How to Know if Your Offshore Development Company is Trying to Fool You?

Now, software development outsourcing has moved into the third decade. And the decision-makers have managed to make great strides in maturity while managing to avoid some common and costly pitfalls of the practice.

When you as a client enter into their next-generation outsourcing deals today, you may do a lot of right or wrong things.

It is a possibility the offshore developers you have hired are trying to fool you in some way or the other.

What is the guarantee that they tend to create better level service that more accurately reflects real performance?

Do they recognize the importance of service integration and process alignment or keep strategic elements in place to develop more flexible contracts?

There are a number of offshore development agencies that may try to trap you, so it is important that you know no one is fooling you.

Take care and avoid outsourcing missteps as it will go a long way toward fostering IT services engagements that achieve their intended results.

How to Know if Your Offshore Company is not Fooling You?

Contents [hide]

• 1 How to Know if Your Offshore Company is not Fooling You?

• 1.1 1) Know the Tech

• 1.2 2) Smell the Desperation

• 1.2.1 3) Price vs Value

• 1.2.2 4) Fancy Jack of all Trades

• 1.3 A mobile app development process has the below-mentioned steps –

• 1.3.1 Run Credential Checks

• 1.3.2 Make Sure they Don’t have Vague Contracts

• 1.3.3 Poor Relationship Management

• 1.3.4 Not Analyzing your Offshore Partner’s Retention Rate

• 1.3.5 Outsourcing security or providing access to personal data

• 1.3.6 Lack of feedback and established survey systems

• 1.3.7 Technical skills over communication skills

• 1.3.8 Communication, Communication, Communication

• 1.3.9 Conclusion

1) Know the Tech

If you are a startup or have a small business, there will be many constraints as far as time and budget are concerned.

So, you might not accept the preferences in terms of end-product quality, productivity, and turnaround time being compromised due to your restraints.

In such situations, it is important to conduct research and then document your specifications as well as requirements upfront before approaching an offshore development service provider. Understand

• What do you actually want?

• Which technology to choose?

• How big should the team be?

For example

The iOS app can be a native app in Swift or Objective C but to be effective or in-line with your requirements.

It is also a possibility that it can be developed with the help of a cross-platform application utilizing Xamarin. This will help you serve your needs better.

Ensure that the developer you are exploring has experience in those techs. And, they have produced relevant reference work.

This will save time and also add value to your project. How? In the simplest way- this will help you avoid being fooled by the outsourcing company by proposing over-generous service, deliverables, unrealistic expectations, unnecessary resources and time consumption, irrational cost, etc.

2) Smell the Desperation

When there is global outsourcing, many service providers are always on their toes with a lot of desperation to get more and work more.

The major reason behind so many projects failing is inefficiency, undelivered projects, disputes, improper implementation, etc.

This is because either the offshore team doesn’t have skilled staff or they don’t have time due to so many projects.

When this happens, you are left with a pocket full of lost time and money, in a bad situation.

While some know how to take out the best from an offshore development team, others are left in the middle of nowhere.

That is the point when you feel, is the business outsourcing company acting desperate?

Try to figure out the intensity and flavor of desperation. Well, you have to understand that there is a thin line between enthusiasm and desperation.

You can easily find out if the outsourcing company is acting desperate for business.

There are few teams that appoint marketing personnel that are loaded with incentives for getting new clients and their job is done once you award the project.

Regardless of if the project is successfully completed while satisfying the client, the quality is up to the mark and there is on-time delivery.

So, make sure you hire developers that are not desperate.

Tip: Make sure, if they are desperate, that can work positively if they are excited to work on your project.

Wondering, how will you find that out? If they give suggestions and provide advice regarding the project, it will depict they are knowledgeable and want good for your company.

Are they desperate just to win your project or are excited to work on it as well?

How to find best-dedicated developers? Did they suggest new features or provide any suggestions during the discussion phase?

3) Price vs Value

The adage saying,‘Everything comes with a price is definitely true. Well, some things just cost more than others.’

The cost of the project varies exponentially with quality and turnaround time whenever you prefer an outsourcing model.

You should have offshore developers in the team who agree on developing a mobile app or website at a genuine price.

To put it more logically, they should be able to provide world-quality services at the best price.

This will help in maintaining the stability and equilibrium of the market.

Tip: Less cost is bound to affect the quality and delivery timeframe. So, it is recommended that you settle for a price-value mix

4) Fancy Jack of all Trades

It is important to transform your concept into a market-ready solution destined to strike a chord.

So, you should never take a chance by moving in with the outsourcing consultant that gives you fake promises of delivering a wide range of services at the same intensity that too singlehandedly.

Especially for the ones that you think require a collective effort of the individual brilliance.

In general, a web or app development project requires professionals of diverse specializations who are tuned to work marvels in their respective domains.

You will also need a Project Manager, to manage a team that has designers, developers, and quality analysts specialists.

A mobile app development process has the below-mentioned steps –

• Gathering relevant information

• Documentation related to the requirements and specifications

• Wireframe design (by Business Analyst)

• User interface design (by UX designer)

• Front-end developer (by Front-end/UI Developer)

• Mobile App Development (Native iOS and/or Android development by App developers)

• Server-side development (with the help of back-end developers)

• API development (Managed by Back-end developers)

• Quality Analysis and Testing

• UAT (User Acceptance Testing by project owner team)

• Launch, support, and maintenance

Although there are many full-stack developers available nowadays that promise to deliver exceptional results.

There may be some who have the ability to complete the project while fulfilling the expectations but most of them won’t.

If the project has multiple features, it becomes challenging for a single person to handle so much.

That is the reason they are not able to bring justice to all these core specialized areas. This doesn’t make sense.

So, hiring a team of developers from overseas means:

• No worries

• Minimal required directions

• More productivity

• Value for money

• Standard quality

• On-time project delivery

• Within budget

Tip: Focus on building a small team with specific individual expertise for project-wide successful implementation.

Run Credential Checks

Are you sure you have hired the right offshore software development team that has proved experience?

Make sure you have a team of programmers that have the experience in successfully delivering the projects in your niche day in day out.

Rest assured, an offshore company that has done it for many, can swiftly repeat the same for you, too.

Run a credential check even if you did it before. This is a fine idea as it helps in giving you a hint about your hiring potential.

Ask for a list of former and existing clients with their contact details. Explore their LinkedIn profiles.

Try and reach them out for an unprejudiced review about the offshore company.

Ask whatever you feel like how the remote developers proved effective for their project and what has been their USP?

When you explore the LinkedIn profile of the offshore dedicated team, it becomes easy to clear out the overall picture.

LinkedIn professional reviews are dependable and unbiased.

Make Sure they Don’t have Vague Contracts

Non-disclosure agreements or Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are written to establish what is expected of both sides.

Make sure the offshore development contracts are not vague. Writing metric based SLAs vs. SLAs that use abstract terms provide a more objective assessment of whether the goals were achieved.

However, avoid over-complication. Because overly detailed contracts are very difficult to review. You should leave room for learning opportunities especially in long-term contracts.

Poor Relationship Management

When the project gets started, it should not be completely left over to the dedicated developers.

It is very important than your already existing team and the remote software team working together.

Not only should there be a transition and change management, but the relationship should be monitored throughout the project.

This clearly means both of them should follow an effective communication approach and use tracking tools. And use them every day.

Not Analyzing your Offshore Partner’s Retention Rate

High attrition hinders the team’s productivity. This is because it leads to the training of new employees.

In an ideal scenario, your initial hires work from scratch and leave the project only when it gets completed.

A low retention rate means that the company provides poor compensation and benefits packages to the employees.

It is important as different offshore service providers may offer a similar retention rate. It doesn’t make any sense if the rate’s difference varies by only a few points.

Outsourcing security or providing access to personal data

It is important to cut corners on security, but if there is any type of data theft your organization may run into danger.

Loss of reputation, legal loss and even shutting down are the extreme consequences regarding security.

There is a lot that you can do to protect the security breach while outsourcing.

You should go for services like security audits, CCTV monitoring, or rely on a Chief Security Officer on your end.

Lack of feedback and established survey systems

When you are working with your in-house team, it is quite easy to examine the atmosphere due to one-on-one meetings and discussions.

But when you are with an outsourcing firm, there is no way to instantly know about the swings in a provider’s policies towards employees.

Sometimes, you know only when the service quality goes downhill. Therefore, it is important that you measure your remote employees’ satisfaction rate.

Also, ensure the communication is two-way. Know their feedback and do revert them regarding their issues if any. Ask the remote team to be as objective and detailed as possible

Technical skills over communication skills

The synergy of every team lies in communication between the team members.

Technical do matter but the virtual development team needs to communicate a lot in an effective manner.

Team members if not comfortable working with one another, it is not good for your project.

There are some remote team members that don’t want to efficiently collaborate so make sure the developers aren’t fooling you.

Team members should feel comfortable working together, strive to deliver information in the best way possible, and work on goals together.

Also, ensure they are best in tech and not in soft skills. This is because communication skills go a long way for effective teamwork.

The ability to get a message across clearly, request information, discuss problems, give instructions, and interact with team members, the offshore development team should have soft skills in order to get things done and achieve goals.

Communication, Communication, Communication

Technology outsourcing involves working with people from outside your business, and sometimes from outside your own timezone.

This is true that starting a new project is challenging but when you are planning to hire offshore programmers, communication really is key.

Software development is an intricate process that involves social interaction and also effective communication, due to the different professional profiles and expertise working on them.

With the growth of remote working has to come the growth of apps and tools for communication with teams, no matter where you all are.

Communication tools like slack, ZIRA, Basecamp are a great way to keep in touch with your project team.

Video calls have also come a long way. Apps such as Zoom and Skype allow teams to meet online and talk through plans, milestones, and issues on any project to ensure they are always on the same page.

Conclusion

The aforementioned are some of the crunch points that you must ponder before hiring dedicated offshore developers.

Read and re-read them and make sure you consider these while working with the offshore development team.

Rest assured, your odds of completing the project successfully will, for sure, multiply manifolds.

We hope it proves to be virtuous and wish you good luck with your project and working with the offshore company.

Source: Know about Offshore Development Company