Outsourcing software development overview

When we talk about outsourcing software development or IT outsourcing in general, we talk about the externalisation of IT services to help clients reduce costs, accelerate time to market and take advantage of external expertise.

You are basically looking for external resources for IT functions as for example software development, maintenance, support, etc. Usually when you turn to nearshore services it’s because it ends up cheaper to contract an expert in that field than to build it in house.

In this article I would like to give some sort of software development outsourcing overview where I will go over the advantages of outsourcing IT, the outsourcing software development trends and a few tips for outsourcing providers.

Why outsourcing software development works

Go with experts

Sometimes, it’s just better to concentrate on what we do best and ask experts to do the rest. One of the main reasons why a company can outsource some services is because it doesn’t really have that expertise. That also means that you will spend less on training your employees to be able to get a task done and you will also gain time, therefore cutting costs.

Issues finding professionals

A parallel point to the last one, it can be very difficult to find software experts, and when you do, they often know & are aware of their own value. In that case, a great option is to contact a software outsourcing company that will provide you with the needed expertise on short notice.

keep focus and increase efficiency

When you add workload to your team, specially activities where you’re not the best at, you are just reducing your core quality, your primary activities. By relying on a third party, you focus on your core, on quality instead of quantity, meaning you perform better. By sharing workload, you will help your team develop their force and therefore become more efficient.

Lower your risks

By working with a third party, you are in a way sharing the risks, it’s not only on you, it on both parties.

Higher capacity

By having the right partner by your side, a partner on who you can always count, implies that you don’t need your staff to always be at its 100% utilisation capacity. In case you have an extra project, there is no need t wait a few months until you found a new member to join your team and do the job. You can just have another team helping out on the project and they will also be done with the project is done!

Happy customers, happy business

By getting tasks done by others, specially by experts, you will almost always get results of high quality and faster then if you would complete the tasks. This in a way would mean that you will have faster time to market, of faster deliveries. Well that translates in high customer satisfaction. And which business wouldn’t benefit from happy customers?

The cheaper the better

Until now, everything we talked about ends up in cost reduction. In fact, when outsourcing software development, you save on money spent, on time, and all the work to train your employees and the efforts they put to learn. It doesn’t mean that you are not spending money when you outsource, it just means that on the long term, it can be much more interesting.

Competitive advantage

How are you being more competitive? It’s kind of logic. First you outsource from an expert, which means you guarantee quality to your customer. Second, you focus on your core, you increase your productivity, you’re better at what you do, so better service/product.

If you’re interested in discovering companies from who to outsource IT services, here’s a list of great software development companies in Europe.

Also, check “Top Nearshore Software Development Companies Of 2020” here.

11 outsourcing software development trends

Cloud Computing

A big advantage of cloud computing is that scalability becomes easy and the costs are much more flexible because the client ends up paying for what they need and the costs of internal infrastructure become lower.

In the past years, the demand for cloud computing has been increasing, especially in northern and western EU countries. Today it’s almost not an option anymore. Although it is more used by huge companies, we will see that smaller companies will more and more use that option and the demand for cloud applications and infrastructure will accelerate in 2017

iOT is here to stay

The Internet of Things has been occupying a more and more important place in the whole tech industry for several years and this represents a great outsourcing opportunity. In 2017, developers are going to be challenged to write applications and integration code to get IoT installations under way.

Data Security

Security risks increase, specially with IoT everywhere, making millions of devices connected.

It is expected to see more and more Chief Security Officers and companies will be going for specialized security vendors with Security-as-a-Service capabilities to protect data.

Big Data

If you could only imagine the amount of data there is around us you would be kind of scared. This has to be stored, managed and analysed in the right way to be able to provide insights to companies to increase sales, improves marketing campaigns, be more innovative and increase the customer’s satisfaction.

You must know that is not an easy task, and if it’s done, it had to be well done. That’s why today, everyone needs to make use of those data to reach success, but many will be outsourcing big data solutions.

Automation

Test automation is a rapidly growing area of outsourcing in IT. Companies used to look for low-cost people to do some tasks, now, they will be looking for machines to do them. Their will be more integration of robotic process automation (RPA) into the IT service delivery.

In fact, software test automation is one of the smartest ways to reduce routine manual testing, lower the cost, and speed up the process of testing of web, mobile and desktop solutions of any scale.

Customers first

Customer experience has become a #1 priority for businesses, and this will have a big influence on the programming. In fact, lately, we notice that development has an increased its focus on everything that has to do with usability.

Integration

The more you adopt digital technologies the more you can face an integration challenge. Usually, a a company does not have so many employees that are able to manage all that, and that’s why outsourcing integration services is a growing trend.

Mobile application development

The use of mobile devices keeps on growing and is here to stay, at least that’s what it looks like. Companies are therefore more and more demanding mobile application development, for their customers and for their employees. That’s why in outsourcing, specially for european countries, we can find a lot of outsourcing providers specialized in mobile app development due to lower costs and highly skilled resources.

Social app solution

You all must have noticed that social media not only are part of our personal lives, but also at the professional level. As social media keeps on rising, it has become a must for companies to include social media activities to their strategies and they therefore need tools as for example tools to build marketing campaigns on social media platforms. What that means is that social application solutions will be more and more demanded.

Tips for outsourcing software development providers

Market resource

One of the most important thing is to conduct a market research to be able to identify the regions and IT areas in which there are no high IT skills.

Follow trends

Stay up to date, learn about medium and long-term tech developments and news and try to provide and build those technologies.

Offer cloud solutions

The option of not offering cloud services is not an option. Some small companies have still not been through the switch but everyone will sooner or later so why not help them?

Security

Invest in a secure and reliable infrastructure to be more convincing. Many buyers fear security of the cloud, so using à reputable cloud service provider would increase trust.

Social Media is also B2B

It gives you the opportunity to promote your company among potential EU buyers at relatively low costs. Make sure content is context-related and up-to-date.

Big data, big companies

If it’s big data you’re going for, focus on big companies, they tend to be more interested.

Credibility

Prove you professionalism. You need to have good references, ensure quick answers and strong communication, quality is always before quantity but you also need to know how to balance between both.

Deedback is key

You need and should regularly ask your customers for feedback about what you are doing good and what you could do better. This will help you get better and know where to concentrate your efforts.

Outsourcing software development in Spain

Northern EU countries such as the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Scandinavian countries are kind of saturated markets. With the maturity of this market and the the rise of global competition, more and more companies are adopting the outsourcing option when it comes to IT services/solutions. Obviously, these companies understand how software development outsourcing works and they are quite demanding when it comes to quality, communication, expertise and experience.

Spain represents a great location to meet those countries outsourcing needs because we have a large skilled workforce and are quite competitive when it comes to cost for the quality you get. Spain has the human resources that are needed to deliver strong products and services in the IT industry, in fact it has had one of Europe’s highest ratio of technology graduates.

When outsourcing software development, it’s not anymore about getting it done at a very cheap rate, getting a working software is what counts. For that you need to have skills and expertise and offer high quality services. At Apiumhub we’ve seen this as a great opportunity because we kind of guarantee all that. Over the years, we’ve helped great companies with amazing projects, and we specialize in Agile methodologies, offering transparency and great communication.

If you are interested in it, I highly recommend you to check this list of Top Software Development Outsourcing companies.