Offshore software development allows businesses to overcome challenges in building their software projects. Let’s discover what makes it a cost-effective strategy in building robust software products.
Are you planning to build software? Developing a software product can be tricky as it involves several factors. Generally, it demands top-notch skillsets, knowledge, and experience to deliver projects on time and within the budget.
Since managing software projects in-house can be costly and resource-intensive, businesses now turn to other strategies. They want to hire world-class talent at an affordable cost. To solve this problem, they resort to offshore software development.
Before deciding to offshore your development operations, it’s essential to understand what it is. Will it be worth the investment or a waste of time? Find out in this article.
What is Offshore Software Development?
When you hear the words offshore software development, the first thing that probably comes to your mind is software outsourcing. While the two are synonymous, there is a difference.
In offshoring, a company hires a third-party provider from a foreign country to perform certain tasks or business operations for them. With offshore development, you can choose to outsource some tasks or the entire development project.
Additionally, you have the option to hire an individual developer, team, or software development company. Some of the critical services that an offshore development company provides are coding, development, designing, testing, project management, and others.
More and more businesses choose to outsource their software development to:
- reduce labor costs
- increase project efficiency
- provide flexibility between in-house and offshore teams
- provide access to the latest technology not available in-house
- overcome the glaring lack of tech expertise in their area
- allocate resources where they are most effective.
Key Factors in Choosing a Reliable Offshore Software Development Firm
Hiring an offshore partner is one of the practical routes clients can take to facilitate their development projects. However, one wrong choice and will cost you more. Consider these key factors before signing a contract with an offshore software development company.
Strategic Plan
Before you can expect your project to succeed, you need a well-thought-out plan. Each member from the in-house and offshore teams should understand their roles and responsibilities in the project completion.
By laying out a well-planned strategy, it brings clarity and direction to your team’s workflow. Additionally, a concrete action plan ensures that your project outcome will be deployed successfully at the right time.
Hence, always insist that your offshore development partner craft a well-designed plan before team members work on the project.
Top-Notch Development Team
A development team with high-caliber experience and skill sets is a must for any offshore project. Ensure that your software developers are qualified and highly proficient in handling tasks on hand.
They should be up-to-speed with the latest technologies and can communicate effectively with their team and other stakeholders. This is where a battery of tests and interviews comes in handy. You want to gauge if the offshore developers are highly equipped to handle your requirements.
Intellectual Property
If an offshore vendor is known to be unreliable with keeping trade secrets, then the risks will overshadow all the potential benefits of offshore software development. Copyrights, patents, intellectual property, and other data about your company should always be secure and protected.
Hence, it’s essential to carefully review the intellectual property policy of your potential offshore development provider. An intellectual property asset may include the following:
- Trade secrets – concepts, ideas, and strategies
- Copyrights – for the protection of source code and unique elements of the end product
- Patents – this pertains to ideas, processes, systems, and functions integrated in the software product.
Require your offshore vendor to prepare their IP documents such as the General Agreement, Employee Confidentiality Agreement, and Non-Disclosure Agreement.
Hidden Costs
It’s easy to get swayed by the cost savings brought by outsourcing. The tricky part with offshoring your software development is the hidden cost. Yes, the labor rates from other countries may look tempting on the surface.
However, they only tell a fraction of the real costs of offshoring. So, we encourage you to do your due diligence, especially when expenses are concerned.
Consider time zone differences and communication delays in your outsourcing decision. Keep in mind, real-time communication and collaboration are key to time-efficient project management. Without it, you can’t expect your project flow to go as planned.
Also, another tangible cost you might have to deal with is the travel cost. While remote communication via tools such as Zoom may be convenient for everyone, you may need to visit your offshore teams at some point in time.
Today, traveling to some countries is cheap. But doing this regularly, say quarterly, may be costly in the long run. Aside from food and accommodation, these hidden costs will surely have an impact on your budget.
Performance Evaluation
How do you know if an offshore software development team performs according to the standards you’ve set? A performance analysis is critical to review a team’s performance and assess if the project is successful or not.
Probe if they follow a set of key performance indicators customized for software development. Once you’ve signed up with an offshore vendor, make sure that you also review the KPI periodically.
Work with the Right Offshore Software Development Partner
While companies may choose to develop software applications themselves, they’ll soon realize that outsourcing their project is the best way to go. With offshore software development, they can bring down costs and maintain efficiency.
Additionally, offshore development can deliver superior software performance while you focus on your core business operations. We hope this article encourages you to consider offshoring as part of your business strategies.
At Full Scale, we make software development easy and painless for our clients. If you need to hire software developers, our team of software experts is more than happy to help.
Whether it’s for a mobile app or website, you can count on our offshore development team to handle all the requirements down to a tee.
Have a software application in mind? Contact us so we can get started.
