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What is Offshore Software Development and How To Use It?
July 26, 2022
Business
Offshore software development has gotten some praise in the industry for quite some time. Different companies have utilized it for a variety of good reasons. Not only does it help reduce software development costs, but it can also improve the quality of the output.
If you haven’t looked into this yet, this article can serve as your guide. We will talk about what offshore software development is and how you can use it to your advantage. You’ll also know the different benefits it gives to a business. So get your notes ready, and let’s get right to the article.
What Is Offshore Software Development?
To put it in simple terms, it is very close to the term “outsourcing” in software development. Doing offshore software development means you are offshoring or giving software development tasks to another team in a different location – hence the word offshore. Now you might wonder what development tasks are involved here?
- Coding
- Custom development
- Software support
- Mobile application
- Custom applications
- Web design
- System maintenance
- And more
The rise in popularity of software development delegation is quite normal because it helps businesses achieve better quality products with less supervision going through hiring and training processes.
To be cost-efficient, most businesses would hire another team rather than start from scratch to build their dedicated development team. The latter choice entails more responsibility.
The business would have to hire the right app developers with the correct set of skills. They will also need to undergo briefing and training to assure a high-quality outcome. But by using an offshore software development team, businesses can bank on their skills and experience.
What’s excellent about offshore teams is that they can cater to different businesses in any niche. You could be a SaaS company, a sneaker shop, a lingerie store, furniture, and appliance, etc. These offshore teams have already been established and have taken on different projects from various businesses in different industries.
Types Of Offshore Software Development Services
Below are the different services you can leverage from these offshore development teams. Check out each one of them to see if it’s a need for your business.
1. QA Testing
QA has been an integral element in any software activity of a business. Because ensuring quality no matter what field you’re in helps make your company competitive. And offshore teams can significantly help with this endeavor.
Going offshore with QA helps your programming or development team by taking this important task off their workload. Your team might not find the bugs and errors because of the exhaustion of making the product in the first place.
Delegating these tasks to a fresh and capable team is an excellent approach to finding errors while finding solutions without exhausting your developers. Offshore teams usually have tech stack expertise and proven strategies to find product flaws.
2. UI/UX Design
Any top digital marketing course or brand will tell you how important UI/UX design is to retention and conversion. This is why more and more companies have brought more attention to this aspect of their product. They know how design helps with engaging their market. It helps in making customers stay longer on their website or application.
User interface (UI) design pertains to the aesthetic, creative design, and visual elements that your users see. This can cover the font used, the background color, typography, images, menu bar, sidebar, and others.
While user experience (UX) design refers to the experience that your customer will and has had with your product. It covers how easy it was for them to find what they’re looking for in your application or website.
You have the option to hire a professional that focuses on UX while another one for UI. But the most ideal would be to hire an individual that does both.
The good thing is that most offshore development teams offer this type of service. Being around in the industry for some time allows them to make all complex infrastructure simple. By riding on their experience, you’re assured of an intuitive application or website.
3. Mobile App Development
Mobile application development is usually out of the scope of most in-house development teams. Some businesses also don’t want to go through the hiring process of onboarding employees individually for this sole reason.
This is why offshore software development teams offer this service. Not only can they provide high-quality products, but hiring them is more cost-effective for the company since they won’t need to provide another office or space for them.
4. Web Development
Most businesses hire a development professional when it comes to their website. However, a one-man show could mean longer working time before things get done. This is costly for some because web developers are paid by the hour.
But with offshore development, your web development needs can be done much faster because they work in teams. Plus, a fast turnover incentivizes the offshore team because it would delight their client.
5. eCommerce Development
This particular task will allow offshore developers to build or restructure your eCommerce store in the most efficient way possible. These teams can implement any marketing automation system that can aid with the efficiency of your business.
Offshore teams can also help with user experience by making your overall store searchable within a few clicks or keyword research. They’ll ensure the overall structure is optimized for easy browsing and searching.
They can also provide unique applications that can make your eCommerce store the most efficient version of itself. Building applications to address complex systems and processes are the forte of these offshore development teams.
Hiring them can yield a great ROI in your business in the long run. Again, they are well-versed in finding solutions for companies’ problems and needs.
6. Software Development
Having your software, no matter its purpose, is beneficial for your business. You can have an application that’s tailored to your business needs to make things simpler and more efficient.
Offshore development teams can do any type of software development. It can be for your brand software, an in-house application, listing software, or your social media management tool. These teams have the tools and knowledge to deliver what you need.
Benefits Of Going For Offshore Software Development
Now that you know what offshore software development is and what services they usually offer, it’s time to know the advantages and benefits of hiring an offshore team.
I. Cost-efficient
Going for offshore development is a cost-efficient route to take for most businesses. This is the most budget-friendly decision to make if the software is needed to be made for the business to excel.
Why? Because if you hire an offshore team, you get rid of the overhead costs like office rent, payroll, software testing, recruitment fees, insurance benefits, etc. All those things are needed when you hire a new set of employees.
And every business knows how vital being liquid is. Money is one of the most important elements that keep an operation running. If they overspend on this area, they might run out of cash to work with.
II. Increased Productivity
When you go for offshore development, you and your team get more time into your hands. You get to put more energy and time into essential matters. Everyone becomes more efficient and productive.
It also helps in avoiding burnout which employees commonly experience. Since some businesses just started opening back up because of the pandemic, they’re trying to minimize costs by letting other employees carry more responsibilities.
Little did they know that such a move could negatively impact their workforce. This can bring lower-quality output, product defects, resignation, and many more.
So rather than risking these things, don’t hesitate to outsource some tasks when needed. It can help your employees be more efficient and productive in other areas of your business.
III. Faster Turnover For Business Growth
Most offshore development teams will assign a group of people in their company to only focus on your project. This, in return, will give out a faster turnover of whatever you need from them.
This is unlike your in-house software team, wherein they’re balancing different tasks at once. Not only does this impede quality, but it also takes time for everything to be finished.
Additionally, it allows foraster implementation because when the offshore team gives you the product, they would have tested it for bugs and errors multiple times already. So when you receive the product, it’s ready for immediate implementation.
Having a working product immediately that went through QA can also help startups be more confident with their pitch decks when facing a venture capitalist or an investor. They can rest assured that the quality of the product is top-notch.
IV. Access To Experience And Knowledge
When you tap offshore software development teams, you’re also tapping into their years of experience and knowledge in the industry. Their years in the industry indicates their expertise and experience in the field.
They likely encountered several challenges for which they have already found solutions. They have worked with several businesses under different niches, which has helped expand their knowledge on how to do certain things correctly.
Hiring them reduces the guesswork in your operations because it would be the offshore’s team job to do this for you. This helps in making everything in your business more efficient and optimized.
V. Up To Date Technologies
If there’s a business or team that’s up to date with technologies and global technology trends in the space, it would be the offshore software development team. They need to be constantly in the loop with these developments because their niche is very competitive.
If you lack the proper tools and systems to fix a product or build it from scratch, businesses are quick to look for another company that can fulfill their needs at a top level. So rest assured that most offshore teams only use updated technology and systems to satisfy their clients.
When To Hire An Offshore Software Development Team?
Now that we’re done with the benefits and advantages of hiring an offshore software development team, this section talks about when to hire them. It will guide you on what you need to prepare and answer before contacting an offshore team.
A. Define The Problem/Need Of Your Business
To make things easier, you need to define this particular aspect of your business first. Finding the problem or need of your business will put everyone on the same page. You’ll know exactly what you need for the offshore team to do.
This is the very first thing to identify because you’re going to convey this to your outsourced developers. Clearly defining this will also help the team know what they’re expected of.
B. Take Note Of Skills And Knowledge Needed
The next step is determining the skills and knowledge needed to complete the tasks. Since software development is a vast field, certain skills are needed to address a certain problem.
What you can do is to take note of what project you want made to know what kind of tech stack expertise you’re looking for. There are times that when you present an idea to an offshore team, they’ll know exactly what’s needed. Sometimes they have a team for it while others wouldn’t have any for that specific issue.
A great offshore team is humble enough to acknowledge that they can’t take on your needs or may not be able to do it at a high quality, which will move them to refer you to another business. However, this is usually not the case since most offshore teams have well-diversified developers. They could be flexible no matter the problem presented to them.
C. Plan Your Budget
How much are you willing to spend on this initiative? Is your budget set, or do you have more room to negotiate with? It’s important to define this as well since you wouldn’t want to go overboard in your project.
You can convey this to the offshore team as well. Sometimes these teams want to know how much budget you are willing to spend so they can tell the different pros and cons.
To know that you’re not overspending, it’s good to also search for the average rate of the service you’re planning to get. This will help you check if you’re over paying for a service or you have a great deal.
Best Practices For Working With Offshore Software Developers
We’ve covered all important points when hiring for offshore software development. The only topic missing now would be the best practices when working with these teams. The points listed below will help make your partnership with an outsourced team more effective and productive.
a. Preparing Your Company
You wouldn’t want to catch your employees by surprise that you’ve hired an offshore software development team. Inform them beforehand that you will be assigning some software development responsibilities to them.
Discuss how it may affect certain operations and how specific processes are handled. Explain how important communication is during this particular time in your business. The same goes for transparency.
Let them know that you and the offshore team have one goal in mind. And that is to develop an excellent product or improve the services or platform of the business.
b. Knowledge Sharing
Knowledge sharing, if possible, should be communicated to your company and the offshore team to succeed in reaching your desired goals.
There will be times when the outsourced team will ask for some documents and insights on certain aspects of the business or its operations; your employees should not hesitate to present the records and information needed by the team.
c. Stay In The Loop
It’s always good to be updated on where you are with projects. It gives you a timeline of how long the development will take. Although it is a good sign that offshore teams can work independently, it doesn’t hurt to stay in the loop of things to ensure everything goes according to schedule and concerns won’t cause unnecessary delays.
Collaboration is essential for success. It helps mistakes be spotted earlier and can be answered before in the whole development process. What some businesses do here is assign an employee that’s closely in tandem with the offshore team.
This employee can provide information and documents that the team needs. He can also be the one overlooking where things are in development. This makes everything more efficient and fast.
Conclusion
Hopefully, you’ve learned a lot about offshore software development in this article. All the things you need to know have been discussed here. But among all of the points and subtopics mentioned, I believe that you should put more importance on knowing when to hire these offshore teams.
Not everyone has to outsource another software development team, but if your business needs great talent with less cost, following the points above will be of great help. Take note also of the best practices to follow to achieve your set goals.
Get a free quote for your custom software development needs from AxiomQ. We have helped businesses make top-tier web products and applications for several years already and have served satisfied clients
About the author:
Burkhard Berger is the founder of Novum™. Follow Burkhard on his journey from $0 to $100,000 per month. He’s sharing everything he learned in his income reports on Novum™ so you can pick up on his mistakes and wins.
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