is especially useful if your company doesn’t explicitly deal with software development or technology regularly. If you try to handle software development internally, you’re likely to spend countless hours on trial-and-error. Eventually, you’ll have to go through lengthy recruitment, vetting, and briefing processes to put together a decent software development team.
By outsourcing software development to an external team or an organization that provides offshore development teams, you can circumvent all of those additional redundant costs completely. As such, outsourcing software development can be extremely beneficial when handled correctly.
In this article, we’ll give you an overview of a few effective strategies for outsourcing software development successfully.
Carefully Selecting Which Tasks You Need to Outsource
You probably already have a fair idea about which tasks you want to outsource and why. Perhaps you want software development at a rate you can only find through offshore outsourcing. But you need to go beyond price and ask yourself what your overall project goals with outsourcing and development are.
Projects that lack a clear long-term overview and direction are bound to fail over time. If you’ve developed a road map of your long-term goals with the software, then you’ll be able to hire the right team. Not only will this increase your chance of success, but it will also help you retain your software development team.
The following questions will help you better layout your goals before you outsource software development:
• What type of software development task are you looking to outsource? Is it concerning a website, a subscription system, mobile application, or any other?
• What is the overall purpose of this software? Is it to improve sales? Will it further your marketing efforts?
• Who is going to be using the software? Who’s the end-user? Will potential buyers be using the software? Will it be used internally by your team? This information will help your software development team create an application that’s suitable for the right people.
• What’s your goal with outsourcing? Are you outsourcing because you don’t have access to the right skills in your team? Are you outsourcing because it’s just a one-off project so you can’t hire someone internally? Are you outsourcing to save costs? Do you want access to a broader global talent pool? It’s essential to understand why your outsourcing so you can get the best and right talents.
Once you’ve answered these questions carefully, you’ll have a clear blueprint for why, when, and how you want to go about the outsourcing. This will ensure the long-term success of your efforts.
Selecting the Correct Outsourcing Model
The previous strategy centered on helping you understand which business functions you want to outsource and why. Once you do that, you also need to select the correct outsourcing model.
The following are outsourcing models:
• Onsite Model: You outsource a skilled team of software developers who work onsite near your internal team, which is suitable for organizations that want a direct line of communication. However, this model can’t give you access to a global pool of software developers.
• Offsite Model: You outsource a skilled team of software developers who don’t work within the same premises as your internal team but within proximity. This model is suitable if you don’t need constant communication, but you do need the team to come in for regular briefings.
• Offshore Model: In this model, you outsource the software development work to individuals or a team located in another country. You have to give a detailed project brief and hold all communication online. However, this gives you access to cheaper labor and perhaps a more skilled international team of software developers.
• Onsite/ Offshore Model: In this model, you source work to an onsite team that works in your premises and an offshore team located in another country. The two teams have to be in close communication. The onsite team can handle all data maintenance, whereas the offshore team can handle software development per the project requirements.
• Offsite/ Offshore Model: In this model, you outsource work to an offsite team that’s near your office and an offshore team in another country. The division of work is similar to the onsite/ offshore model.
• Global Delivery Model: In this model, you may have a small onsite team, an offsite team, and offshore software developers distributed across the globe. This model is complex, but it can be beneficial if you need a large team, and you need to allocate different aspects of the project to different teams.
Circumventing the Common Issues with Outsourcing
A common criticism against offshore teams is that they’re less efficient than onsite or offsite teams, even if the individuals within the team are highly skilled. Reasons for this are miscommunication from language barriers, differences in timezones, lack of direct communication, lack of a cohesive software development strategy, etc.
Companies usually opt for blended outsourced teams with onsite and offsite teams to offset some of these challenges. The onsite and offsite teams, in communication with your organization, can better manage the offshore teams and increase efficiency. Regardless of the type of team you put together, you’ll need to spend some time to develop a cohesive strategy on how best to utilize the team.
Conclusion
A common criticism against offshore teams is that they’re less efficient than onsite or offsite teams, even if the individuals within the team are highly skilled. Reasons for this are miscommunication from language barriers, differences in timezones, lack of direct communication, lack of a cohesive software development strategy, etc.
Companies usually opt for blended outsourced teams with onsite and offsite teams to offset some of these challenges. The onsite and offsite teams, in communication with your organization, can better manage the offshore teams and increase efficiency. Regardless of the type of team you put together, you’ll need to spend some time to develop a cohesive strategy on how best to utilize the team.
