Category: Offshore outsourcing

cost-your-software-development-project

How Do I Quote Costs For Software Development Projects?

September 22, 2021

Recently, while conversing with one of my clients, I realised how costing their dream project has become challenging altogether. Costing your software development project means you have to take care of all the nitty-gritty. Costing depends upon the following factors: Size of the project The complexity of the project Design of the project Team composition Platform used Size of the project To understand the cost behind the software development project, you have to understand the project’s size. Size also represents the scope of the project. The requirements that reveal the added features on the pre-existing ones. This will further make you understand the software requirements. Thus, the cost depends upon all. Yes, sizing the project means you cannot leave a minute detail out of it. Or else it is going to show the disparity in cost amount. For sizing the project accurately, follow this checklist. The complexity of the project Complexity plays another important role in costing. Complexity comprises of features required for the development project and thus how you want the features to e designed and put together. Thus the navigation and UI/UX also comes with it. The third element that comprises complexity is the technology required to make those features work. Therefore to cost-effectively, you need to have a clear understanding of these elements. Design of the project The design comes after deciding on the complexity. You understand the market trends and customer behaviour and then decide on the designing part. For example, in the food ordering mobile application, which one will you prefer while ordering the quantity of the same product? Do you want to increase the quantity one y one with the ‘+’ sign, or do you want to type manually or choose the number from the drop-down box? Thus all these matters when designing an app, and the costing depends upon it. A checklist to follow for deciding on the creative design. Team Composition  All these require a team, and for composing your team, you need to choose the right talent. Fortunately, today software development companies have different engagement models or hiring models to hire the resources as per your business objective. You can also opt for a pay-as-you-go model. Platforms Lastly, it is important to decide which platform your application will run and what technology stack should be used to achieve the same. There will be an introductory rate for developing a project, but creating something that will cater to the niche segment requires advanced technology and unique design, which adds to the project’s cost. There are three popular platforms for software development projects – Android, iOS and web applications offered to the client by software development partners. Today users are using various platforms, and thus to stay future-ready, founders need to build different versions of applications for different platforms. Software development cost depends upon various matters apart from the five key factors mentioned above. It also relies on the region of the world from where you hire your developers. In North America, hiring a junior developer takes $90 to $100 per hour, whereas, in Asia, the hourly rate for senior developers varies from $25 to $35.  So when you find costing complicated, always start from the basics and then go up to the complexity. An MVP features also give you a costing idea. After that, find out the design and creatives required to enhance customer experience. Often in low budgeting, developers overlook the market trends and user experience. Thus along with costing, taking care of the quality of the project is important. Remember, you are paying for the brains, too, along with the hands.

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7 Advantages Of Hiring Agile Offshore Development Teams

September 6, 2021

Are you thinking about a new project for your business? If so, you might be thinking about the time-to-market, product quality, and budget too. In this scenario, outsourcing the development to offshore agile teams can be the best option! However, if you haven’t outsourced earlier, you might be sceptical about using agile offshore development. But don’t worry. A report says that 78% of businesses all over the world feel positive about their outsourcing partners.  Here we have listed some of the best possible benefits that you can avail of by hiring agile offshore development teams.  Let’s start! Engagement of stakeholders Agile software development consists of short sprints that create products on a regular basis and involve client feedback. So, it will be easier for the team to understand the client’s vision by involving them in every step of the project.  Often, it might happen that the development team builds a product as per clients’ requirements. But after a few months, it may turn out to be unsatisfactory for the clients. This was the main problem of the traditional waterfall development method.  But with the agile development method, clients can provide valuable feedback after each sprint. Thereby, agile offshore development ensures full client satisfaction.  Offshore agile teams strive to improve quality In Agile development, the offshore team doesn’t develop the product in one go. The team divides the project into sprints. By doing so, they can focus on high-quality product development and quality testing.  After every iteration, the offshore development team will conduct testing and ask about the client’s feedback. Hence, if any bugs or mismatch occurs with the client’s expectations, it is taken care of in the early stages of development. This gradual testing and resolving issues (if any) ensures the optimal quality of the product. Get more time to focus on core business operations Technologies are evolving and so are customer demands. If you can’t keep up with the pace of changing trends, your business will be lagging in the market. So, you need to build software based on the recent market trends and technologies. That means you have to focus on your core business competencies and software development. But why will you worry about software development? Let the offshore agile teams handle your software development. By doing so, you can free up time to focus on core business operations and drive business revenue. Offshore agile teams offer full transparency When you are outsourcing a project, it’s obvious that you will expect transparency. And agile development exactly believes the same! In agile offshore development, clients can be part of the process from start to finish. The clients can prioritise features to include, plan iteration, and hold review sessions. This way, the agile development method wins the confidence of the clients by providing transparency. Anticipate project costs Each sprint has a set duration. By using time-boxed and fixed schedule sprints, the cost is predictable. Because it depends on the amount of work that the team can complete within the established time frame.  So, by using offshore agile development, the client has a better understanding of the estimated cost of each item. This helps them make better decisions about which features to prioritise and whether or not they require extra iterations. Reduces time-to-market Time-to-market defines the success of any product. Agile offshore development teams use tried-and-tested methods to develop the product faster. They use time-boxed development cycles to achieve faster product launches without compromising quality.  Thereby, agile offshore development can reduce the time-to-market of your product. This allows you to successfully capitalise on the opportunity and drive business growth. Better project management The agile offshore team can collaborate with you to determine the components of each iteration. Eventually, everyone in the team is aware of the standards to be adhered to. The daily standup meetings provide information to every team member about the project’s progress. Hence, this helps the team to immediately resolve any issues during each iteration. Besides, the team may prepare for the next sprint by holding planning sessions. For that, they can use the learnings from the past sprints and prepare for better sprints ahead. Final word Outsourcing your projects to agile offshore development teams is indeed a good idea. It offers ample benefits like reduced time-to-market, lower costs, improved communications, etc. In this article, we have discussed the best 7 benefits that agile offshore development teams offer.  Contact us right away and reap all the benefits of the agile development method to your software development project! 

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Software-development-Products

When Should You Pause Your Software Product Development?

December 8, 2020

In the 21st century, most of the world has moved far ahead than our civilization had in the last century or even the last millennium. Software products have become such an integral part of our lives. It’s quite difficult to picture any of our everyday activities without the use of some sort of computer-based application or procedure! But the sad news is, according to a PMI report, nearly 14% of all software projects fail. One of the prominent reasons behind the failure of software projects is not adhering to software product development.   So, you have to constantly follow a step-by-step strategy to go from one stage to the next. Thereby, it ensures you don’t fall behind as you progress from a concept to a launch.  While developing, some precautionary measures would lead to inefficient software product development or faulty software products if ignored. So, let’s discuss some of the major aspects to avoid such mishaps. Pre planning before developing software products One of the key and vital aspects of developing software products is chalking out the requirements and analysis. You need to spend a lot of time planning the right way to understand the problems. Because a wrong analysis of the project might lead to the development of incorrect products.  There lies the importance of good planning! It can help to avoid the extension of the development time. Eventually, it reduces the overall expense of the project.  Quality of Documentation: The documentation personnel needs to be in regular touch with the developers. Based on documentation suggestions, you have to decide about documentation changes & additions. Thereby, it ensures that the documentation remains up-to-date. The developer team needs to remove any unnecessary documents. Besides, the team has to be alert to spot any missing documentation. Customization: At times, we as creators or developers feel very overwhelmed with our work. By doing so, we may overlook the actual requirements of the product owner or clients. That’s why developers need to think from the client’s perspective too. And make sure that the software product becomes fruitful to the clients.  MUST CHECK: So, check the development of the product at all phases. And if you come across any anomalies, update the same to your vendor.  Software products – Design and development Conceptualizing the whole System Design: You need to spend considerable time to figure out the whole process and the ways to accomplish it. So, you need an expert in System Designing who has been in this field for at least 7 to 10 years. He or she can guide throughout the product development, and make the blueprint of the whole architecture. MUST CHECK: Don’t forget to ask your contractor about the process they are going to take and the ways by which they are going to fully fill it. A good System Design would lead to a strong foundation. Eventually, it will lead to sustainable development and a scalable product. Key strategy to software product development: There are various ways to develop software products, like Prototyping, Waterfall, and Agile methodologies, etc. Agile methodologies are popular and trending in software development. It runs in various sprints ranging from weeks to months. You need to list some features based on their priority. For example, in the case of an e-commerce app:  A must-have feature would be a good UI with a showcasing all the products on their website and an easy payment system,  Good features may include a 360-degree view of the product. An add-on feature would be an intelligent recommendation system for cross-selling or upselling. Taking wrong inputs from the requirements analysis would lead to wrong product development or missing features. Thereby, it will increase the overall cost or delay the deadline of the project.  MUST CHECK: Hence, you should always have a check on the products being developed at every phase. And try to find out which phase the development has reached. On that basis, the team should come up with an ALPHA version and release it within a time. After that, the developer team should release a BETA version with improvements from the previous versions.   QA testing in software product development No room for Negligence: While developing software products, any bugs, functional defects, or security issues are major concerns before rolling out to the public. So, you need to handle these issues in advance. A loophole in such practices would lead to a huge monetary loss or data breach of the end-users.  MUST CHECK: Hence, the stakeholders should be clear about the approaches taken by the software vendors. Also, they should know the ways to deal with it in the future to avoid such catastrophic events. Conclusion Evolution is a fact of life, and software products must develop in order to stay competitive. The present technology will always reach a point when it no longer meets the demands of the product owner and end-users. There is always room for more development and additional features. Outsourcing to an offshore software development partner can lead to faster development, cost-effectiveness, and better creative output than the competitors. But at the same time, you should focus on the points we discussed above. By doing so, you can expect a superior result. And eventually, a long-term relationship and growing trust factors in the market.

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Out-Staffing Vs. Outsourcing: Is There A Better Approach?

February 28, 2019

Outsourcing product development as a concept took off sometime during the 1990s when the digital revolution enabled client companies to waive off their software development projects to service providers who would then realize it internally. Primarily, the clients can choose a fixed cost per project which is agreed upon a mutually agreed deadline (Fixed Cost Project model). Otherwise, they can also hire developers from a staffing agency who would be managed by the client’s internal teams. Outsourcing is primarily associated with the Fixed Cost Project model, whereas out-staffing is associated with the Full-Time Equivalent model. Both the models have pros and cons, but the success of its implementation depends upon your project and staffing requirements. Here is a quick comparison between the outsourcing and out-staffing models. What’s outsourcing all about? In an outsourcing scenario, a particular project (e.g. Software development) is dished out to a service provider, who remains responsible for execution and delivery. The service provider is responsible for the successful completion of only the project. The provider manages the end to end execution, and can also hire talent if required. Apart from that, the client doesn’t need to take any added responsibility to complete it. This allows the client to focus on core business activities and delegate specific project(s) to the chosen service provider(s). Advantages Talent Acquisition responsibilities are taken care of by the service provider. Eliminates overhead costs associated with the completion of the project. A client does not have to manage the project or the service provider’s team. Disadvantages Client loses quality control of the project. Communication with the development team is not direct and lucid. Pain points may not be communicated with the offshore team accurately. Costs can soar if additional projects are added along the way. Case study: A manufacturing company based in New York City intended to launch a mobile application to manage its field staff. The company outsourced the project to a client based in India. While the quality of the application was excellent, the company realized that it needed IoT sensor integration as well. The service provider agreed, but this resulted in additional fees to the client. What went wrong? This scenario could have been avoided through transparent and ease of communication between the client and the service provider. Lesson: The outsourcing model is great for simple single one-off projects. With more complex projects on the sleeves, a more flexible model is required. How is out-staffing different from outsourcing? In an out-staffing model, remote workers who are employed by another company are recruited temporarily to perform certain tasks. The external agency acts as the employer of the remote team and is responsible for their salaries, bonuses, and equipment etc. The client provides and manages the assignment directly. This is a great model to choose when the client company has begun a project and requires specific assistance from professionals with certain skills that are not available in-house. Herein, lies the advantage because you can hire a top level talent for a fraction of the full-time hire.  Additionally, the client company’s managers oversee project management and completion. Advantages This model is perfect for ongoing projects. Specific skills that are required only for a short duration could be hired based on specific projects. Direct access and control of remote workers either onsite or offshore. Disadvantages Client bears the management responsibilities. Communication channels need to be of high quality and transparent. Deliverables are the client’s onus. Case study: A San Francisco Bay Area software company required to execute Python-based projects. Unable to acquire in-house talents, they decide to hire two skilled Python developers from an out-staffing company. While the projects were completed in time satisfactorily, the company realized it needed to complete more projects in other newer technologies such as Kotlin. This resulted in the client having to hire more remote workers from a different out-staffing agency. What went wrong? Hiring multiple remote workers could have been avoided if the client company hired from the same agency and paid for the development time, rather than for the number of workers. The client also didn’t receive the necessary guidance. Lesson: Out-staffing model is suited for a large IT company that already has well-defined processes and management but is looking for specific skills temporarily. It is not suitable for companies with dynamic requirements. What a flexible model looks like? A flexible model combines the outsourcing model with out-staffing services and adds IT consultancy to the mix. Most outsourcing and out-staffing models fail because consulting is often ignored and the fact that project requirements change along the way is taken for granted. Software development and digital requirements are always dynamic and cherry picking projects and remote workers can both prove to be expensive. Dedicated hiring is a flexible and dynamic solution that erases constraints placed by traditional models such as outsourcing and out-staffing. It combines the advantages of traditional project outsourcing and remote workers with that of consultancy so that businesses only pay for skills used and services rendered. Most importantly, businesses do not have to squander temporal and financial resources on multiple project outsourcing and parallel remote hiring. Advantages of a flexible model As project requirements and skill demands can widely oscillate, a flexible model is leaner and cost-effective Such a model gives the client company access to developers, designers, digital marketing consultants, security experts, project managers, ScrumMasters, etc. It also stresses on the importance of an agile framework, which helps businesses to scale down or scale up depending on their evolving needs. Dedicated hiring can be understood as an amalgamation of the benefits of outsourcing and out-staffing models with added benefits of IT consultancy. This is a flexible model that allows businesses to manage projects the way they want while having access to a multi-disciplinary team of IT professionals and consultants. Key takeaways The traditional outsourcing model focuses on project completion by an external service provider Out-staffing model focuses on hiring remote workers to fill specific gaps temporarily Dedicated hiring addresses the pain points associated

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Building An Offshore Agile Marketing Team

February 6, 2019

According to McKinsey, “Agile, in the marketing context, means using data and analytics to continuously source promising opportunities or solutions to problems in real-time, deploying tests quickly, evaluating the results, and rapidly iterating.” An Agile marketing strategy particularly helps to manage offshore marketing teams. It allows quick and efficient coordination with teams to complete several disparate marketing processes simultaneously. The best part of offshore agile teams is clear communication. You can assign roles and targets to your offshore teams and monitor them on an ongoing basis via Scrum meetings. In this article, we will discuss how you can build your own offshore Agile team for marketing right from the scratch. Points to keep in mind before building an offshore Agile team for marketing Start with identifying agencies which specialize in multiple disciplines. An agency that only specializes in digital marketing may not be able to help you with certain technical aspects of your marketing campaigns.  According to Gartner, your team should comprise a group of multidisciplinary generalists.  The team should be able to connect with several pain points that your customers may face. Based on that, they should intuitively use their skill sets to build, execute and monitor marketing campaigns autonomously. Only those agencies that specialize in multiple skills such as digital marketing, design, development and consulting will be able to achieve such a feat. Look for an agency that can work autonomously and lead itself. Gartner specifies this to be the second most important quality while identifying a team. It also adds that you should choose a team which proves its strength in data analytics too. Identification of roles and responsibilities Well, you can divide your marketing teams into five groups, like: Content team: This team works with everything related to the content of your campaigns. This includes text, audio, video, and images. You will need a great copywriter, a blogging team, and a social media team. Sales team: They are responsible for everything related to lead acquisition and making sales. This team may also have marketing professionals involved or if you want to create a separate marketing team to develop campaigns, you can do that too. Monetization team: This team is responsible for converting leads into customers by taking on multiple roles. This could be client-servicing, customer service, or plain old sales. Data and analytics team: You should prioritize hiring people who are good at data and analytics. Agile marketing depends on data and you will need people with a strong IT background to work with analytical tools that can derive market insights. Strategy team: The strategy builders should be multi-disciplinarian in their approach and should combine insight with creativity to come up with marketing and sales campaigns. Hence, they should also be experts in Agile management and should be able to conduct daily and weekly Scrum meetings. How many people should be in each team?  Well, there is no specific answer to this question. Because It depends on the size of your own company and also your marketing goals.  Agile marketing revolves around the idea of scalability. It makes sense to keep the team(s) as small as possible.  There are cases where just a single team manages all the functions we described above. Sometimes, just 2 to 3 members can form your offshore Agile marketing team, and their roles may overlap. In other cases, you can have multiple teams with as many as 10 to 15 members in each team. And respective ScrumMasters will lead these teams.  Organize your offshore Agile marketing team and assign leadership roles To build your high-performing offshore Agile marketing team, start small and identify your marketing approach. The crux of agile methodology is scalability.  A good vendor will only assign those members who will work on your project. This can be as few as just two individual members, one of whom could be the ScrumMaster.  As your marketing requirements grow, you can add new members to your team. Because the prospects of dividing your team into multiple ones increase with each additional member. At this juncture, you can refer to our guidelines regarding a full-fledged marketing team. Agile leadership varies across organizations and there can be different kinds of leaders. Some of the leadership roles that companies often hire externally include Editorial Director – Leads the video, blog, image, social media and community management roles Director of Acquisition – Leads the data analytics, sales, and marketing teams Director of Monetization – Leads other roles such as monetizing campaigns, measuring Agile success, and achieving targets. The one who leads the team should have a decent intellectual capacity. And he or she should be able to arrive at solutions in a creative manner. These are the primary qualities you need to look for in an agile marketing team leader: Entrepreneurial spirit Multidisciplinary skills Creativity Individuality Leadership skills If the marketing leader has all these qualities, he or she can play the role of the Scrum Master as well.  Managing your offshore Agile marketing team Once you have a team(s) in place, it’s time to manage the offshore Agile team as your own. Agile marketing works similar to Agile development. And the basics of Agile marketing is tracking and measuring success via regular Scrum meetings.  Daily standup meetings, also known as Scrum meetings, should not last for more than 15 minutes. You can hold these meetings through video conferencing tools or even on JIRA. You can conduct weekly review meetings. Eventually, it will help you to ensure that your marketing strategy is aligned with your offshore Agile marketing team’s progress. Assign KPIs for each role and for each team. Measure these KPIs regularly and track job responsibilities and accountabilities. We would suggest assigning the role of ScrumMaster to someone from the offshore Agile team. This way, the ScrumMaster can conduct a daily 15-minute standup at the offshore location.  On the other hand, your internal representatives can conduct the weekly reviews. This is an easier way to manage and monitor campaigns while keeping team dynamics

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How To Hold A Sprint Meeting With Your Remote Team

January 29, 2019

While close to 71% of businesses choose Agile approaches to manage projects internally, the same methodology can be used to manage external teams as well. To begin with, it is important to choose a remote team that already has an agile framework in place. To educate them on Sprint meetings and how they are done would defeat the purpose of outsourcing work to an external agency. Assuming you are already working with an agile vendor, it only makes sense to manage your remote teams via Sprint meetings. In this article, let us take a look at how you can hold Sprint meetings with your remote team to enhance productivity. What is a Sprint meeting? A Sprint meeting is a quick and collaborative congregation of team members and is a crucial part of Scrum. Part of the Agile framework, Scrum helps you manage knowledge-based work efficiently. It gives you the power to track progress, address vulnerabilities, reduce workload and enhance productivity, all at once. The gist of Scrum philosophy is that quality trounces quantity and that employees are more productive when they work less. While Scrum-based strategies (and Sprint meetings) are often used in-house, Scrum-inspired management techniques help you remotely manage your offshore teams as well. Scrum is renowned for time-boxed iterations called Sprints Sprints consist of time-managed meetings spread across a month, fortnight or a week Progress is tracked daily via 15-minute stand-up meetings known as daily Scrums. Now, let us take a look at how you can start holding Sprint meetings with your offshore team in order to manage them better. Start with the Sprint planning meeting Make an agreement with your vendor to confine all work cycles to iterations or Sprints of 2 weeks. A month-long is a little too much and just a week would probably not give enough time for your team to complete tasks. Define the goal of each Sprint and work towards developing features of an application or tool that are most essential. As with all Sprint meetings, get your offshore team members to speak more than you will. Purists would advise that a manager should never speak and only the team member should. However, in the case of an offshore situation, this is not possible as you probably will conduct these meetings via video or web conferencing tools. Before you begin to hold your daily Scrum meetings, it is important to start with the Sprint Planning Meeting. Make a hierarchy of features and tasks that need to be prioritized for the product iteration. Product and Sprint backlogs can be managed effectively at the review stage. Here are a few things to consider before you begin your daily Sprint meetings with your offshore team: Define who the ScrumMaster is. The ScrumMaster facilitates the meeting and it is usually advisable to assign this role to someone who can regularly coordinate with an offshore team. Identify the purpose of each meeting and list everyone who will attend these congregations. Plan the Sprints well in advance and set KPIs to measure attainable and relevant goals. Ensure that all the participants have access to good project management tools such as Trello or Nozbe. It is also important to use Slack or another instant messenger which can be used across devices. Decide where the meetings will take place and ensure that your conferencing hardware and software tools are up to date before initiating meetings. Add items to a backlog and make sure that they can be completed within two weeks. While management expert Bob Sutton (Twitter) explains that “4 is the optimal size for a combat team as evidenced by U.S. Navy Seals”, products analytics company Amplitude suggests a growth team should have 5-10 members. If your offshore team has more members, break them up into smaller teams. Hold daily Scrum meetings The most crucial aspect of Scrum meetings is the daily 15-minute meeting with all team members involved. As offshore teams are located far away and you cannot be physically present to oversee project completion, daily Scrum meetings are a non-intrusive and effective way to quantify and measure your progress. Make a small and limited list of questions to ask your offshore team and ensure that the questions track the progress made the previous day, what needs to be done on that particular day, and what obstacles are preventing your offshore team from completing the tasks in hand. Aaron Bjork (Twitter), a group program manager at Microsoft’s Visual Studio Online often asks his team members“What does leadership make you do that is slowing you down”, in order to rectify managerial mistakes. Traditionally, all the team members stand up during the meeting and list what they accomplished during the previous day, what they plan to carry out on the day of the meeting, and the hurdles they currently face. As the meeting will most likely take place over a video or web conferencing tool, nobody has to stand up. Instead, work with the development team and your product manager to assign a random numerical order to each member so that they type/talk only when their turn arrives. Daily Scrum meetings help you to closely work with your offshore team and break barriers often associated with outsourced projects. A well-planned Scrum meeting will ensure that your offshore team communicates with you effectively on a daily basis. Here are a few things you need to do in order to make your daily meetings a success: Maintain a Sprint task list to keep track of completed and pending work Create a Sprint burndown chart to track the progress of your project List all possible obstacles and impediments that stop your offshore team from excelling. Fix those issues on priority Make sure the daily meetings take place at the same time on the same web conferencing or instant messaging tool. Allow everyone to speak without fear and identify vendor managers who seem to act like gatekeepers when you interact with offshore team members. Address this issue, if required. Richard Hackman (Harvard University), an

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IT Outsourcing Services in India and the Lessons it Teaches Us

October 9, 2018

Outsourcing has played an effective role in India over the decades. According to various surveys by one of the leading organization in the United Kingdom, KPMG, it was found the business firms prefer India than any other countries to offshore their work. The IT outsourcing in India has helped various leading organizations to achieve success in their major objectives with the aid of the talented manpower and also cheaper labor costs. The skilled professionals with effective labour costs have attracted companies like Hewlett-Packard, Dell Computer Electronics, ATT wireless, Oracle, Avaya, and many other renowned organizations. They have also partnered with several Business Process outsourcing web development service firms to create a new milestone. Every minute elements are been noticed and have opened up a learning environment to upscale the business on a daily basis. There are loads of stories that have got tags like Success or failure. The case studies have revealed certain moral that created awareness across the mass. The IT outsourcing in India has engineered in Mobility and IoT which have created and opened up a smarter analytics team which is integrated with the business team. Various models are created to make the business get growth across the global market. Before going to the lessons, here are some interesting facts on IT outsourcing in India which would give you a better understanding. Interesting Facts on IT Outsourcing Services From India More companies were opting for outsourcing which seemed like a good and wise idea in the 1980s. But now it is dying down. The main reason for this downfall in the trend of outsourcing is the savings which were once realized by outsourcing contractors are not as profitable as it used to be before. Quick Facts: Approximately 3,00,000 jobs are being outsourced by various U.S companies to India and China. The top-most reason to opt for outsourcing by several organizations is “Cost-Reduction“. On an average 30% of the overhead cost is reduced by outsourcing. According to a survey in 2016, the revenue created by of the global outsourcing industry is a whopping $507 million. It is estimated that the global online freelance workforce generates anywhere between one to two billion on a yearly basis. Approximately 60% of the world’s outsourcing market comprises of IT employees. Read more on 8 Amazing Business Benefits of Choosing the Right Software Outsourcing Partner Offshoring and Outsourcing – Do these both terms mean the same thing? Even today, most of the people are unsure of the proper meaning of offshoring and outsourcing. Offshoring is taking a particular activity and moving it to an offshore location (eg. a different country) but it is wholly owned by you. Outsourcing means giving a particular activity of your organization to another company who manages its activities. Outsourcing can be done in the same city as well. Here is a brief on the lessons: Process For Conflict Resolution: Handling of negotiations and conflict is a vital element that would help in creating more problem solvers, coming up with innovative solutions. Conflicts can happen due to lengthy contracts with confusing phrases which become exhausting. Using one of the several platforms such as Asana, Basecamp, Redbooth and Process Street can help in maintaining a clear understanding with the outsourced partner, hence, avoiding conflicts. Expert Advice in No Time: Being realistic and getting a subject matter expert at a very stringent time is always been a challenge that has got addressed with positive results. Bridging Communication Gap: A new focus has been developed with the architecture of a communication infrastructure. Tools such as Atlassian JIRA, a project management tool specially created for software development teams including agile project management is used widely for bridging the communication gap. Other tools such as Trello, Slack, BitBucket, and GitHub are quite commonly used as well. Stronger Support: Diversified knowledge on the areas of Support in Software development lifecycle has built experts of implementations. Docker, a software containerization platform allows you the benefit to run the software irrespective of its environment. Intellij, an Integrated Development Environment comprises of a compiler, a debugger, and code editor – in short, all tools to create a platform. Other tools such as Jira, Feedly, and Jenkins are used for offering stronger software support. Tailored to be Cost Effective: The outsourcing has majorly built up the areas to understand the effective cost model, which is the prime reason for offshoring a particular business. Core Focus on Key Strengths: The growth of the business is all time focus, which has helped to learn the key strengths. Competition has always been a challenge; however being open to those challenges would help in gaining more expertise and would develop proficiency in achieving solutions. Secured and Confidential Project Completion: The administrative works opened up these major processes that have got the ability in securing the project confidentiality, defining the major objectives, Quality assurance, Work Reviews, Building up payment gateways and setting up protocols. Tools such as HP Unified Functional Testing (UFT), IBM Rational Functional Tester, Worksoft Certify, Parasoft SOAtest, and Apache JMeter can be used for Quality assurance. Talent at a Reasonable Cost: It has created a pool of talented people who are open to work at a cheaper cost with no hindrance in the quality and quantity standards. The flexibility should be a major understanding while scaling up the business for a real growth. Outsourcing has become a major part in the global development. IT outsourcing in India has achieved proficiency in distributed software engineering. There are lots of benefits that have acknowledged all the risks and ensured achievements. The ‘Strategic Planning’ approach along with the service provider selection has created a new business approach in a long run.

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Social Media for Small Brands: When to Shut Up

Why should you consider having an Offshore Software Development Partner?

July 2, 2018

Earlier, one of the major reasons for outsourcing software development to offshore development partners was to reduce operational costs. Now, as the demands for IT resources have increased and the service providers are now more concerned about quality, software development outsourcing has become an acceptable norm. Not only does this minimize the burden from your internal staff but it also lets you enjoy much greater control over the resources you are spending. Moreover, you also acquire a valued strategic business partner in the long run. What exactly is software development outsourcing? It is a practice where you collaborate with an offshore development partner to benefit from their expertise. You can hire them as a part of any project (both long-term and short-term) or simply assign any software development process.  Apart from outsourcing services, these partners have experts to deliver innovation without introducing any increased risk. These strategic partners let you access the resources and tools to improve and expand your business. Advantages of outsourcing to an offshore development partner High-Quality Work You will get access to highly qualified professionals who follow the highest standards in software development. If you want to build a team of professionals with the same level of efficiency, you may either have to hire expensive resources or train young professionals for years. You Don’t Need to Develop Infrastructure Probably, this is the best advantage of hiring offshore outsourcing services. Having an in-house team doesn’t only mean hiring experts. You need to build the required infrastructure and buy all the necessary tools. These are all an integral part of the development process and are expensive!  On the other hand, an offshore development partner will have all the required tools and infrastructure. So, the software development partner can start the work quickly.  Also, the partner is likely to take less time to complete your project. Eventually, your total project cost will further go down.  You can focus on your business goals Are you into the non-IT business? If so, dealing with IT-related things may increase your operative cost. Moreover, if your team is not skilled enough, your options get limited.  An offshore development partner can take care of your IT and software development related issues. Thereby, you can focus on your core business and plan to expand it further.  Bring down your time-to-Market Customer demands are evolving with time. You have to come up with innovations quickly and be the first in introducing them to the market. This is a critical factor in determining your success.  With an offshore development partner, you will have control over the speed of software development. You can quickly scale the overseas team to work faster. Thereby, it reduces the time-to-market of your product and ensures its success.  Better Product Quality The development partner will have the infrastructure for building and testing robust software. So, you will always get a stable product that gives a better user experience. This will generate value for your company and protect your investments as well. Reduce Cost Cost reduction is one of the main concerns taken into account when companies decide to outsource work. You don’t have to invest in building the infrastructure, buying equipment, and of course, paying salaries to full-time employees.  You will have to pay the software development partner for only the project you will assign to them.  Things to remember before selecting an Offshore development partner  Here are a few factors that you need to consider before choosing an offshore partner for software development.  Time Zone Differences The difference in time zone can be challenging while working with offshore companies. But it’s not impossible either! You have to plan it accordingly. For instance, to minimize confusion, communicate using only an established channel (like a single email id) or keep weekly meetings. To bring more transparency, use project management tools. In this way, time zones won’t be an issue. The Culture Consider the culture of the outsourcing team or company you will be working with. You will have to work together for an extended period. So, having a similar work culture and ethics is crucial. Also, see how they are dedicated to communicating the progress with you and keeping you in the loop so that you are aware of everything. Changes in Team/Developer It’s important to know who will be leading the team and who will be working on the project. Do they really have the experience needed to meet your objectives? An experienced team often makes this transition process easy and can employ creative solutions to get the work done. Outsourcing Software Development Process: Why Choose India? When it comes to outsourcing, India is an undisputed leader in this category. No other country can match the number of highly skilled experts in India. According to a recent Statista report, India tops the list of countries in offshore business services worldwide in 2021.  The IT sector in India boasts rapidly developing software and technical capabilities including disruptive technologies such as data analytics, cloud computing which is critical to the growth of new avenues across all verticals. According to Economic Survey 2022, IT exports drive 18.4% growth in India’s services exports between April to December.  Here are the best possible reasons that make India the one-stop destination for outsourcing, like: A large pool of English-speaking skilled manpower Cost-effective workforce World-class infrastructure Digital-First, Innovation-Ready Environment Technology efficiency  Conclusion:  Outsourcing to an offshore development partner has always been a key to success and a key factor in growing a business. You can leverage their experience and expertise to overcome tough challenges. Contact us right away for your needs and support solutions if you truly want to make your company stand out to your consumers!

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How Dedicated Hiring Is Helping Our Canadian Customers Scale Their Business

March 21, 2018

Canada’s burgeoning corporate scene is often cited as an example of how businesses can function smoothly while also ensuring the rights and interests of employees. Most Canadian businesses depend on outsourcing to reduce costs, focus on core business activities, and access talent locally unavailable, among many other reasons. Yet, outsourcing is a topic that often raises eyebrows in this famously polite and civil country. Let us take a look at how outsourcing evolved in Canada, and what businesses across this northern giant are currently doing to scale and multiply their profits. Evolution of outsourcing in Canada in the last decade Like in most developed countries, Canadian businesses began to seek cost-effective solutions across the world to meet growing IT and HR demands, since the 1990s. Companies have often depended on India, the Philippines, Bulgaria, Poland, and other offshoring destinations to meet their business targets. In the last few years, Canadian banks have sometimes received bad press for embracing outsourcing as a business strategy, with critics pointing out that Canadian employees aren’t adequately compensated for the loss of their jobs. Yet, IDC Canada revealed that its survey found an increase of 45% in outsourcing contracts signed, especially in the area of infrastructure support tasks. IT offshoring is a $3 billion business in Canada and a strategy that has proved to work in the last 10 years. Early last year, CIBC was criticized for offshoring its jobs. However, companies often save between 30% and 40%, when they outsource maintenance and development tasks to India. A Deloitte report suggests that outsourcing is going to witness growth in all areas surveyed such as HR, IT and finance. To find a middle ground and appeal to both sides, Canadian companies are increasingly depending on the dedicated hiring model to access talent, reduce expenditure, and scale quickly. Dedicated hiring offers Canadian companies the proverbial cake that can not only be had but can also be eaten. How the dedicated hiring model is helping organizations meet HR Challenges specific to Canada Much like everywhere else in the world, Canadian companies have had to face growing HR challenges such as attrition, higher compensation demands, the inability to find the right talent and changing employee attitudes. An interesting observation that has been made is that top-level executives have been leaving jobs too, increasing attrition levels among C-level executives. As Canada faces an immense shortage of manpower and as immigration does not suffice HR requirements for more manpower, dedicated hiring has come to be a palatable solution. Dedicated hiring has also impressed the critics of outsourcing as this model does not actually lead to job losses in Canada. Instead, it allows corporations to hire external employees on demand, for a specific duration of time. Currently, Canada faces a number of HR challenges such as: Inability to find required talent within Canada Inability to provide the compensation that local employees demand A growing realization that it is not necessary to hire full-time employees for short-term projects Young Canadians often switch jobs quickly, leading to a state of uncertainty among businesses Inability to scale, because enough budget can’t be allocated for marketing A negative attitude towards a traditional model of outsourcing All these problems can be addressed with a dedicated hiring model, as it enhances the profitability of companies while ensuring existing employees’ jobs aren’t threatened. Dedicated hiring model allows Canadian businesses to sign contracts only for a limited number of hours or for the duration of a project. Such a contract gives them access to full-time employees employed by vendor companies, at a fraction of the cost.  Most importantly, dedicated hiring ensures that short-term tasks and projects which need specialized skills can be completed seamlessly. Finally, dedicated hiring offers a sustainable model to scale for businesses that are driven. There are a number of examples of how dedicated hiring is helping Canadian companies to succeed and grow. Let us take a look at some examples. Digital Marketing Agencies: While every company needs some sort of digital marketing assistance, dedicated hiring ensures that there is always a digital marketing team on the standby to address all requirements related to social media and digital platforms, without ever having to hire a full-time team. A trucker based in Ottawa hired our digital marketing services to provide social customer service to his clients on Twitter. In addition, the client also used Indus Net technologies’ dedicated explainer video production team to publish corporate videos on YouTube, which the client later used as sales collateral as well. IT Service Partners: There is nothing more panic-triggering than having to hire a developer who knows an exotic programming language, but his skills are required only for a few days or months. Many of our clients have hired our development teams for all kinds of short and long-term projects, without ever having to hire anyone full time. A Nova Scotia-based eCommerce store hired our Kotlin language programmers to build and maintain their website. Our dedicated hiring model helped the client finish the project quickly, and do what they are best at doing: selling online. Startups: Startups often have very little money to spare on development, social media, HR and other functions. In fact, many startups are run by just one person alone, and it simply is not possible for one person to execute so many roles. A dedicated hiring model allows fledgling startups to offload their burden on vendors, while they can focus on building and marketing their business. Many Canadian startups hire our dedicated hiring solutions for various reasons. An Ottawa-based public relations startup hired our app development services to launch a time-specific application for their own clients. Our dedicated hiring model ensured that app development was completed in a short time, without having to hire anybody full time. What to expect next? In 1964, Bob Dylan wrote and sang “The Times They Are a Changin”, and we must admit they will continue to change in the future too. To ensure businesses are well-equipped to face the demands

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Outsourcing in Modi and Trump Era

August 7, 2017

It is a contrast that many can choose to ignore, but can’t. While both Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and the American President Donald Trump are leaders of their countries’ right wing parties, and appeal to a similar demographic, they have very different views regarding outsourcing, a word that often evokes negative connotations in recent times. While Modi has actively pursued American IT companies, and lobbied at the White House to relax visa regime for Indian tech workers, Donald Trump has been increasingly isolationist, at least outwardly. One could argue, that both of them are trying to live up to the promises that they made during their respective campaigns: Modi promised development, and has been trying to portray a business-friendly, globalist image of India. Trump, on the other hand, had promised to cut down outsourcing, and has been trying to do the same in America. How successful he has been able to stop American companies from outsourcing, is a different story altogether. It is also worth noting, Modi’s development policies are increasingly being questioned in India, and citizens are ever more impatient to see the shining India he has promised. What does this mean for companies who want to outsource work to India? It just means, the time is ripe to begin offshore outsourcing to India. Let us take a look why this is so. Why Trump’s visa ban, and Modi’s start-up focus is good for all players The burning issue in the offshore outsourcing industry has been the question of H-1B visas, which are often sought by some IT companies for their employees to work onshore, in US. Trump wants to make sure that more Americans are hired in America, which is a valid expectation. Outsourcing, in the past, led to many employees from destinations such as the Philippines, India, Eastern Europe and others to seek H1B visas, leading to foreign talent being hired in the US, for a lower cost to the company. The new rules make it difficult to hire foreign talent this way. This is good for American workers, who have the prerogative to seek employment in businesses that operate within US. Trump’s visa changes are a boon to companies that work on a different outsourcing model: offshore outsourcing. Offshore outsourcing helps companies to hire teams or individual employees working within dedicated hiring companies for a specified amount of time. This means, American businesses can outsource all their needs except their core business activities to offshore teams, and hire only Americans onshore. As businesses are able to scale by offshore-outsourcing their tech, backend, administrative and customer service responsibilities, they will be able to nurture their existing employees, and hire more Americans, instead of having to import foreign workers on H1B visas. This is a win-win situation for both Americans and offshore workers who are talented, and wish to work from their own countries. Technology makes it possible to have teams across the world, and the physical presence of foreign workers on American soil is not required, thanks to internet and cloud computing. Indian Prime Minister Modi has encouraged the growth of startups, which means, there are more hardworking and talented firms out there, which are ready to take up projects and work as offshore employees or contractors. Imagine offshore outsourcing this way: no need to bring foreign workers on H1B visas anymore. This helps you save a lot of money. Instead, hire offshore workers who work from offices in their home countries, while you have the freedom to hire Americans for your core business roles. Your extended team will not only assist your onshore (and American) team, but also manage and train them, if it comes to that. A few advantages for American companies with this new model: Reduced overheads Maintain control over projects Maintain security and confidentiality through service level agreements High quality work Complete ownership of finished products Excellent coordination regardless of variations in time zones, thanks to technology Enhanced collaboration Americans stand a higher chance of being employed in American companies, thanks to changes made to H1B visa. Isolationism and protectionism are losing out In trump and Modi’s era, outsourcing has a bad rap because of the anti-immigration, anti-globalist sentiments of a certain section of the American society. The American Right grasped these sentiments to reach the White House, but have fumbled to please corporate lobbies and the Wall Street. The political rhetoric has been to maintain an isolationist stance, but American businesses have increasingly grown frustrated with increasing costs of IT education and hiring, making it all the more inaccessible to the American public. Yet, the world is changing as we speak, and as you read this opinion piece. Theresa May faced a humiliating defeat, after calling for an election in Britain. Her own isolationist policies encouraged her to call for a Brexit referendum, which resulted in Britain pulling out of the European Union, though that is still being negotiated. In the recent elections, young people voted against her policies, with all their jobs and education in the EU at stake. If not anything, it shows that the famously inward British people too, have begun to look outward, and toward the market forces that drive the global economy. The common theme if we observe both the US and the UK is that people are vocal against isolationism, and businesses are increasingly disgruntled with policies that seek to stop them from doing business the way they want to do, anywhere in the world. This includes offshoring jobs to affordable vendors who possess the talent, infrastructure and innovation. Today, the market forces are enabled and driven by technology. IT and the internet have shaped the world we live in today. While political trends across the world reveal a move toward the right, there is also a resurgence of globalist attitudes. It is becoming increasingly clear that we do not live on islands, and all our economies are inter-connected. Technology, and the way internet brings people together, has made outsourcing a part of our

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