DEV Community: Uliana Mazan

In-House vs. Outsourcing: Winning the Cost-Effectiveness Battle

Uliana Mazan — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 08:48:20 +0000

Have you ever been lost in thought about why such an enormous company as Google relies upon outsourcing services? And why Amazon doesn't? And when would these two counter strategies come to the golden balance?

Outsourcing and insourcing: The rationale behind leaders choices

Let's start at the end. The answer to the last question is close to 'never' as every enterprise addresses its unique business requirements and is driven by sometimes sacred and secret motivation to outsource or not. Amazon, for example, avoids cooperating with a third-party vendor because they consider it undesirable to share the company's development processes.

Google, on the contrary, successfully implements outsourcing strategies by delegating a scope of responsible tasks, like IT infrastructure management, software development and maintenance, and some other important IT services to external vendors. According to Statista , Google's revenue amounted to $113 billion in 2019 and reached $41 billion in Q1 2020 which proves that the enterprise goes perfectly in line with a principle 'does what they’re best at and outsources the rest.

For an impressive conglomerate, cost-effectiveness may not be pivotal, however, middle- and small-sized companies prove to be more price-oriented. Though two years ago Outsourcing Portal International named less focus on cutting cost to be a number one trend during 2019, in general, cost reduction remains the top reason for outsourcing.(source)

What makes outsourcing financially attractive to SMBs?

To find an answer, here’re some facts and sources speaking for themselves.

The global market of outsourcing revenue doubled during the last decade and amounted to around $ 92 billion in 2019 with a predicted $98 billion in 2020-2024.
More than 90 % of the U.S. working population is open to freelance or temporary jobs.
People witness the shift in outsourcing destinations: Europe presents a massive talent pool - more than 6 million highly competitive professional developers for a reasonable hourly price.
56 % of companies prefer to outsource application development to third parties.
74 % of CFOs had to move a part of their in-house workers to permanent remote positions as a result of the continuing coronavirus pandemic.

Why businesses opt for outsourcing software development
The following are some ways how to optimize your budgeting strategies with a trusted outsourced software development company.

Stay Concentrated
No matter what business sector you are engaged in, sooner or later you encounter software services that are out of your general competence. At this point, the company's decision divides into managing new obligations alone or delegating them to a remote provider.

Both methods may result in cost fluctuations. As not all companies are ready to onboard new specialists, they initially try to broaden the responsibilities of the existing crew. If the in-house team's attention is split into more segments, multitasking inevitably leads to lower quality of maintenance, frequent mistakes and general disbalance. Hiring an outsourced team is a piece of cake when a company is ready to entrust a part of responsible though minor back-end obligations onto a third party and get more concentrated on the corporate atmosphere and specific business niche.

Regular Payroll
This factor is considered to be the most reasonable one when speaking about outsourcing financial effectiveness, mainly because the in-house team typically costs a fortune. The statistics show that full-time employees tend to earn 58 % more than distant sources of labor. The cooperation with an outsourced development company implies one-off payment for a specific bunch of functions (commonly, for actual hours worked) and when the task is complete you may resolve whether to address this software vendor's assistance in case of necessity again or say goodbye forever.

On the contrary, sustaining an in-house team turns out to be financially tiresome in terms of fixed expenses on different types of insurances, family and medical leaves, overtime compensations, paid vacations, educational and retirement benefits, etc. What’s more, the remuneration must be paid to all hired developers on a regular basis even to temporary or part-time specialists.

Administrative Responsibilities
The term 'in-house' literally means the building where you should locate your team. It's not a secret that every full-time employee cannot but think about how much time and money they spend on getting to the office, whether it is hot or cold there and where they can have lunch. Of course, these are some basic needs, but as a boss you should think of providing the accommodation, rent cost, comfortable working conditions, hardware quantity and quality, software services and so on that inevitably increase a general monthly bill.

In comparison, hiring a remote team deprive you of such a financial burden. For example, your outsourced software developers' location is not dependable on yours and may not be connected to any specific physical place. The present choice opportunities allow all-sized enterprises to opt for any outsourcing vendor around the globe. From the financial point of view, you may choose any country with the most favorable economic situation: a number of developing countries have lower taxes and lower economic levels thus salary rates of local developers can please your expectations. Moreover, an outsourced software development vendor is responsible for updating its hardware and timely scaling for faster project delivery.

Staff Turnover
When it comes to team management, many employers keep headache pills in stock. Dealing with people is never easy and commonly involves much effort and great expenses. If your goal is to build a long-term commitment with your staff, if you want to have your own team of trusted workers, if you seek quick and direct access to your team, opt for in-house. In this case, you can create a unique family loyal to the company's business insights but get ready to control not only their work. The process of finding, interviewing, recruiting, testing, educating just one candidate takes months and in case of losing an expert (it happens all the time in the IT sphere as top on-demand specialists tend to change job positions once per several years) everything starts all over again.

To close a vacant position is time-consuming and in terms of business, time is money. Obviously, it's better to rely upon remote crew that opens unlimited hiring opportunities. Your company can get free from recruiting issues and decrease costs by outsourcing a certified tight-knit cohesive team. As a bonus, you dive into the global talent pool where the best licensed IT specialists, like software engineers, project managers, UX/UI designers, business analytics, etc., are already fished for you.

Conclusions
An outsourcing model looks to be way more cost-efficient than insourcing. And it holds true for both one-time tasks and long-terms projects that are beyond your professional skillset. A proficient outsourcing company requires no additional expenses while laser-focusing on software development tasks you set before them. No distracting factors and onboarding periods.

Here at HebronSoft, we do value our customers, and perfectly know how to save your time and budget. Just contact us, so we can help estimate your project.

5 Top Trends for Business Owners to Overcome the Covid-19 Pandemic

Uliana Mazan — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 10:47:49 +0000

The Covid-19 pandemic infected both people and businesses – owners have to face new challenges worldwide. According to Statista, 71% of U.S. companies stated sales decreased, and 75% of businesses had problems with supply chains. As for other advanced economies, most countries experienced an increase in unemployment rate (Canada – by 4%, UK – by 1.6%, Germany – by 1.2%).

Was the year 2020 the ill fate for business owners? Billionaires don’t think so. According to Forbes, the real time worth of top-5 world’s billionaires skyrocketed by $290 billion in 2020. Furthermore, the year brought 56 new U.S. billionaires. What is the reason for some getting rich, and others lose the lot? The pandemic is high time for business owners to welcome innovations and adjust their companies to new trends.

Everything seems entirely clear: when you keep up with the time, your business constantly grows. Which are the top-5 trends for a company to overcome the pandemic?

1. General workspace features: how to make remote working effective?

Since the pandemic has started, more than 62% of employees had to cross over to remote working. As such, the lack of coordination between different departments led to a decrease in a company’s efficiency in general.

According to analytics, United communications as a Service (UCaaS) platforms are the most effective instruments to get the highest employees’ productivity. As for the main benefits of such solutions, business owners name scaling, expenses decrease, and convenient administration.

Phone, email, and messengers are the three pillars of every company, but the collected information is hard to be stored in one place. Managers cannot control and analyze contacts effectively. As such, UCaaS platforms provide unification, saving time and making the interaction between teams more effective.

2. Predictive Analytics: be one step ahead of your customer needs

The sector of predictive analytics is among the most promising industries. The pandemic forces business owners to match customers’ needs and predict their changes. How can you understand the future preferences of your target audience? Such a sector is based upon Big Data technologies.
Predictive analytics helps business owners increase the efficiency of the target marketing and commerce. For instance, outcomes of the analytical department are used for pricing optimization. Moreover, a company requires effective software for customer clustering. The main goal of predictive analytics lies in the increase of profit margin.
What are the main stages of predictive analytics?

Collecting of inside data (assortment of goods and services, sales turnover, pricing).
Collecting outside data (diverse factors may impact a business – weather conditions, tourism development rate, etc.).
Deep learning models are trained on the basis of obtained inside and outside data to provide business-owners precise predictions.

3. Virtual assistants and chatbots

Before the pandemic, customers understood “no service as the best service,” preferring to avoid consultations. Meanwhile, the year 2020 shifted the trend, and the number of customer contacts rapidly increased. COVID-19 interfered with the private life of customers, and people needed to get instant answers.

The Artificial Intelligence tools for customer support become among the most important components of interaction with customers. What if your company is not mature enough for the implementation of chatbots and virtual assistants? No matter what is your specification and volumes, AI-based assistants are something to help you cut costs and workforce. Analysts predict that 80% of businesses worldwide will implement different ways of chatbots automation by the end of 2021.

Getting a quick answer in an emergency is distinguished as the most frequent reason to use chatbots (37% of customers). Meanwhile, virtual assistants solve essentially more issues: resolving a complaint or problem, providing customers with detailed answers or explanations, etc. Source

4. VR solutions: a fresh approach to “need-to-contact” sectors

The pandemic impacted e-commerce positively – the U.S. e-commerce market shows 32.4% growth compared to 2019 ($794 billion). Meanwhile, sectors that require close contact between sellers and buyers undergo substantial decline.

For instance, the industry of real estate requires a potential buyer to inspect a house (apartment, office building) carefully to come up with the final decision. The pandemic and lockdowns shortened the number of contacts between buyers and realtors. As a result, the number of home sales listings decreased by 40%. The pandemic has changed the industry, forcing realtors to find the innovative solution. Virtual Reality technologies are ready to revolutionize real estate.

The year 2020 was the real boom for VR technologies implementation. Potential sellers have got an opportunity to inspect real estate property worldwide. The Goldman-Sachs study convinces that about 1.4 million realtors are expected to use VR technologies by 2025. Hence, a new trend provides companies with a chance to lay powerful ground for the future.

5. Innovation technologies to improve your voice, sound, and video

The world has suddenly become distant in every aspect, but our psychological patterns stay unchangeable. This said, the quality of your voice, sound, and video may impact the outcomes of negotiations. World-known corporations offer effective solutions for noise-canceling or sound improvement. The unexpected apartment renovation upstairs may spoil your project. Hence, don’t neglect this aspect.

On the other hand, this “pandemic trend” improves working conditions, and business owners are expected to implement the solutions in the future. Psychologists indicate that the quality of voice affects from 18 to 28% of the final decision made by a person you are communicating with.
Challenges or opportunities: the controversial impact of COVID-19

There is no doubt that the COVID-19 impacted the world economic situation negatively. 88% of people worry about the pandemic’s influence on economies (86% think about consequences for health). Meanwhile, the pandemic is somehow an instrument of natural selection. Business owners need to adjust their companies to future demands. Otherwise, they won’t be competitive.

Innovations may help businesses to enter a brand new level, while many owners have been ignoring them previously. COVID-19 opened the two ways for companies: either you develop and implement new trends or you run out.

Most instruments are hard for business owners to be implemented. When you need a company to develop, apply our experienced professionals who are ready to configure and customize technologies for your business. Contact us to get more details.

Why to Leverage M-Learning and Microlearning for Business?

Uliana Mazan — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 14:07:11 +0000

Incorporating EdTech software solutions for business can give a really hard time to middle- and large-scale companies that already have corporate e-learning platforms and infrastructure. The older edtech software solutions usually fall short of today’s ever-growing technology requirements. This makes companies modernize their current digital learning software and applications to keep the professional training process up to par.

Why e-learning for business is so popular nowadays

With this, the increasing need for workforce development and lockdown times have given rise to the high number of new software solutions for business e-learning. The size of the global e-learning market is projected to be over $240 billion by 2022. There have appeared many corporate e-learning trends for 2021 showing businesses how to revamp their workforce training efficiencies.
It is also worth mentioning that the younger generation of employees are highly motivated to get robust professional training services. Comprising the major share of the US workforce, 87 percent of millennials consider development opportunities to be very important for job excellence. Millennials are tech-savvy, good at using smartphones with various home and business mobile applications, and open to new ways of virtual learning.
Statista revealed the popularity of modern corporate learning technologies among employees worldwide. The report shows that no matter what channel they use for e-learning, the vast majority of today’s employees find it very helpful for professional and career growth.

What eLearning trends are all the rage for 2021
Among the e-learning trends on the EdTech business horizon for 2021 and beyond are definitely mobile learning and microlearning. These practices for workforce training combine most of the digital amenities the employees rated in the report above, like AR/VR, video and audio materials, gamification techniques, and others. Although overlapping at times, i.e. the use of smartphones, both mLearning and microlearning can reinforce each other, if implemented right.
What’s really exciting is that medium-sized and large enterprises start rethinking their L&D strategies. Over 40% of companies are reported to thrive on continuous professional development for their employees and upskill the workforce by 2024. So, let’s have a closer look at what these eLearning methodologies are, and see how to combine them for collaborative workforce training.

What is Mobile learning?
As the name implies, mobile learning, usually shortened as mLearning, means a remote way of acquiring new skills and proficiency via smartphones or other mobile devices. That’s an open secret that mobile-first user experience is now prevailing in EdTech. The number of smartphone owners worldwide is very large and is still counting. According to Newzoo’s Global Mobile Market Report, the global amount of active smartphone users will be close to 4 billion in 2022.
As an easy yet meaningful way of e-learning content delivery, mobile learning attracts various cohorts of smartphone users. Both everyday and business users may differ in age, geolocation, behavior, mobile applications, and LMS (learning management system) they prefer. But the mLearning trend is here to stay.

Benefits of mobile learning for business
So, if you are about to improve the professional training for your workforce or your B2B customers, what do you get with mLearning?

Cost-efficiency. Unlike traditional ways of employee training courses coming at a high cost, mobile learning helps your L&D activities arrive at a fair price. You need no additional spending on hiring qualified training staff, renting meeting and workshop rooms, and ordering tons of printed materials.
Instead, once you have a mobile application developed, your employees can enjoy location-agnostic learning experience at its fullest. Letting them stay at home or at the office, mobile learning can save you a lot of money.
Enhanced engagement. While younger employees are highly motivated to continue their professional learning path, the elder generation may require an additional stimulus. Mobile learning provides easy-to-use training tools for business users of any age, skillset, and proficiency level.
Improved knowledge transfer and retention. Conventional instructor-led classes are largely not so comprehensible as new digital e-learning ways. In fact, mLearning can convey the message in a much more interesting and better way. The most compelling forms of mobile learning provide high rates of professional knowledge acquisition and reinforcement.
Flexible on-demand learning flow. The possibility to learn on the go, just at the moment of need is what brings mLearning much appreciation from business users. All the end-users of your mobile learning app are free to choose when and where they should go on with their professional training.
Collaborative learning and analytics. Mobile learning allows users to gain confidence while accessing vast online content resources via mobile apps. End-users can share their eLearning achievements with their teammates, peers, and managers. It helps L&D department timely track an employee’s learning progress and check it against the set KPIs.
Device-agnostic or BYOD approach. The principle of bringing your own device (BYOD) enable business users to leverage mLearning app solutions on preferable mobile platforms, be it either iOS or Android. You can access your mobile app for mLearning while having some spare time on the job or staying at home. Backed by responsive UI design, mLearning applications can be run on any smartphone with any display size.

What is Microlearning?
Microlearning is another great EdTech trend for 2021. The approach is created to improve business user learning efficiency through small pieces of training data. The educational information is delivered via various digital channels, however the key principle remains the same. All the learning topics are divided into one-task-only bits of content. The microlearning strategy allows users to effectively achieve long-term professional goals while completing short problem-solving learning assignments.
Microlearning has recently gained much traction among business users due to its laser-focus on the workforce training excellence. The learning process is very accessible and time-saving. All this makes microlearning be the best option for professional growth, especially nowadays when employees have intensive workloads and shorter attention spans.

Benefits of microlearning for business
Adopting microlearning software solutions for corporate users can give business owners a set of competitive advantages.

Personalization. Microlearning allows users to customize their professional training flow and prioritize some must-have skill development tasks. A mobile app that leverages microlearning can easily manage employee metrics, utilize their personal historical data, and streamline the curriculum to tailor it to individual learning goals.
Single-task learning sessions. Microlearning tasks are designed so as to let business learners focus on separate training topics and tasks. Employees show greater learning results when they bridge their skills gaps by overcoming challenges one at a time.
Time-saver attitude. To deliver better user experience, microlearning practices pay much attention to be both time- and cost-efficient learning solutions. An average user learning session takes usually no longer than ten minutes. This is the right time frame to keep your workforce engaged and motivated with the content they learn.
Multimedia-driven learning process. Much like mobile learning, microlearning harnesses the potential of digital transformation in EdTech. Various technology solutions and digital formats, like videos, AR/VR mobile apps, interactive dashboards etc., are used for microlearning. These features help enhance the corporate learning process, and make it more informative and immersive.
Repetitive and relevant content acquisition. Thanks to its greater flexibility and accessibility, microlearning solutions allow end-users to reach better results through the selection of the best learning content available. Repeating pieces of learning content helps improve the retention of professional knowledge, and the overall training progress
Quick assessment and reinforcement. Short lessons provide business learners with blink-of-an-eye feedback on their training progress. A mobile app powered by microlearning can instantly process and come up with users’ results. It gives employees much time to think over the mistakes and improve what they have already learned.

Bottom line
Companies do need great software e-learning solutions to stay competitive in 2021 and further. Being an integral part of any professional e-learning system, mobile learning and microlearning are the best ways to streamline your current corporate training software solution. They are not interchangeable though, and it’s better to use them both to supplement and enhance the performance of your employees’ e-learning process.
No matter be it a desktop-based eLearning platform or a mobile application, your software solution for workforce training has to efficiently address all today’s challenges. Here at HebronSoft, we perfectly know how to optimize your existing business e-learning for internal teams and B2B customers. Contact us to get a robust custom-built software solution that boosts your workforce remote learning efficiency. Let us help you keep the wheels of your business turning.

Addressing 6 top problems in outsourcing software development and industry’s elephant in the room

Uliana Mazan — Fri, 26 Feb 2021 11:12:51 +0000

If you are reading this article, you might be a business owner that is at the stage of thinking about starting a new software development project. And most likely, you can’t decide what kind of collaboration with software engineers to choose - in-house or outsourcing team. Each approach has its own pros and cons, its benefits, and pain points for you as for the business owners. Today, we are not going to convince you that one approach is better than another or vice versa, we just want to make your decision process a little easier and more reasonable.

There are significant numbers of reasons to outsource engineers for your project: cost efficiency, quick access to the talent pool, more focus on the growing business instead of managing a software team, etc. But today, being an experienced outsourced software development company, we would like to share with you 6 the most common software development outsourcing problems you may have during the development software for your product.

What are the biggest risks with outsourcing a remote team?
Having a deep tech experience and expertise in software development and appropriate knowledge from working with leading US, Canadian and European companies, we created the list of the most typical problems with outsourcing software development team for preventing more people from possible business failures and troubles.

Also, we provide you with the solutions for outsourcing problems, and recommend how to avoid all these perils working according to the outsourcing approach of cooperation for you could get a ton of advantages from your decision. So here is a list of the most usual and typical problems in outsourcing:

Lack of Experience in IT Outsourcing
Project Management
Time and Language Obstacles
Complying with regulations Service Quality Cost Overruns Mismatched Expectations

So let’s take a deeper look at each of them!

Problem 1: Lack of Experience in IT Outsourcing
Outsourcing is not a new phenomenon, but it still has big popularity nowadays. But even despite this, there are a lot of people, including business owners, that don’t have a clear understanding of how this mechanism in this industry is working. And if you are choosing a software development company for turning your idea into a real digital product, this aspect can have a prominently negative impact on achieving your business goals.

Solution:
When you start to think about creating a new software product, first and foremost you should set up the reasonable and clear goals and expectations for your outsourcing team and engineers in particular. We recommend you arrange everything that is related to the development process: product and development vision, the stages of development, all deadlines, budget, etc.

This process is not such difficult as it may seem if you have the right company next to you, a company that really understands your business needs and expectations. A good outsourcing development company will take you at each stage of the development process and explain everything in a simple language you would be able to understand. They will also help you to establish all project requirements, choose the best tech stack based on your needs.

Problem 2: Project Management
It might be a little hard to have successful project management when you and your team are located on different sides of the globe, in this case you should remember that the culture varies from one city to another. Every country has its own cultural features, some might be more independent, others need straight guidance to follow, the others are more cost-oriented instead of results and vice versa. You should keep in mind these factors during the selecting an outsourced software development vendor such as losing control in project management can lead to significant time and budget expenses.

Solution:
First of all, pay a big attention to the initial stage of your project development - finding the right vendor. Do a deep research of each company you are considering, learn the cultural specifics of all regions, compare the rates and check reviews ( for this you can use Clutch.co platform). Likely if you differ too much from each other, it will definitely take a lot of time to establish and coordinate your collaboration, set goals, create a common vision and manage the whole development process, at HebronSoft we use Agile and Scrum Methodologies that are very helpful for transparent communication, quick response, setting clear expectations, and tracking results.

Problem 3 : Time and Language Barriers
When you are working with a remote team, most likely you will need to communicate with them in different time zones and will have language barriers, as you are located in different spots of the globe. And if you are working with 12 hours difference, your working hours may never overlap. Basing on geography, communication also can be a huge challenge, as you speak in different languages. And even if your software provider assures you in their high language skills, sometimes it appears that sometimes it is hard to understand each other because of different pronunciation, sentence structure, etc.

According to the last statistic, a lot of software engineers have a wide range of technical skills, but at the same time they can speak English just at a basic level. At first sight, these two factors do not seem very important, but actually they can have a huge negative impact on the whole development process.

Solution:
When you are starting to work with a remote team from a different time zone, first of all, you should set up daily/ weekly meetings with them. If the difference is too big, both of you should look for a compromise, for example, you can start your working day earlier than you’re used to, and your outsourced team instead can shift theirs closer to evening or vice versa. Also, keep in mind about changing time ( some countries don’t have this practice) and national days of each country. We recommend discussing these two aspects at the very beginning of your collaboration.

To avoid communication problems in outsourcing, we strongly recommend interviewing each participant of the team by yourself. At HebronSoft we pay great attention to the language skills of our engineers, most of them have at least an upper-intermediate level. Also, we handle a good practice taking a project manager who is responsible for communication with a client and a team.

Problem 4: Cost Overrun
There are a lot of reasons to outsource a development team from other countries and reducing and operating development costs is one of their top. But in reality, it may be quite different if you working with an unreliable outsourcing development company. Sometimes it can lead to cost overruns in addition to the other set of problems of outsourcing software development. According to the study that was conducted by McKinsey found, there are nearly 66 % of software development companies have cost overruns, and a third of them do not fit the schedule and exceed all development deadlines. The reason for this can be that some engineers can do very ordinary tasks for a long time and in the end they still have a lot of bugs and mistakes that lead to more billed hours overall.

Solution:
First and foremost, be realistic how much the development of your digital product, in the long run, can cost. For this, we recommend comparing the price and time of similar products for having a general picture of what to expect. The best way to avoid the cost overruns and create a budget is to find a reliable and well-respected software development partner. Working with them you can ask to have an experienced project manager which would be responsible for setting the whole development process, handing out tasks, and then monitoring their performance.

Also, you can use the project managers' tools that help all the participants of development (you, your project manager, and development team) to be on the same page and keep the project orderly and on schedule and budget.

Problem 5: Software development security problems (Intellectual Property and Data Privacy)
The software development of any digital product always goes with the risks of losing intellectual property and data security. Nowadays, the data is the most important records that every company has. They find a huge value in collecting and using data for the different specific needs. But not all development companies can guarantee you that your unique business ideas, plans and trade secrets will not be known by the third party who doesn't have relation to you and your project.

Solution:
To overcome this issue, first, at the very beginning, you have to make sure if your outsourced software development company uses technical safeguards for protecting all the date they work with. If you are EU citizen, pay attention whether they comply with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). If you are from the US and are going to develop a health mobile app, make sure that your software vendor complies with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). If the company ensures data privacy and security, it means that you can be confident for all your data - whether it is the list of your customers’ personal data or all your website recordings.

Problem 6: Unmatched Expectations
If you are a business owner and is thinking about the software development of your new project, you definitely imagine your already developed product in every single detail, how everything should work there, what value it should bring to you and your customers. But when it comes to reality, it does not work such smoothly as you could visualize. Sometimes, the reason for this is that client has too high expectations unknowing how everything really works. The customer may think that the outsourced software development provider will take care of everything that is related to the project and he doesn’t have anything to do. But it’s not exactly right.

Solution:
All the best practices tell that the best way to avoid these outsourcing issues is to discuss beforehand the roles of each one who takes part in the development process. Also, pay attention to the discussion of expected results making sure that your software provider has appropriate knowledge and experience to deliver your product in the fastest time and defined budget. So, selecting a software provider, be sure it completely suits all your project requirements. For example, if you are looking for a software product development service, first of all, to make a deep analysis of your candidates, take a look at their portfolios and clients’ reviews.

The bottom Line
Not all outsourcing software development companies will fail your project! Don’t hesitate to hire outsourcing software developers from other countries, just make sure that you are choosing the best candidate that fit all your specific business needs and follow the most important requirements. If you still have any questions related to our article or software product development in general, contact us and we will do our best to cover all your gaps and help to overcome all pitfalls outsource software development.

Outsourcing Software Development: Why Some Companies Still Have Bad Reputation

Uliana Mazan — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 13:05:54 +0000

Gradually and steadily outsourcing is being implemented in all possible spheres of business from accounting to IT services and multi-size enterprises are already experiencing its profitable advantages. In fact, outsourced software development is blooming due to a number of reasons that we've covered in our previous article.

In addition, the overall influence of the COVID-19 epidemic became a serious game changer in how companies had to accommodate to new circumstances and reorientate their workflow processes to work-from-home strategy. Financial Times called it 'the WFH revolution of 2020' and claimed that the distant model of cooperation is on the rise. From an outsourcing perspective, delegating software development to a remote company means a great way out in case of unpredictable force majeure. Moreover, the actual borders are blurred as it enables to involve initiatives with geographically dispersed teams.

The facts about outsourcing you should consider

It’s no secret that everything in this universe has its own flipside. The same goes for outsourced software development. So, what makes businesses be uncertain when it comes to outsourcing development projects to third-party companies? Let’s dive deeper into the matter.

As one bad apple spoils the others, some underperforming IT companies and agencies can drive bad reputation to the entire industry. However, just because bad things happen doesn’t necessarily mean you should drop the idea of partnering with a robust outsourcing dev company. Here’re some key factors you should keep in mind while selecting a decent outside resourcing IT services provider.

Choosing the right outsourcing vendor is never easy as we speak about the consistently growing number of software developers from almost 24 million in 2019 to 29 million in 2024. There are examples of both successful and failed cooperation with software development teams that is why business owners might have some concerns. Here is the list of some typical discomforting employer's pains:

-I have never worked with an outsourcing vendor.
-I have worked with an outsourcing vendor and had a negative experience.
-I don't know how and where to find a suitable outsourcing company.
-It's difficult for me to deal with legal regulations.
-I lack information about the outsourced company's reputation.
-I want to fit my budget.
-I worry about cultural differences and efficient communication.

Market Allocation and Reputation

One should keep in mind that occasional negative situations with an individual outsourced agency or software development freelancer may cloud the reputation of the IT sphere in general.

It's very important to understand that the whole country is not to blame for company-dependant mistakes. However, there still exist some typical features that lead to frequent failures in specific regions.If you look at the world map of average offshore developers' hourly rates, you will notice that the lowest pricing is represented in South Asia with India being the leader among software service providers. Asian countries are glorious when considering their level of mathematical and logical skills but in terms of payment, Indian developers charge the lowest price possible. Why is it so? And how are Indian experience and outsourcing reputation connected? It's a tricky question. Let us analyze fair-mindedly and avoid advertising and stereotyping where possible Source

Hard Skills

When speaking about hard skills people usually mean a number of teachable, measurable, professional abilities, or specific technical knowledge, like reading, speaking foreign languages, computer programming, etc., necessary for fulfilling a particular task.

-The top-notch technical background takes a great share of successful software development thus lack of such hardware architecture in Asian countries worsens the situation. 54 % of Indian companies cannot provide sufficient computer resources in case their employees work from home casting a shadow on in-country software development companies' supplement.

-Poor code quality and refusal to provide technical support is a frequent phenomenon and may become another significant drawback of hiring low-cost Indian developers. Many companies are not suitable for long-term cooperation, refuse to be responsible for writing heavy buggy codes and do not provide sustainable maintenance.

-Business owners commonly have concerns about their intellectual property, more to say, about its technical security from leakage. Imperfect jurisdiction of Asian countries diminishes chances to protect your rights on a robust foundation though the cases of stealing precious data are close to common there.

-India experienced a sufficient British influence however, the general level of English among the Indian population remains not very high. Together with a strong accent, bad language knowledge may lead to misunderstanding and consequently deadline problems or inaccurate project fulfillment.

-One more factor worth mentioning here is the political and economical stability within the country. Any changes in national development, present-day situation, negative social backgrounds create unfavorable conditions thus greatly reflect on the general trust level, salary rates, outsourced workers' well-being, their productiveness and so on.

Soft Skills

Soft Skills By soft skills, people understand general abilities to communicate with others, cooperate, teambuilding, adequate behavior, leadership, creativity, time management and other advanced personality traits that make you a good employee.

-When communicating with Asian partners you will notice a specific approach to negotiations. Their main goal is to please the customer that's why you are unlikely to hear 'no' but instead you will be agreed with. This phenomenon may mislead you as it often conceals the unwillingness to provide their own insights into the task or look for a different and better solution.

-In terms of flexibility, India exposes fruitful soil as they have the biggest talent pool worldwide. However, you should remember that outsourcing one professional freelance developer and the whole remote team differ. You may encounter inconsistent management processes in big software families. Frequent staff turnover usually results in a lack of administrative experience among the seniors.

-Also, one of the reasons why outsourcing software development in South Asia fails is missed timelines. Maybe, the language problem adds to the pile but this happens to many software vendors from time to time. If the deadlines are not well-defined in the contract, be ready to have your project not done in time.

-An outsourced development team may play truant while being paid hourly. You cannot always check whether your remote team is working on your project all the time or whether it is engaged in other orders simultaneously. The sufficient time difference with South-East may result in increasing the bill.

-Some outsourcing vendors lack commitment if not obliged by any official agreements. The whole team may leave you at the most important moment disrupting the service delivery. It happens when the company has multiple orders from different customers due to the lowest prices in the outsourcing market.

Key Thoughts

No matter the location of the software outsourcing company everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes HOW you admit and handle the consequences of the pitfalls is more important. It empowers a sense of mutual trust and inspires further cooperation.

You should always keep an eye on successfully implemented projects, an outsourcing company has done before. Here at HebronSoft, we have a proven track record of software development cases in various industry areas.

If you want to establish a long-term fruitful partnership with an outsourced software company, do pay attention to what you have in common: culture, language, business values, corporate ethics, deadline understanding, reputation priorities, the value of money and even a sense of humor.