In this competitive digital world, businesses strive to align themselves with technological advancements. This often brings them face-to-face with the following challenges – a shortage of skilled tech talent and higher costs. Software Outsourcing has proven to be a popular solution for tackling these issues. Businesses worldwide have embraced software outsourcing since it delivers numerous benefits and higher value. Despite its benefits, software outsourcing has a set of challenges. It requires businesses like yours to find the right software development outsourcing company to ensure the success of your project.
To find the right company, you must gather crucial information and evaluate them to generate actionable insights. Although you may have a long list of questions in mind, not all of them will provide a clear image of potential partners. In the following article, we have listed 10 critical questions that can disclose the capabilities of potential companies if evaluated correctly. We will also provide expert-suggested tips for the evaluation process to help you find the right partner in your digital endeavor.
Understanding Software Outsourcing
Software outsourcing refers to the business practice of delegating software development projects to external service providers. These tasks include developing, managing, maintaining, and upgrading software. This business practice lets you access a global talent pool, flexibly scale teams, focus on core business functions, reduce costs, and other benefits. However, it also includes challenges like aligning project goals, ensuring software quality, and managing teams effectively. Outsourcing software development services can deliver many benefits, provided you select a software development company that overcomes all these challenges. To figure that out, check out the list of essential questions to ask outsourcing partners.
10 Questions for a Software Development Outsourcing Company
We have compiled the following questionnaire to unveil a potential partner’s capabilities and compatibility. The answers will deliver impactful insights that you may use for a successful software development outsourcing.
1. What are the benefits of hiring a dedicated software development team compared to extending a team via staff augmentation?
A dedicated software development team is an autonomous and self-managed group of technically skilled professionals. On the other hand, staff augmentation refers to the outsourcing strategy where clients hire individual talents to meet their project requirements and respond to business objectives.
The dedicated team collectively takes the entire project’s responsibility, reducing management and technical overheads. However, if you opt for staff augmentation, you must assign and track the extended team’s daily tasks and progress. So even though you get complete control over the team, it requires you to put more time and effort into team management and monitoring.
The dedicated team model offers a dedicated project manager. The project manager collaborates with you to remove roadblocks and improve team productivity. With staff augmentation, on the other hand, you need to collaborate with the extended team to remove hurdles and ensure project deliverables.
2. What services and solutions do you offer?
Outsourcing software development companies offer services and solutions that cover end-to-end software development and team extension needs. They can be divided into the following categories:
- Custom software development: Software outsourcing companies provide services to develop tailored solutions that cater to your business requirements and boost your capabilities. These solutions can range from mobile and web applications to SaaS and cloud applications.
- User interface and experience designing: Offshore software agencies offer services to design UI/UX for your software solutions that result in building a strong business persona.
- Quality Assurance (QA), testing, and maintenance: Offshore software development companies offer services comprising QA strategies, testing methods, and maintenance support to optimize your product’s lifecycle.
- Dedicated development team augmentation: Outsourcing companies offer embedded software development teams to address end-to-end project requirements.
- Digital transformation services: Software development outsourcing companies provide services for developing advanced technology-backed solutions that drive business growth and impactful benefits.
3. Do you offer project-based engagements?
Software development outsourcing companies provide flexible engagement models to suit your requirements.
- Project-based model: Outsourcing software companies use the project-based engagement model if you have clearly defined project requirements. Although this model estimates your project cost, accommodating changes during the development phase may pose a challenge.
- Time and material model: If you do not have clearly outlined project requirements, outsourcing software companies use the time and material model. In this model, the dedicated team follows an agile methodology to define tasks and set milestones. A project manager is also assigned to work alongside you. This model encourages direct interaction with the team and accommodation of project modification during the development stage.
4. What technology-based roles can you offer?
Outsourcing companies offer diverse technology-based roles that cater to your tech needs. You can choose UI/UX designers, frontend developers, backend developers, database administrators, DevOps engineers, automation testing engineers, and more for software development needs. Furthermore, you may hire business analysts, consultants, project managers, and more for consultation and project management needs.
5. How many years of experience do your engineers have?
Reputed outsourcing software development companies house a mix of mid-level and senior engineers. These companies offer mid-level and senior developers as per your project’s requirements.
6. Who oversees the work done by your engineers?
Outsourcing companies follow different project management approaches for staff augmentation and dedicated development team models.
In the case of staff augmentation, the team relies on your preferred methodology and tools for the project. Although many companies provide project managers, they are responsible for resolving project-based challenges and ensuring optimal team performance.
Regarding dedicated software team hiring, the project manager handles the project and team on your behalf. Project managers align with your preferences for delegating tasks, ensuring milestones are achieved on time, reporting about the team’s progress to you, and sending requirement-based feedback to the team.
7. Which project management approach do you follow?
Outsourcing companies follow various project management approaches to validate results continuously and deliver consistent value. Agile and Scrum are the most popular project management approaches followed by these companies. These methodologies divide the project into smaller sprints for quicker development and on-time delivery.
8. Where are you located? How will you overcome time zone differences?
Reputed outsourcing software companies are mainly located in India, the Philippines, and Ukraine. India is the most preferred region for clients with outsourcing software development requirements due to its rich pool of tech talents and low hourly rates.
Software outsourcing companies schedule meetings and feedback sessions during the timeframe when the clients’ and the team’s time zones overlap. During this period, clients and team members can communicate and collaborate to address urgent matters in real time. They also rely on asynchronous communication to share and update the project’s progress.
9. What are your attrition rates?
Outsourcing software development companies with an attrition rate of 10% or lower can be considered reliable. An attrition rate lower than 10% highlights the company’s ability to retain experienced and skilled tech talents. It also represents lower internal issues for consistent project progress and quality maintenance.
10. How quickly can I interview and onboarding a candidate?
Based on your requirements, outsourcing software companies can offer experienced software engineers to you for an interview within 24 to 96 hours on average. Furthermore, a software outsourcing company can onboard developers from a few days to a few weeks. However, the stated time may vary depending on the following factors:
- Clarity in project scope,
- Industrial experience of the developer,
- Familiarity with your required tech stacks and more.
How to evaluate the responses?
Now you have the information at hand. But how will you assess it and find the right outsourcing software company for your requirements? Note the following factors in the responses you receive from the companies:
- Assess if a company provides tailored solutions and services that address your project needs.
- Evaluate which engagement model, as per the potential partner’s reference, is beneficial for your project. Cross-check it for informed decision-making.
- Look into the technical roles a potential partner offers and assess if their experience and knowledge meet your project’s criteria.
- Check if the outsourcing company refers to case studies in an industry similar to yours for crucial insights into their industrial experience.
- Check if their project management and communication strategies match your working style for smooth collaboration.
- Examine whether their company’s time zone management strategies work for your team.
- Check if their responses indicate a low attrition rate to ensure project consistency and quality.
- Inspect if they have the appropriate resources to provide replacements if a candidate does not fulfill your expectations.
- Study their cost structure, including hidden costs or overly vague pricing models, to avoid financial risks.
Conclusion
Selecting the right outsourcing software partner is crucial for the success of your project and business goals. The questions mentioned above will help you unveil the capabilities and compatibility of potential partners with your requirements. It is important to ask and evaluate these questions effectively to find the right company and develop a valuable partnership. We hope this guide acts as a compass in your quest to find the right software outsourcing partner.
