“As Companies fight to keep their competitive edge, outsourcing is becoming crucial for them to grow and stay competitive in the ever-changing business atmosphere.”
Running a profitable business is hard. We see companies successfully outsourcing parts of their business but we can’t ignore the negativity surrounding it either. Outsourcing is a great choice for businesses looking to harness global talent and reduce operational costs, while investing the same into their core product.
In a way, Tesla, demonstrates the right way to go about outsourcing. Their core product, the battery design, is done in the US while their software development is outsourced to India. Rather than having to keep a sizeable IT team onshore, companies delegate the workload to a dedicated offshore software development team.
We’re not going into the obvious details about the cost-effectiveness of outsourcing. Rather, we will be focusing on the finer aspects of it.
1. You’re Wasting too Much Time on Areas Outside your Core Business
You need to focus on the core areas of your business, free up your resources and direct your efforts there. Say, you have a broken pipe at home but you have no plumbing experience.
Do you try to learn along the way and fix it yourself while your house is sinking? Or do you call an expert to fix it immediately?
Now if You Run a Startup
You are multitasking all the time, handling multiple aspects of your business. This is all great at the start, but there are two common problems:
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- Everything takes longer than expected, and you lose the first-to-market advantage.
- With time you become overloaded; and project execution and product quality takes a toll.
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By choosing to outsource the non-core elements to experts, when managed well, you’ll see the investment growing on two counts—quicker releases and more time investment towards your core business.
If You Run an SME, don’t Hire In-house Developers
Why? Cause if software development is not part of your core business and you are not an expert in the field, your IT team will lack proper direction and guidance to ensure a successful product launch. This will be particularly evident when your project hits a roadblock or face small hiccups. Your lack of experience in the field will lead to delays and consequent losses for your business.
But if you have access to a team with good experience and project management expertise, then they will be adept at manoeuvring through these crazy situations with aplomb. If the team is reliable and high-performing then they can directly contribute towards the expansion and innovation of the company at a rapid rate.
Read: How to Hire App Developers to Develop Your Startup Idea?
2. You’re Losing the First-to-Market Advantage
Imagine that you have a great idea for an app for your business. You decide to build your own development team for just that. You spend a lot of time and money in setting up your team.
And during that time your competitor has managed to launch a similar app. Your competitor has already got a viable app in the market by the time you set up your team. By the time you launch your app, your competition has already built a good user base leaving you with the uphill task of breaking their monopoly with more investments into your marketing efforts.
But at the same time if you choose to outsource your development, you would get the first-to-market advantage which is a vital element in the current business climate.
Experienced development teams follow an agile methodology in order to shorten market launch times. Agile methodology helps bring down development times by following an iterative build and test process. Agile methodology promotes frequent interaction with stakeholders to build the best possible product. This methodology has several benefits like, shorter launch times, better implementation of changes from clients, frequent delivery of workable software, etc
These offshore development teams are experts in their respective fields and have better time management skills required to deliver quality products in the least amount of time.
The time you save here is the time you can invest in generating new ideas for your startup’s growth.
3. You’re New to Product Development
If you are not an expert in technology, then it’s better to hire a team with the knowledge and experience to deliver you the product successfully.
Outsourcing your development has the added benefit of better market research and experience of developing apps that your customers enjoy using. Doing all this research in-house is not cost-efficient and is time-consuming.
Consider the case where you are the owner of multiple restaurants and want to build an app for both your customers and employees in order to track orders and inventory.
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- What type of app are you building?
- What technology is best suited for your needs?
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These are questions that only an expert can answer definitively. Expert development companies have people who can analyse your business and discover the best course of action for you to take.
4. You can’t Find enough Expert Talent Locally
You might be wondering:
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- What if I hire people to work from my office?
- Is the talent pool big enough for me to choose from?
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These are big factors when hiring your own team especially when it’s not your area of expertise. By outsourcing, you will have access to some of the best in the industry working on your projects.
Rather than recruiting from a small pool in your location, you will gain access to professionals from all across the globe. They will handle everything from project planning to delivery without you ever having to break a sweat.
5. You’re Unaware of the Common Software Development Pitfalls
Just like any other investment, software development has risks associated with it. But the fact that a dedicated software development company is handling your development means that they are well-equipped to handle the risks involved and are more capable in averting them.
Setting an unrealistic launch date is one of the most common problems associated with development. This is likely to happen when you are not able to judge the actual scope of the project. You will end up losing a lot more money and may end up releasing an unstable software.
As the CEO or owner, you may tend to choose the technology on your own. Just because you prefer a particular technology doesn’t mean it is the right one for you. Unless you have done comprehensive research into it, it’s better to leave it to the experts.
6. Your Customers Require Round-the-Clock Support
Support is something which is commonly overlooked yet indispensable for a successful organisation.
One of the biggest advantages of outsourcing is the availability of around-the-clock support for your customers. Since most of these companies are from different time zones, they will be willing to provide 24/7 support to your core team and if any issue arises, immediate attention is available to sort it out.
Conclusion
The motivation for companies for outsourcing has totally changed over the past few years. Now, if done right it’s a total game changer. Outsourcing gives you the option of hiring an entire team of awesome talent at the cost a single full-time employee.
You will have the flexibility of choosing your team size according to the scope of the project. Even if you are inexperienced in the development sector, there’s no need to panic. Your outsourcing partner will have the right people who are more than capable of handling it.
You can take full advantage of their expertise in their field to help get your product to the market much faster. Outsourcing helps your startup or SME achieve the stability and efficiency of a large corporation while also accelerating your growth.
Read: 11 Successful Outsourcing Case Studies From Tech Giants