Guest post 2022-06-21 Technologies.

0

0

0

0

0

Download PDF

Outsourcing is a business practice where an organization hires a third-party service provider to perform some complex project tasks that would have been otherwise accomplished by its existing employees.

As we all know, the IT outsourcing industry is continuously expanding in the past few years. Also, more than 30% of businesses choose to outsource IT services in 2018, and more than 75% of them were satisfied with their outsourcing engagements. Due to the changing market requirements and competition, modern outsourcing service providers are all set to deliver a client with much more than just a cost-effective and robust outcome.

When a business plans to outsource its project, it is no more about the budget. The choice of outsourcing allows them to launch a win-win professional collaboration with compelling and transparent management and a dedicated development team.

The IT industry makes use of the best outsourcing practices on a very large scale. Although outsourcing service providers offer great benefits to your business, there are some challenges involved in it, but if you follow the best IT outsourcing practices, it can create miracles and reduce the chances of an unsuccessful venture for you.

In this post, we’re going to discuss the best IT outsourcing practices to consider in 2022 and beyond. While outsourcing, if you pursue the best practices, it will make your IT outsourcing journey successful. So if you’re planning to outsource your project, this post is for you. Without any further interruption, let’s get started!

Top 12 Best IT Outsourcing practices to consider in 2022

1. Identify your project objectives clearly

First things first, make sure to identify your project objectives at the initial stage of the development. Before outsourcing your project, ensure that you have good and valid reasons to justify that your business really needs a service provider. Once you have already decided to hand over your project to a third-party service provider, define your requirements so that the vendor can easily identify them. Being aware of the project requirements, in the beginning, makes the further development process smooth and efficient. Without knowing your objectives, nothing can be achieved through outsourcing.

Crafting and defining your project needs when outsourcing your IT workflow will set concrete guidelines for your offshore team to follow. By doing this, you can save time by resolving anticipated queries from your hired professionals and eliminate mistakes by offering specific advice through each stage of the project development life cycle. Your plan should include a detailed description defining your project, internal company contact information, an overview of the budget, deadlines, project performance expectations, a list of tools and skills to complete the project, and much more depending on the type of your project.

2. Communicate effectively daily

Communication is the key to success and without effective communication, nothing can be achieved. While outsourcing your project, make sure to interact well with your offshore developers to stay on the same page, thus facilitating on-time delivery of the project without missing any deadlines. Coordinating with your developers is a great way to track your project and hence it makes the outsourcing process successful.

As the demand for software and mobile applications is increasing, the complexity in it also gets high as per the requirements of the users. The project often contains complicated tasks, so to proceed smoothly, establishing a solid line of communication between you and your outsourced team within the company is an essential step.

3. Choose a compatible service provider

Choosing a compatible service provider to outsource your web development is an important phase here. Make sure to choose a vendor that understands your project requirements and knows how to code and implement them. An outsourcing service provider should agree with your company's culture and business goals. They should have the ability to overcome complex challenges, so the developers should be skilled, experienced, and dedicated to their responsibilities. Remember, when you hire them, they will become a part of your company, so they must fit well as actual employees would.

Let's make it simple for you. Just look for the below-mentioned qualities are available in your IT outsourcing service provider before you hire offshore developers -

• Fast turnaround time
• follows the best coding and implementation practices
• Full IP rights
• Flexible pricing model
• Uses the latest technologies and resources
• expertise that matches your project requirements
• Always ready to embrace your work methodology
• Aware of the agile principles and standards
• Through software quality testing
• A transparent and effective way to communicate
• Confidentiality and security
• Flexible project delivery

4. Disagree with shortsighted

Stakeholders might get lost in the deal itself. While they try to save the company's money, the focus shifts to demonstrating the benefits of the deal and sealing prices down, savings, terms, and conditions. Missing out on such an important factor might negatively affect the long-term desire to justify a fundamental switch in business operations.

5. Choose the right outsourcing engagement model

You'll find numerous outsourcing models available in the market such as the remote development model, dedicated team model, and managed projects model. Choosing the right engagement model is a tough task for many businesses. But make sure to invest some good time in it and select the one that fits your project requirements. If you're planning to have a robust software development outsourcing solution, then the dedicated teams model will help you set up a new team of developers who will then work with you in your time zone and you'll have full control over the team.

Whereas if you choose the remote development model, the service provider will provide you with skilled and experienced developers for your project to work on and they will be considered as your internal team. Lastly, if you choose managed project models, your project will be entirely handled by the development team from the very beginning.

6. Don't forget to take hidden expenses into consideration

Many businesses, especially startups forget to consider hidden expenses while outsourcing their project. Make sure that the contract created by the service provider does not accurately mention the charges that a company has to bear.

Here are some major hidden expenditures that are linked with outsourcing -

• The expense of operating the outsourcing relationship.
• Evaluating and identifying the expenses applied in choosing whether to select outsourcing or not.
• The cost of transforming the product and its knowledge to the vendor.
• The cost of investigating and choosing the right project vendor.

7. Don’t get confused between sales and delivery

Concentrate on obtaining a satisfactory delivery of your project-- it's an important point of the deal, but it is overlooked by the business once the contract is signed.

8. You get what you pay for

As a startup business, you might intend to limit your budget options while looking for experienced IT talents, but when it comes to web development, you don't have to cut corners. When you outsource your project to any third-party service provider, you are already maintaining expenses and reducing the chances of costly mistakes. But if you choose a cheap option, just to save some money, you're likely to get lower-quality outcomes that might not match your expectations. Similarly, if you want a high-performing and feature-rich project, you need to invest a good amount of money to get the desired results.

Now you might have understood how outsourcing project management works. You get what you pay for. So make sure to pay well at the beginning to increase the chances of successful project completion and make the project a smoother experience for everyone.

9. Make sure that Data Security and Regulatory Requirements are met

Before you start working with your outsourcing partner, make sure you're aware of safeguards and data security to prevent sensitive project information from hackers. Check whether they are following the best security practices to eliminate the maximum risk of a data breach. After choosing the right service provider, create strict level agreements for security to make sure that the operations are being performed according to the business standards and it is fully protected.

Despite this, do not forget to check whether the service provider satisfies the data security benchmarks for the targeted market. For instance, if you're planning to outsource for the European Union, then the outsourcing partner must meet the GDPR requirements. Also, if you're looking to outsource healthcare software applications to the US market, make sure that your service provider is HIPAA compliant.

10. Maintain a good relationship with your service provider

Make sure to build a strong relationship with your outsourcing service provider to reap all the benefits of web development that lays stress on the development of both parties. Having good relations between both of them can have a clear understanding of the project requirements, respect each other's capabilities, remain updated all the time, agree to the contractual terms, and create transparency in work to achieve great success.

11. Check the company’s portfolio

While outsourcing your project to any third-party service provider, make sure to check their previous work and check whether it meets your expectations for the project quality and style or not. If you've already gone through their portfolio and previous experiences, but still feel unsure about their capabilities, then you can ask them to do a quick mock-up test to verify the basic outline of the work plan.

A service provider who really intends to work on your project and get involved in your business will give you a rough concept so that you can have a better view of the approach that they implement to solve your problem. But never force your service provider to provide you with finished work "on spec." No professional developer expects to work for free.

12. Get ready to face cultural differences

The parties that are involved in an outsourcing relationship are from different cultures, so they have to accept that. The difference between both parties can be enhanced by conducting quality programs, social events, educating about the company's background, and much more. It might be useful to send a trustworthy employee to the BPO site for several months to facilitate learning in the execution stage.

Summary

So that's it! By following the above-mentioned IT outsourcing practices, you can easily reduce the risk of failure and increase the chances of getting success. You're now all set to accomplish your business objectives by assembling the development process smoothly and effectively.

If you follow the best outsourcing practices that we discussed in this post, it will enhance efficiency, reduce costs, speed up the development process, and allow you to focus on core business activities. Not only this, you can access subject matter experts and gain robust disaster recovery. If you choose a reliable and trustworthy service provider for your project, you can avoid large expenses at an early stage of your business. So if you’re planning to outsource, what are you waiting for? Go and grab the best software development service provider and start your project as soon as possible.

Do you think we missed out on any best IT outsourcing practices that should be mentioned in our list? If so, then we’re happy to hear from you! We hope you find this helpful. It would be great for us if you share this post on Facebook or Twitter to reach more audiences. Feel free to approach us in the comment section given below and ask your queries. We will get back to you soon.