8 Best Advantages of Offshore Software Development

Developing software is not an easy process as it involves several things: deadlines, team management, meeting requirements, and technical understanding.

There are two options for developing software. Either you can build your own in-house team of software developers or hire offshore software developers. Most businesses choose the second option as the process of hiring offshore software development is easy compared to building your own team.

The reason is offshore software development model is widely famous because of its major benefits. If you want to explore and learn more about the advantages of offshore software development, this blog is for you.

This dedicated article describes the benefits, challenges, and solutions of offshore software development. So, you can get answers to your questions instantly from a single post.

Let’s get started.

Before learning about the advantages, let’s first understand the meaning of offshore software development.

Offshore Software Development: Defination

The offshore software development process refers to outsourcing your software development to a development firm based in another country.

For example, if you live in Germany, you hire a reputed software development company based in Canada.

Let’s look at the 8 best advantages of offshore software development services.

8 Advantages of Offshore Software Development

Relying on offshore software development firm for enhancing your software development process is one of the best decisions you can take for your development project. Here is the ideal process for software development that you must know.

software-development-life-cycle

The right outsourcing company adheres to the industry trends and has the most proficient software engineers and developers at its disposal.

Clearly, offshore software development benefits are far-reaching.

Let’s dive deep into some of the most essential benefits of hiring an offshore software development company.

  1. Develop Your Project Within a Fixed Budget

  2. Business profitability is one of the biggest reasons entrepreneurs and businesses choose offshore software development. Having a remote software team and relying on offshore software companies is an economical choice for businesses.

    Reducing business costs might be your top priority, but that should not compromise the quality of your product. If you have a revolutionary idea for a software product or service, you don’t have to break your back by finding resources in your region for the same. Countries like the Philippines, Ukraine, India, and China have highly skilled offshore software developers for lower development costs.

    Once you hire the right software developers, you also risk losing them due to job changes. For small businesses, these are significant risks to undergo.

    Offshore software developers based in Western countries like America and Europe charge somewhere from $50 to $200 per hour when the same is doable for less than $40 per hour in other regions like the Philippines and India.

    To properly budget your offshore software development, you need to know the hourly rates of the software developers. Read our guide on offshore software developer’s rates in detail.

    This is where offshore software companies become all the more valuable. All you need to do is know how to hire an offshore software developers and follow a proper software development process. If there is a shortage of resources, it becomes their responsibility to hire new talents and keep the development going forward. Even then, due to lower labor costs, there will be less chance of running a high cost.

  3. Work With the Best Software Developers in the World

  4. Better expertise and creative software solutions are the top offshore software development benefits. Many countries famous for their offshore software development capabilities are rich with talented and skilled software developers. This leads to an overflowing amount of skilled labor (professional developers). Developing countries like Vietnam, India, and Ukraine also offer great academic options for more people to enter the software industry.

    For developing products that involve cutting-edge technology like Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Big Data, you need to know how to hire offshore software developers having knowledge of such advanced technologies.

    Top offshore software development companies also have a significant global clientele. This directly translates to a better working experience using the latest software development methodologies. Experience in the field may be missing locally, making offshore teams a highly attractive choice.

    Developers from different regions also bring unique ideas into the execution. Getting their perspective will help you to make products with a competitive edge.

  5. Develop Your Software Within a Pre-defined Timeline

  6. Time to market is important for any business developing a new product. When you work with a knowledgeable offshore software development team, you can significantly reduce this time.

    The saying “Time is money” holds in the IT industry. The competition to develop software products that attract customers is at an all-time high. You can achieve great results by considering offshoring software development. Furthermore, speeding up developmental activities leads to better business returns as well.

    As a business, churning out software products quickly is important for longevity in the industry. The time required by offshore teams for implementation is so much less than local resources. This is due to their superior expertise and ability to hire the right resources quickly.

    Want to Hire an Experienced Offshore Software Developers Team?

    Space-O is a top offshore software development company with an experience of developing 300+ mobile and web solutions.

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  7. Scale Your Software Development Team as Per Requirements

  8. As mentioned, offshore software development teams can expand or shrink as required with relative ease. Entrepreneurs may want only a certain number of offshore developers to work on a software project simultaneously. When you need to hasten development, you’ll also have to increase the number of human resources.

    Any offshore team’s ability to be flexible in scaling teams is an attractive feature. The offshore software development team is essentially your own software development team. With that, you should be able to dictate the number of resources during slow developmental phases.

    Scalability also goes for the products or services. When the software development scope increases, the remote team will be more equipped to deal with it. Since offshore development teams are already quite experienced in building large software systems, they can do the same for you quickly.

  9. Focus and Optimize Your Core Business Operations

  10. For a business that is not primarily tech-based, it makes little sense to hire a fully-fledged software development team for a single project. As a business owner, you also tend to have other business operations that require more attention. Focusing your energy on these critical business tasks may take priority at all times.

    In these cases, relying on software development teams of the top offshore software development companies is the best option. The teams will work for you, capable managers who thoroughly understand your software requirements will manage the team. Offshore teams are also great at working independently in terms of workload. This takes a considerable burden off your shoulder.

    In conclusion, business owners will no longer have to worry about the nitty-gritty of software application development. Proactive teams that are capable of handling development achieve this on their own.

  11. Assign Your Tasks to Better Responsibile Development Teams

  12. Offshore development teams don’t work for you. Offshore team works with you. This means that teams are just as responsible for a great product as you are. Having a great product in hand at the end is the goal of both the offshore team and the organization.

    This type of collaboration and shared responsibility is critical for a great development environment. Ultimately, it is better to work with responsible teams who are proactive and self-driven.

    Being a business owner, micromanaging a team should be the last of your worries. Get capable teams with the right foundation, so you don’t have to micromanage them, leading to better outcomes.

  13. Get Better Maintenance for Your Software Product

  14. Teams hired not only become responsible for developing the product but also maintaining it. Offshore development teams are also economical and more suitable to keep for maintenance activities.

    Once a product is released, it will undergo user testing, bringing forth certain feedback that you may need to address as a business owner. Maintaining a software product or service is just as crucial as building one.

    For a longer time commitment, offshore teams do a greater job at maintaining the quality of an application without businesses having to splurge their capital.

  15. Create Your Software Product with Lower Risk

  16. Lastly, this point is a combination of all the other advantages. Offshore teams are highly capable of delivering top-notch applications that are error-free and feature-rich. As offshore teams don’t want to risk producing a faulty product, they take great care regarding their testing efforts.

    Most offshore teams will have dedicated QA teams that put the application in all types of testing to weed out problem areas. As a business owner, this means you will receive a reliable product.

    The risk, therefore, of receiving broken software is near to zero. Yet another reason to consider delegating all software operations to an offshore team.

    Going through the exhaustive list of advantages that an offshore development center brings has most of the business convinced to adopt an outsourcing strategy. But let’s not ignore the fact that working with a remote team may introduce some barriers too.

But how do you decide if offshore software outsourcing is right for you? Here’s how.

When Should You Choose Offshore Software Development? [11 Conditions]

Once your business begins to scale, it is time to hire a reputed software development company. If you are an entrepreneur leading a non-tech company, offshore teams are more valuable in the technical processes than in-house developers.

Deciding when to offshore software development is an individual choice.

But here are 11 instances when companies are much better off collaborating with other offshore software companies.

  1. You are currently on a fixed budget.
  2. You want to save time on development.
  3. You want to hire from a vast talent pool.
  4. You don’t want to expand your organization’s resources just yet.
  5. You want a product with minimum developmental risks.
  6. You want to release a product as quickly as possible.
  7. You lack the relevant skills to build the product yourself.
  8. You want to save capital spend on hiring an in-house development team.
  9. Your business idea requires use of advanced technology like AI.
  10. You want to employ a flexible team in terms of time and capacity.
  11. You want a team that manages itself.

Do you want to learn in detail about offshore software development? Check our in-depth guide on offshore software development which includes information from the definition of offshore development to how to manage an offshore software team.

However, knowing these barriers is the first step to overcoming them so that’s exactly what we’ll help you with.

What are the Offshore Software Development Challenges?

With any business collaboration model, there will be a few challenges that you will have to resolve. With offshore teams, the challenges you may face differ from those you may face within your own team. But following these tips for hiring software developers you may face fewer challenges.

You need to handle these new problems carefully to avoid miscommunication, leading to flawed software.

Here we will outline 4 challenges that ultimately make or break this type of development and how you can overcome them.

  1. You Face Communication Issues Due to Language Barriers

  2. Firstly, language barriers. Even though English is widely spoken globally, not every country uses it as a mode of communication. Avoiding miscommunication then becomes an essential goal for any business owner looking to offshore their processes.

    All sorts of communication mishaps can affect the productivity and outcome of the project. To avoid this, always ensure there is a standard mode of collaboration, whether it is via email, Zoom meetings, Slack, or any other virtual platform. Also, keep vocabulary simple and crisp. Avoid using complicated phrases that your team members may not fully understand.

    One thing to remember is it’s always better to over communicate than under-communicate. It is the responsibility of the entrepreneur or the business owner that your offshore team has fully realized the project’s requirements and that there are no lingering queries to solve.

    Instead of just verbally communicating, ensure to send over all relevant documents and screenshots necessary for work. Teams can easily refer back to your shared resources for reference.

  3. You are Unable to Explain Goals Properly to Offshore Team

  4. If your goal is X, and your offshore development team is working ardently towards Y, no matter how efficient and world class the team is, your vision will never materialize.

    That’s exactly why business owners must ensure to share the project’s vision with the team in an understanding way. Teams perform way better when they understand the project’s goal and requirements well.

  5. Your In-house Team Faces Time Zone Differences During Communication

  6. Your team members may be dispersed worldwide or in a region that is in the opposite time zone. This can gravely affect communication. For important project activities like site reliability, you must rely on a support team to ensure there are critical errors further.

    Similarly, team members responsible for the production server will have to ensure that it runs smoothly around the clock. Offshore developers must accomplish this in shifts to ensure smooth running; hence, collaboration is also a crucial factor.

    Businesses can make it easier by having a local team member online that can resolve any business-related queries that offshore teams may have. This makes the process more effective.

    Another way to ensure the effectiveness of the business at odd hours is to have the offshore teams prioritize their work. The business will not be interrupted, and at the same time, developers will not spend their time idly waiting for instructions. This way, there is always a fallback task they can tend to while waiting for feedback from your end.

  7. Ensuring Data Confidentiality for Your Project is Difficult

  8. Lastly, data confidentiality is a major concern for businesses. Many businesses are reluctant to share sensitive data about their business with a foreign team. What you need to understand is that sometimes this is inevitable in development.

    Offshoring work requires sharing sensitive data that can impact the software process and development. For this purpose, always proceed with a Non-disclosure agreement (NDA) or a contract and set other protocols.

    You must consider data sensitivity while offshoring development. Always be on the same page as the offshore team regarding measures to resort to in case of a cyber-attack or data leakage. Sitting down with the team managers to discuss this in length can do wonders for the project’s future.

    You can overcome all these challenges if you treat an offshore team like an in-house team. They are, after all, working towards the same business goals as you. To ensure the quality of the result, all involved parties must treat this as a shared vision to achieve.

Looking to Outsource Your Software Development?

Let’s connect. We are a leading offshore software development agency in Canada, having experience of building software for various industries like food, aviation, logistics, and transportation.

If you have more questions regarding offshore software development, check the following section. We have answered most Googled FAQs by users.

FAQ About Benefits of Outsourcing Software Development

  1. What are the different offshoring models?

    The main offshoring types are — onshoring, nearshoring, and offshoring.

    • Onshoring where the development team is in the same geographical region as the business.
    • Nearshoring is when the vendor team is located in a neighboring region or country.
    • Offshoring is outsourcing development to a team in a completely different time zone from the business, leading to significant cost reduction.
  2. What are the benefits of relying on an offshore software development companies for development?

    Relying on an offshore software company and offshore developers means relying on experienced talent at an affordable cost for your software project. Offshore software development businesses benefit from highly scalable applications created at a fraction of the price when depending on an in-house team.

  3. What to look for in the best offshore development team?

    Before offshoring your development processes, ensure that offshore teams are

    • Affordable
    • Experienced
    • Technologically knowledgeable
    • Time flexible
    • Collaborative
    • Protects sensitive information
  4. What are the significant challenges when collaborating with offshore teams?

    Some of the roadblocks that you will face include the following. Solutions to all of these are listed above.

    • Time zone differences
    • Language barriers
    • Data sensitivity
    • Process confidentiality
    • Cultural differences
    • Miscommunication

Pick a Reliable Software Development Company

For a first-time entrepreneur, offshoring your processes and to hire offshore software developers is a scary ordeal but it’s a smart strategic move. You may worry about finding the right team, collaboration mode, and much more. But no matter the challenges, an offshore software development company is uniquely capable of bringing better results to your software projects than an in-house team.

There is much to consider cost-wise before plunging into development and outsourcing software projects. When done right, business owners greatly benefit when they offshore development services. Offshore development teams are also highly skilled in hastening the process, especially releasing a product in the competitive market.

Building a dedicated team that integrates well into the core business is quite tricky. Once you find the perfect offshore development company, it will be challenging to part with them expressly since they understand your business model so well. The right offshore development company can thus become significant assets you can rely on in the future.

Remember, out of a sea of offshore software development companies, rely on the one that has proven its mettle time and again with incredible results.

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Rakesh Patel

Written by

Rakesh Patel is the Founder and CEO of Space-O Technologies (Canada). He has 28 years of IT experience in business strategies, operations & information technology. He has expertise in various aspects of business like project planning, sales, and marketing, and has successfully defined flawless business models for the clients. A techie by mind and a writer at heart, he has authored two books – Enterprise Mobility: Strategy & Solutions and A Guide To Open311

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