Starting a tech startup can be quite challenging due to rising costs, ever-changing software technologies, and stiff competition. That’s why many startups and companies choose to hire an offshore development team for support.
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What is Offshore Software Development?
Offshore software development is a practice where a company hires a software development team or individuals located in a different country or region to design, create, and maintain software applications. This approach is often chosen for cost savings, access to specialized skills, and the ability to accelerate development through round-the-clock work cycles.
Large companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Google utilize offshore software development by partnering with teams in different countries to access cost-effective talent and expedite their software projects.
Why Hire an Offshore Software Development Team
The offshore model implies that you are relocating your software development processes to a region and country with lower operating costs. For example, if you work in the U.S. and the development team is in Ukraine, India, or Lithuania.
Unlike outsourcing, where you manage an external contractor, offshoring suggests you move particular business processes to a separate team/company in a different country. As a result, you do not control each task; instead, you set requirements, control milestones, and get a finished product.
While considering offshoring software development, people are uneasy because of language barriers, cultural differences, and time zone discrepancies. Say, you don’t want to hire an offshore development team only for one of the above reasons. In that case, you can start cooperation and enjoy its benefits because your predecessors have solved them already. In 2023 people learned to level out these issues.
The IT industry has switched entirely to English, automatically eliminating communication issues. People use Jira tools, ClickUp, Pivotal Tracker, and other alternatives to monitor progress and adjust tasks. Establishing clear communication and using relevant tools smooth out the cooperation process.
Key Model Advantages of Hiring Offshore Developers
Offshore software development services are popular globally due to their cost-effectiveness balance. Therefore, offshoring replaces traditional market cooperation models. Several factors make offshore service more profitable for businesses than staff maintenance.
Reducing Development Costs
The IT service cost is lower in countries with a reasonable standard of living, like Ukraine or Lithuania. To confirm this fact, look at the index of exported digital services. These countries are considered the best options in price/quality ratio, with prices for software development ranging from $20 to $100 per hour.
The second option is Asia and India. These regions have a developed IT industry with the most significant number of developers (about 4.8 million). At the same time, the work cost is almost two times lower than in Eastern Europe and ranges from $10 to $70 per hour.
The United States and Western Europe are traditionally the most expensive regarding offshore and outsourcing services. Hiring costs often exceed $70 at minimum, with a $200 maximum price per hour of work.
In general, offshoring services are cheaper than hiring a full-time team. As you reduce the project’s total cost, the ROI increases, which is one of the critical catalysts for successful scaling. As a result, people consider offshoring the best solution for small or medium-sized businesses with limited budgets.
Improving the Quality of Digital Products
Contrary to the common belief, external specialists usually have extensive IT industry knowledge and provide a more comprehensive range of services than in-house specialists. It results in the higher quality of final digital products. For example, when you hire offshore developer service from Glorium Tech, you get the following:
- Advanced analytics and market research
- Tech stack and scaling suggestions
- Planning and creating a project roadmap
- Multilevel development from scratch or based on chosen SaaS platform
- User-friendly design and control logic
- Comprehensive QA with process automation
- Support throughout the software lifecycle
- Workflow control with Jira and analogs
- Detailed reporting and clear KPI metrics
We provide measurable results for all development processes from the early stages. Thus, you can control development, making timely adjustments remotely. As a result, you can be sure that your digital product fully meets the target audience’s market requirements, specifications, and expectations.
Selection of Top-notch Talent Worldwide
As a rule, when hiring in-house specialists, companies lose flexibility and profitability in development. Why is this so? Full-time employees specialize in a particular tech stack, ignoring market trends. Their training costs money, and the result only sometimes justifies the investment.
Hiring offshore software development services gives businesses access to various technologies and tech solutions. Companies that exclusively provide IT services develop employees’ skills, seeking to ensure multiple:
- Methodologies
- Development languages
- Technologies
- Working principles
- Development methods
- Organization methods
Thus, hiring offshore developers allows you to attract a variety of industry experts to your team. It is a great benefit for companies and startups.
When choosing contractors to develop your project, focus on your budget and the specifics of your business. Also, it would be best to consider the IT industry’s regional peculiarities. For example, teams from Eastern Europe have the best price/quality ratio. In contrast, the lowest development costs are in India and Asia, and the highest quality in the U.S. and Western Europe.
Reducing Release and Deployment Time
When you hire offshore developers, you can significantly reduce the time to market your digital solution. Several factors contribute to this:
- Remote work with no logistics
- Comprehensive process coordination via Jira
- Self-organized team of performers
- Coordinated actions by experts
- Quality project and product management
- Consistency of development and testing mechanics
- Minimal external influences
- Integrated testing of elements
- High team productivity
When hiring offshore developers, you only have to monitor the process and make timely adjustments or corrections. And the contractor does the rest of the work. If you’re worried about development quality decline due to speed reasons, you shouldn’t be. Most offshore teams value their reputations and do projects with the highest quality.
When you go for offshore software development, start by getting super clear about what you want to achieve with your project. Invest time in partner research. Ensure your team possesses the right skills, expertise, and cultural fit for seamless collaboration.
Prioritize effective communication, strong project management, and rigorous quality assurance. On the legal front, focus on confidentiality agreements, legal compliance, and adhering to timelines. This approach sets a strong foundation for offshore success.
Elena KorkhHR Director, Glorium Technologies
Enhancing Scalability
Hiring offshore software developers can scale your digital product easier and faster. There are several reasons for this:
- The team is not distracted by other tasks or projects
- You can utilize additional resources for work
- The contractor has more experience in analyzing the market and its trends
- Technological access allows you to innovate faster
Additionally, offshore development teams are less constrained in skills and techniques. As a result, it allows faster adaptation to the existing technology stack and better expansion.
What Businesses Does the Hiring Offshore Developers Model Fit?
The hiring offshore developers model, especially when employing Agile methodologies, is now suitable for a wide range of businesses, including government entities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In 2023, the perception of third-party contractors’ quality and solution security has significantly improved.
These organizations can benefit from the cost-effective and agile nature of offshore development teams to efficiently meet their software development needs while maintaining quality standards and robust security measures.
It is no secret that most third-party developers use OSS (open-source software) and other widespread commercial tools. However, these facts do not affect the solution’s security and corporate or user data privacy — quite the opposite.
Usually, when you hire an offshore development team, you sign several contracts, including an NDA (non-disclosure agreement). The parties guarantee no information leakage from any side, and the guilty party will be punished by paying for damages. This way, you solve the security issue.
You can hire offshore developers if your business niche is:
- E-commerce
- Multimedia
- OTT/Smart TV
- Streaming
- Healthcare
- Rental
- Booking
- Logistics
- Social networks
- Marketplaces
- User services
This list is not exclusive. For example, offshoring is fit for developing corporate solutions and programs for government agencies. However, the requirements are much higher, and the customer representative strictly controls the contractor’s actions.
Where Can I Find a Reliable Partner to Hire an Offshore Development Team?
There are several parameters for choosing a contractor for an IT project:
- The company’s industry experience
- The team’s skill level
- Relevant experience in projects similar to yours
- Examples of launched IT products
- Expertise in a particular niche and technology
- Cumulative rating on specialized platforms
- Feedback from past clients and users of digital solutions
Usually, you can view these specifications on the offshore IT companies’ pages about the team’s strengths. How can you find companies based on such parameters without knowing the company’s web page address?
Two options are available: ask your partners for a recommendation or check leading recruiting platforms with detailed information about IT service providers, for example:
You’ll find hundreds of companies that specialize in developing and supporting software products. A flexible filter system allows you to narrow your search to a few items valid for your business.
Carefully study the reviews of companies and completed work examples. This information will give you a good understanding of whether the team of offshore developers suits your project.
How Do I Prepare to Hire Offshore Software Development Team?
Delegating any project, including software development, requires careful planning and preparation. It is essential to clearly define your project requirements, set realistic expectations, and establish effective communication channels with your offshore team to ensure successful collaboration and project completion.
Additionally, conducting thorough research on potential offshore software development companies and their expertise can help you make an informed decision when selecting a team to work with.
It is a typical example of the delegation and implementation process. Your concern is choosing a contractor. After that, the development team takes care of the rest – development, testing, release, support, and scaling (the complete list of services depends on the contract, terms, and type of cooperation).
Summary
Regardless of the business size or peculiarities, employing offshore developers saves your budget and speeds up the release. This approach is optimal for small and medium-sized software projects and works best in the long run.
When choosing a contractor, look at their rating on the global market, the cost of services, and the average level of specialists in the team. Thus, you can balance the cost/quality ratio of the work, resulting in a top-notch software product for the business.
We recommend hiring an offshore development team at Glorium Technologies to choose the best performer. The team’s experts implement the highest quality solutions. For 12 years of work, we are proud to have a 99.9% rating of successful projects and positive reviews on the profile portals.
Delegate your project’s development to the Glorium Technologies professionals. Contact our manager to ask your questions and find out what we can do for you.