Have you ever imagined that you are giving private things to someone else? Even your pet must be looking for someone you trust to take care of it. It is similar when you put the control of your business to another company. It’s a big decision, primarily when your business success depends on them.
However, you must still be careful in finding an outsourcing software development provider. Therefore, you still need careful preparation. Developing a good outsourcing strategy is the first step you should take in hiring an outsourcing partner.
In this article, you will be guided to construct a good outsourcing strategy in 5 easy peasy steps and find out what questions you should ask when you interview the software vendor, here you go :
Define your Goals in Outsource Software Development
In doing something, it would be nice for you to continuously determine the goals you want to achieve so that you can arrange the steps that must be taken to achieve the goals that have been made.
Reversing directions might take you to a destination you want to avoid reaching, just like using google maps. But first, you are asked to enter the destination you want to go to, right? In setting goals, you can apply the SMART acronym Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound. In addition, you can also create clear plans for the following:
- Overcome possible deviations that can occur outside the context of your plan
- Identify flaws and fix them
- Doing budgeting for projects so that funds do not swell
- Test the software in various environments.
Choosing an outsourcing partner can also be seen from the culture and work ethic that is in harmony between your company and partners to avoid conflicts during the work period.
What are your needs? Analyze it!
Usually, outsourcing is classified into two models: project-based and specialist models. Between the two, you can choose one according to your project needs.
If you need technical expertise, then hiring a team of developers to carry out your project means you need a project-based model. But, again, management responsibility will fall to the development agency.
Meanwhile, by outsourcing the specialist model, you can choose if your company already has a project manager or even an internal software team. Thus, outside specialists are hired to fill specific gaps that the company still needs to have.
Define budget and time expectations
Determining the budget is no less important than the other steps because it will also determine your chosen outsourcing model. For example, if you have a small budget, you can choose offshoring, but if you have a large enough budget, you can choose onshoring or hybrid.
In addition, it is necessary to prepare deadlines and milestones. This will help the developer structure the sprint and stick to it. That way, the project is more structured, and you’ll know the exact deployment date. Making a forecast plan for the project can significantly help work efficiency and its implementation to stay on track that has been made.
Research Countries for Outsource Development Partner
Research companies for outsourcing and freelance professionals can be done by adjusting the objectives of your project. The most essential factor in choosing an outsourcing company is located. Apart from that, there are other factors to look at as well.
Location
Location dramatically affects cultural orientation, language, fares, time zone differences, and other things. Even the workflow process usually differs from one country to another. This can be a challenge for you. You should ensure that the outsourced software developer can speak your native language fluently and have culturally aligned practices to avoid conflicts or misunderstandings.
Work Ethic
Previously you can also learn in advance cultural views, work ethic, and other differences to prevent bad things from happening. Try to choose a country with the same workflow or at least similar to yours so that integration will be easy to build.
Rates for Outsource Software Development
You also need to know that the rates for outsourcing software development vary in each part of the world. In outsourcing, Asia is more popular than Europe, and for the average rates, Asia is usually lower than European companies. Looking for a country with professionalism and good quality of work also needs to be considered because if these two aspects are not good, it will affect overtime and result in budgeting.
“Recommendations the most popular countries you can choose to outsource software development include Indonesia, Ukraine, India, China, Philippines, and Vietnam”.
Choose your Future Software Outsource Partner
The last step you have to do after finding an outsource software development company you have to evaluate whether they really fit your needs, budget, and desires. There are several things you should consider, including:
- Portfolio: Get to know your partner’s outsourced software through its portfolio. You can review the projects they have handled to understand their skills and expertise.
- Reviews: To find out more about outsourcing companies and the quality of their work, you can see their ratings and reviews on Google Reviews. Apart from that, you can also read independent reviews on websites like Clutch.co, Good firms, g2.com, and many more.
- Past Clients: sometimes you feel that the reviews on the website could be more credible, so there is nothing wrong if you contact previous clients. You can contact them by phone or email to get a more honest review.
- Team Members: To get to know more, you can also ask questions about the team members for whom you will use the service. Find out their performance. Are they already seniors or still juniors? What field do they excel in the most? Adjust to your needs.
Software Vendors Interview Questions
After doing The 5 Easy Peasy Steps to select your outsource software development, you won’t see what happened in the picture above happen to you, isn’t it? So, you can ask these three smarts questions to your software vendors :
Can you present a project similar to what I will give you regarding technology?
This question is probably the most important thing you should ask, and you can judge their answers in these two ways:
- Do they have the technical expertise to match your wants and needs?
- Have they applied the skills that you are looking for?
The answers that match your needs will determine how well they work with you in the future.
Please provide a good reference for a previous project you have worked on
It’s the same as looking at reviews from previous clients and asking your prospective software vendor directly about previous client reviews. You can also test their honesty. It’s great that you can find good reviews about them similar to the project you’re about to give.
What kind of company do you usually work with? Who is your ideal client?
From this question, you can find the answer to whether your characteristics are similar to the clients your software vendor likes. This time you are asked to adjust to them. However, you can still submit to their ideal client. In addition, you and the vendor can customize it. This is done to increase the likelihood of a positive collaborative experience.
Conclusion
Hiring an outsourced software developer allows you to get a variety of talents tailored to your needs, but it also allows you to complete projects faster and more cost-effectively. In this case, we can help you to reach your goals of scaling up your quality of development. We also have talented developers that can fill the gap in your software development team. Want to discuss this further? Get in touch with us now.
