Going offshore: outsourcing app development

All over the world, many praise the advantages of outsourcing app development overseas, while others had a really hard time in their offshore projects. The question here is how to deliver your product faster to the market, spending the least amount of money possible in the process. To try answering this, we’ve listed three advices about a few constants on the subject:

#1: Quality

One of the most delicate issues about outsourcing is quality control. We’re sure you’ve heard horror stories about outsourcing regarding choppy or unreliable apps, but the main reason is the same in most of the cases: poor project management. So how can you assure that the outsourced team is keeping up with the standards that you’ve agreed on? It’s common that entrepreneurs don’t have technical knowledge, not being able to evaluate their assets’ work by themselves. However, it’s imperative to learn about the development landscape at a minimum level – or ask a trusted advisor or a friend for help – before starting any project. Also, an important point is that you must be able to keep in touch with your developers, using methodologies like Scrum, to guarantee the advances of the team in fast iterations, without keeping anyone in the dark throughout the process.

#2: Costs

Don’t be seduced by pricing. It’s reasonable to say that countries such as Ukraine, India or even China have smaller wages, but can they deliver the same product? Although it’s not impossible to find hidden gems, you’ll have to spend some time on the hunt, with technical interviews and challenge projects to see if they are fit to the complexity of the job. Again, programming skills are vital here to understand the capabilities of your candidates. These efforts could be rewarded with less capital outlay into an equally capable team from abroad.

#3: Logistics

Logistics (i.e. time zones) are often underestimated when looking for outsourced partners. You won’t do your best if you need to wake up in the middle of the night to reach your dev team or vice-versa. It’s better to look for developers that are closer to your time zone. Another challenge is the cultural clash – you can’t expect developers with other identities and traits to easily understand what you want. Be thorough in your briefing, explaining every detail you can, so you won’t leave much to chance.

Conclusion

 

At any rate, it all comes down to your own ability to recognize and manage your team offshore, getting the best of their knowledge. It’s a complex task, which needs you to take into account your technical expertise, your project management skills, the complexity of your product and costs of development. Wrapping up, when you decide to outsource your app, make sure that:

• You’ve got the time to research
• The price of the service matches its complexity
• You can write (or mock up) the specifications for your briefing

When all those points are fulfilled, the experience will likely be successful. As a Brazilian-based mobile app developing company, our business partners often come from other countries, especially the United States, because we put an extra effort in making sure that the remote relationship risks are overcome by communication and synchronization between teams. If you have any stories about outsourcing, feel free to share!