Software development outsourcing has been used for a long time. In the early days of software creation, just about every organization had its own software developers. That started to change in the 1980s when companies who wanted to cut costs started outsourcing software development projects to overseas software companies based in Asia. This leveraged the growing talent pool in that country, but soon some problems of outsourcing software development started to emerge. These were the days before email and on-line interaction tools, so communication between the commissioning organization and the software developers was slow and challenging. The specification had to be perfect, with no room for interpretation by the software developers. This soon gave software development outsourcing a bad name, so it only tended to be used for large scale software projects.
Considerations for Insource Vs. Outsource Development
Software developer outsourcing is where some of the development resources are provided from outside your organization. There are some different ways to achieve this, which need you to consider your reasoning for why you are thinking about insource vs outsource software development.
- Staff augmentation is where you fill gaps in the skills or capacity of your in-house software developers with resources from a software development outsourcing provider. These can be provided on-premise or remotely, even overseas, and can be assigned to your projects full-time or part-time. The key to how you successfully outsource software development using this augmentation approach is that the staff provided are managed by you directly.
- A dedicated team is a way to expand your development capabilities and also minimize your management efforts. The software development outsourcer provides you with a dedicated development team with a manager/team leader. They regularly report to you and consult with you on all important decisions in the project. Today this is one of the most popular outsourcing trends.
- Full process outsourcing is when you outsource every aspect of developing software to a specialist company. With every approach, there are some outsourcing software development pros and cons. The advantage of this approach is that it can allow you to focus on your core business activities, allowing the outsourced team to take full responsibility for all the software projects and associated risks. The full process outsourcing software development approach is particularly suited for organizations that are not IT companies but do have specialist requirements that can’t be met by off-the-shelf solutions and hence need specific software to be developed.
Software Outsourcing Benefits
Any organization can achieve benefits from outsourcing the development of software. How much benefit you can get is partially dependent on matching the best countries to outsource software development to with your specific requirements. Benefits can be achieved in these areas:
- Increased software quality, due to the ability to access world-class technologies and the industry’s best practices.
- Increased speed of software development, due to leveraging mature agile processes and re-using microservices and ready-made components.
- Cost savings, due to the use of optimized resources, often with lower labor rates, and no costs for recruitment and retention of your own staff.
Whichever approach you take to outsourcing, collaboration is the key to success. Building and maintaining friendly and open communications and avoiding creating conflicts is essential. Outsourcing the development of software is now the key to the success of many organizations, and can be the best approach to be taken in this age of globalization and digitalization.
Summary:
Software Development Outsourcing
Software development outsourcing has been used for a long time. In the early days of software creation, just about every organization had its own software developers. That started to change in the 1980s when companies who wanted to cut costs started outsourcing software development projects to overseas software companies. Software developer outsourcing is where some of the development resources are provided from outside your organization. Software Outsourcing Benefits: Increased software quality. Increased speed of software development. Cost savings.
