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Software can be a game-changer for any business, but only if the right team of experienced professionals develops it. Many business owners — especially startups — will elect to outsource their software project to an off-shore team in hopes of keeping the development under-budget.
Before you consider this, it’s essential to understand what you’re getting when you hire an outsourced, off-shore development team.
First off, the term “outsourced” simply means you are hiring a third-party company to help bring your project to life. While this can bring some benefits, it will present a variety of struggles to you, your employees, and your users.
Secondly, the term “off-shore” means the company being hired will be located in a foreign country. Again, this will bring its own set of pros and cons that should be carefully examined and considered.
Well, what can go wrong?
To help you avoid risk and the potential for disaster, we are going to highlight some of the horror stories we often hear about when companies rely on outsourced, off-shore software development for their project.
The good news is these stories are 100% preventable with due diligence, and we’ll detail how you can avoid making these mistakes in the future.
- Lack of Commitment
You’ve just hired your outsourced, off-shore development team and are super excited to get started on your project. The team has presented itself very well in your initial meetings, and things are getting off to a great start. You’ve already invested time and money in them, while they’ve rewarded you with progress.
Halfway through the development stage, you get an unexpected call or email from your developers explaining how they can’t continue working on your project for whatever reason. You’re left sitting there struck at the situation and trying to figure out how to avoid skipping a beat.
- Poor Quality
After going through the interview process, you’ve finally secured a team of developers to start building your software. They’ve been sending you daily progress on the project just like you asked, and everything looks great from what you can see.
It’s time to release the software, and the excitement has never been higher, but things start to go south once you discover a large number of bugs and errors your software provides. As a result, you have to decide to delay your project and increase your budget to account for those fixes.
Some outsourced, off-shore companies will do this on purpose, so you’re forced to come back to them for maintenance. Other companies won’t put the software through the proper testing and quality assurance needed to detect those bugs. Either way, it’ll lead to poor software and disappointment on the client’s end.
- Leaked Data
During the interview stage, you forget to ask about your development team’s approach to security measures, breaches, and recovery plans in the event something goes wrong. You agree to hire a team that seems legit, but they quickly fool you.
After hearing your ideas, visions, trade secrets, and confidential information, you later learn that your most valuable information has been leaked or sold off to other companies in your industry. Not only will this decrease your chances of creating a unique software, but it will put a significant halt on your vision as a whole.
- Lack of Communication
You’ve just set your guidelines that you want your development team to follow, and one of the most important things on there was communication. You understand you’re dealing with a team located in a foreign country, so being able to communicate will be essential.
Things start off well with the daily updates, but you start to notice them get less-responsive as the project moves forward. What used to be a daily update is now an update every other day, bi-weekly, once a week.
Not only has this compromised your ability to check in with them, but it causes delays and disruptions when you can’t get a hold of them when you need to.
- Wait, How Much?
Ever since the interview stage, you know you’ve been diligent in selecting a software development company. They’ve checked all of your boxes and have been delivering exactly what you were hoping for.
When all is said and done, they send you your final invoice to signify the completion of the project. After reading through it, you notice a wild amount of unexpected expenses that weren’t listed on the contract — just to find out that the fine print said there might be additional expenses not accounted for in the contract.
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How can I avoid mistakes with an outsourced, off-shore team?
If you’re like most business owners or entrepreneurs looking for quality software development, then you’ll be interested in avoiding the horror stories detailed above. Luckily for you, we have several tips that can help you get the most out of our outsourced, off-shore team:
- Know What You Want – before you start the process of looking at different off-shore software development teams, ensure you know exactly what you expect out of them. This is your project, and you need a team that will work to your needs.
- Don’t Limit Yourself – to increase your chances of being matched with the right team, don’t shy away from consulting with a variety of different teams before making a decision. Don’t leave any stone unturned!
- Do Your Research – being diligent when selecting a team will ensure they’re reliable and efficient. Look at their testimonials, analyze their first impression, notice how responsive they are, ask what technologies they utilize, whatever you can think of.
- Monitor Progress – when you pick a team, always keep an eye on the progress. If you start to slack off, they might slack off too. This doesn’t mean you have to micro-manage them, but just make sure they’re living up to what you agreed on.
There’s no arguing how advanced a technique outsourcing is when it comes to software development. At the same time, it could be beneficial to a large variety of people — as long as you know what you’re doing.
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