Most people looking to outsource work to develop their web or mobile solutions have similar fears. Having worked in this field for several years, I meet clients daily who are keen to get going, but also hesitant at the idea of giving their project over to a distant development team. In this article, I’ll aim to tackle the three main concerns of outsourcing development.
The first and the biggest fear – confidentiality
Confidentiality concerns both startups and owners of small and medium-sized businesses. The problem is, that when a business grows, all of its inner processes eventually become transparent, so confidentiality agreements require constant updates.
When one of my clients raises a question of confidentiality, we always ask two questions:
- Why do you think that there’s a difference between how confidential information will be treated by your hired employees and the company you have signed a new contract with?
- Why do you think that we need to make your confidential data or a new idea public? It is more beneficial to a development company to develop your system, bring it to the market and grow with the client than it would be to disclose confidential information and potentially lose a valuable customer.
Any information that processed will be considered confidential and officially protected by the terms of the NDA. Compliance of the agreement is the key to long-term cooperation, as long-term cooperation is a top priority and the key to the viability of a software development business.
The second concern – price for outsourcing
For whatever reason, most people think that finding the cheapest developer, is equal to outsourcing software development. Outsourcing does not mean cheap labor – the goal of outsourcing software development is to create a high-quality web or mobile application, which will save money down the line.
Undoubtedly, signing a contract with a company that provides outsourcing services will reduce your development costs. For companies, the services of our specialists are more profitable in comparison to monthly salaries of the staff in their office. Not to mention any other expenses every company should pay to ensure healthcare plans, vacation, renting and other expenses that are not covered in the case of outsourcing.
The cost of development should not be too cheap; nowadays the hourly rate should not be any less than 30-35 USD, otherwise you risk hiring a less qualified team and will end up with mistakes, problems in communication, inability to prove the result of the completed work and an unpredictable and chaotic development process with constant delays.
The third concern – how to track the progress and get the deliverables
On the side of the company being outsourced, it is important that the requirements of the client are set out clearly and in as much detail as possible from the start. The outsourcer then will perform an investigation, analyze all existing assets as well as the client’s business processes and include options for further improvement of the system being developed.
The outsourcer will then share with the client a clear proposal for the development process, that will include not only programming effort, but also plan for implementation of graphic design, deployment the system onto a live environment and provide a timeline for both the project management and QA testing.
During development, the outsourcer and their client should schedule regular calls and video meetings to monitor progress and ensure that the system being developed will meet all of the client’s expectations.
The simplest solution to overcome the fear of outsourcing is to make a small test project with the provider that you’re wanting to hire. This can be one task taken from the entire scope as a separate job or development of a prototype or a minimum viable product (MVP). During this test, you will be able to see and understand how the company you’re thinking of outsourcing to will answer your questions, provide information, solve problems, prepare reports, how they interpret your requirements and how easy they are to communicate with.
So don’t be afraid to go with an outsourcing company for app development in Birmingham or a new CRM for your business in Glasgow, if you follow this model of cooperation then outsourcing has many more advantages than disadvantages. All you need to do is to pay enough attention whilst selecting an appropriate provider, ask for references and have a clear understanding of the goals that should be achieved with the help of outsourcing.
