If you have an ambitious business idea but currently can’t afford to employ local engineers, you might consider hiring globally with lower rates but the same work quality. Hiring a vendor to conduct the full cycle of product development is a common business practice around the world. Delegating some company functions: business analysis, estimations, status meetings, and of course product development make a positive impact on the majority of businesses. In the past decade, the global outsourcing industry earned $88.9 billion. This tendency is about to expand further.
What Is Offshore Software Development?
Let’s start with the basics. It is the practice of hiring offshore programmers from foreign countries. Usually, these developers are hired for short-term projects, such as the software development of web or mobile applications. Outsourcing is classified into three models, using the distance factor. Those are Onshoring, Nearshoring, and Offshoring.
- Onshoring — the process of outsourcing to another city within the same country
- Nearshoring- outsourcing to a foreign but nearby country
- Offshoring — Outsourcing to a distant country
How Does it Work?
Software development companies are set up specifically to provide services to international clients. Businesses looking to offshore their software development benefit from the advantages this partnership can bring.
Steps taken by the clients:
- Searching development company that fits your values
- Presenting your business idea and requirements
- Waiting for their solution
- Enjoying results
Steps taken by offshore companies:
- Discover your business idea
- Provide you with a quote that includes a scope of work, team composition, recommended Tech Stack, Timeline and Best fit Cooperation Model
- Provide you with a tech stack that’s matched to your business needs for programming skill and experience
- Deliver in iterations and report results
- Bill for hours of work provided
- Launch a product
Why Hire an Offshore Develompent Team?
There is no point to recruit an in-house software development team to solve a specific business need. It requires a lot of effort, time, and costs to find, hire, train and manage the experts. Also, with dedicated offshore developers, you don’t have to invest resources in project management, setting up a workplace, or HR activities. All of it will be taken care of by the vendor company.
The strengths of external development are the ability to quickly attract specialists of any industry and the ability to optimize costs. Among other advantages is:
- Access to a larger talent pool
- Ability to pick the most efficient offshore dev team
- Time to concentrate only on core processes
- A choice between hiring the whole development team or separate specialists
- Cost optimization
- Reduction of risks
Factors to Сonsider
One of the reasons businesses choose to start looking for the best offshore development companies is the access to the international talent pool. Follow our pieces of advice on how to choose the right country/city for future cooperation.
The following factors should be considered:
Developed market
In our opinion, it is an important factor that should not be underestimated. You should check in advance whether the infrastructure in the particular country is focused on the software, has experienced companies, and can compete in the software outsourcing market worldwide. A developed Tech Community is driving the industry in general
Geographical Location
How high is the priority of your project? If communication delay is acceptable due to time difference or do you prefer real-time conversations with employees? Also if the country is attractive, both in terms of business traveling (developed infrastructure of airports, railways. etc) and climatic aspects. Sometimes natural disasters like hurricanes, cyclones, tsunamis can stop business processes for a long time.
Legal aspects
One of the drivers of the tech industry is the legislative field that ensures specific conditions for doing business. Before choosing a country, check whether or not the government supports its software development potential. Also don’t forget to check how the country or specific company ensures cybersecurity, data protection, confidentiality, and Legal standards such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PSI), etc. Every party has to be sure that there will be no legal obstacles in your cooperation.
Education
Access to higher education (universities, colleges, IT schools) increases the talent pool and the number of specialists in different technology-related fields. A survey states that approximately 75% of 47,744 software engineers worldwide graduated with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Skills Diversity
The number of software engineers is expected to reach 28,7 million by 2024. Countries are making efforts to become the leading outsourcing destinations by growing talent pools of software service delivery. Ask the potential vendor about services they cover (ex. Android, iOS, Ruby, etc.) It will help you understand what to expect from your collaboration and final product.
How to Find an Offshore Dev Team (first steps)
Define Business Needs
- What product do you want to launch? (web platform/mobile application/cross-platform app)
- What technical expertise dedicated offshore developers need to have?
- What level of experience would you prefer?
The more experienced engineers are, the more diverse software problems they have completed, giving them an advantage over someone who is skilled but not experienced. On the other hand, junior developers have a fresh view that can greatly improve your product.
- What high-level requirements do you have?
Gather Requirements
To understand the essence of your idea gather as much information as you can:
- Technical documentation
- Design examples
- Analyze your competitors
- Your personal preferences
If the obtained information will be raw and you won’t be able to answer questions, consider starting Discovery Phase with your potential vendor. This process will help you ascertain these things and develop an action plan.
Establish Budget
Once you know the number, you can reduce the range of candidates for the role of your outsourcing partner.
Do Your Homework
Read through review sites to analyze ratings of the offshoring company. Check feedback from former clients. Read the company’s values and business ethics if it is something important to you.
After this stage, the search may be narrowed, and the first meetings with companies will be more efficient because you are prepared.
Things to ask your potential vendor
Although outsourcing brings benefits to the business, this process is full of challenges. Here are some tips on what to ask the potential vendors before choosing the best one.
Engagement Process
At the initial stage, ask the team as many questions as you can. Their principles on delivery, services they provide, how your cooperation will look like, what requirements they need from you, etc.
Reviews
Usually, a successful company is recognized by feedback from its previous business partners. The clients provide their independently verified evaluation about working with the company showing their satisfaction with the ability to deliver high-quality, innovative solutions. Don’t hesitate to ask about reviews during your decision-making process
Portfolio of Previous Projects
Ask the company to provide relevant cases they implemented in a specific industry. You may also learn about the client’s involvement: strategy, development process, team composition, technology stack, and the length of the project.
What are the Next Steps after Launching the Product?
Make sure that the final product is maintainable beforehand. And the team provides you with source code, related materials, all documentation, the rights, and product warranty. Also, don’t forget to ask how support looks like and what will happen if bugs appear or an update is needed.
What Cooperation Model they offer
A key to your successful partnership with an offshore software development team is the choice of the right cooperation model.
Rent-a-Team means that the customer pays for time and materials spent on the product development and has an opportunity to change or add requirements during the implementation phase.
Project Team — If all the requirements and acceptance criteria are composed and can be described to the team, that’s the right model to choose. Payment is made for a certain fixed price which is defined by the team before the start of the project.
Dedicated Team suit for those who have long-term projects and want to hire a team of engineers who will work on the whole project from start to finish and. The client is contracted to pay a monthly salary for the workload of the whole dedicated team.
How to handle remote work
You need to be sure that the team has no issues working on your product. You may take part in the candidates’ selection process for your specific project. If you have an opportunity to meet the team — use it for building a mutual relationship. In any way nowadays we have video calls, conferences, different communication channels and platforms, multiple professional social networks and this is what makes communication transparent, clear, and productive.
Next steps after hiring offshore dedicated team
Hiring an offshore team leading to a long-term relationship (its length depends on the complexity of your idea). You need to figure out how to manage remote employees. Here are some tips to consider:
Meet the team
After signing an agreement with the outsourcing company, initiate a meeting (call) to get acquainted with the project manager who takes over a project and the rest of the team. During this meeting get to know each other, discuss further cooperation, reporting systems, etc. This leads us to the next point.
Build Trust
Trust is one of the concerns while working with remote teams. Offshore programmers rarely meet their employees, which leads to gaps in their communication. That is why it is necessary to build trust without these words and effective management. Moreover, live conversations help the team to understand the essence of the project from the first hand.
Establish Effective Communication
When hiring remote developers it’s worth thinking in advance about possible language barriers and cultural differences. Make sure contractors speak English or any other language that is comfortable for you. Also, don’t forget to be respectful of their culture. It will positively affect your cooperation.
Set the same standards upon all the teams.
In case you hire a remote team and want them to join your in-house team it is essential to establish a sense of equality. Make sure everyone is doing their best, therefore it is best to allocate some resources to assuring the quality and productivity of the teams.
Wrapping Up
Finding and hiring an offshore software development team is a real challenge, especially when you extend your search to the global talent pool. But everyone benefits from this partnership. Engineers get flexible, consistent work, the chance to boost their experience by working on high-end projects around the world. Outsourcing companies connect companies to the resources they need, democratize access to all companies regardless of their location.
If you have an excellent idea you want to implement, don’t hesitate to contact us to get insights from our team!
Originally published at https://inoxoft.com/blog/how-to-find-and-hire-an-offshore-software-development-team/ on May 25, 2021.
