Once you've decided to develop a mobile application for your business, you may consider outsourcing development. For business leaders, entrepreneurs, and bootstrapped startups, outsourcing reduces costs, helps you tap into a wider talent pool, shortens the time to market, and improves the overall quality of your app.
For this reason, around 52.5% of all IT companies have outsourced app development at least once. If you are looking to outsource your app development, here’s everything you need to know about the process.
What is IT Outsourcing?
Sometimes, your in-house IT team may not be able to meet your app development needs, which may make you turn to an external app development agency. In a nutshell, IT outsourcing is when companies leverage third-party service providers to deliver infrastructure solutions, application service, and IT-enabled business processes.
Outsourcing offers a much more extensive range of experience and skills than an in-house team since a specialized app development agency has years of experience developing mobile apps across all industry verticals. The key is to select the right IT service providers and nurture win-win relationships with external providers for the success of your mobile app.
Outsourcing helps companies tap into a wider talent pool, accelerate time to market, and result in reduced costs as opposed to hiring an in-house development team.
Why Need To Outsource Your Mobile App Development Project?
Reduced Costs
You will need to hire skilled and experienced developers if you choose to develop your app in-house. Hiring and maintaining a team of mobile app developers, user experience and user interface designers, quality assurance personnel, and project managers, is both costly, tedious, and time-consuming. Here’s what your in-house team would look like:
- Mobile app developer: $81,000–$102,000
- Backend developer: $85,000–$102,000
- Lead UX designer: $85,000–$119,000
- Mobile app designer: $31,000–$92,000
- Product manager: $50,000–$120,000
- Senior iOS developer (Part Time Contract): $25,000–$65,000
- Senior Android developer (Part Time Contract): $25,000–$65,000
- Quality assurance engineer (Part Time Contract): $10,000–$45,000
This comes about to a total cost of anywhere between $392,000 and $710,000, and that’s not even counting costs such as taxes, unemployment and healthcare.
On the other hand, you will incur anywhere between $37,000 and $171,000 when you outsource your app development process, depending on your app complexity, agency team experience, backend stability, agency team size, and location! In fact, research shows that outsourcing mobile app development can help you cut costs up to 75%, which is why more and more businesses are leaning towards outsourcing their mobile app development.
Profound Professional Experience
When you work with professional IT sourcing services companies, you get access to knowledge collectively spanning several decades.
This ensures that you are tapping into a pool of skill sets required for the actualization of your app idea. Mobile app development firms have teams of professionally qualified developers, designers, quality assurance engineers, project managers, and Business intelligence professionals, working together to ensure the success of your app.
You can rest assured that they have worked on several different projects across various industry verticals, which is why they know all about devising apps with advanced quality and user-friendliness.
Not to mention, since the largest IT outsourcing companies have huge teams to handle several projects simultaneously, they make sure that your product is completed within the stipulated time, despite the challenges.
Best Tools, Insight
When you choose to develop your app in-house, know that the challenges of mobile application development go beyond usability design and functionality. No matter how easy your app idea is, your in-house IT team may have to learn a whole lot of new languages, tools, and skills to develop an app.
On the other hand, specialized outsourcing companies in Dubai have the best industry insight, development tools, and knowledge necessary to create your mobile application. While your in-house team might struggle to understand what is possible with mobile app development, a professional agency will automatically know the best, most user-friendly way to achieve your goals.
Avoiding Scope Creep
If you think that the greatest benefit of in-house mobile app development is having flexibility with revisions, think again! Without any limitations, you can end up spending countless hours tweaking, modifying, and second-guessing product decisions without having anything to show for it in the long run! On the other hand, when you work with a mobile app development company, there is a set budget, which comes with its own constraints, such as the rounds of feedback and the number of revisions allowed at each stage, which makes sure that you can launch on time.
Quality
Having a robust mobile app quality assurance process in place is essential to the success of your app. An app that contains bugs or is not intuitive to use will not be able to stay afloat no matter how handy it is! On the other hand, an app development company will be able to carry out quality assurance on its own code. A professional agency has all the requisite tools needed to maintain test plans, run test cases, and test your app across different platforms and operating systems to make sure it runs effortlessly.
Design
User experience design and user interface design are extremely critical to mobile app development. They make sure your app is easy to use, offers a positive user experience, and increases association with your app. The look and feel of your app can be the defining line between success and failure.
This is why if your in-house team is not experienced in these areas, why not hand over hand over your app development process to a company that is!
Keep Your IT on Track
Your in-house team already has their hands full with managing and organizing your company's data, as well as being burdened with the overall IT needs of the company.
Asking your in-house team to develop an app for your business in addition to all the responsibilities they have, not to mention several weeks of onboarding and learning for your team before any work can begin, is playing a risky game.
On the other hand, by outsourcing your app development project, you leave your internal team free to focus on other business-critical applications and solutions.
How Does IT Outsourcing Works In App Development Industry?
Have A Clear Vision of your app
First things first, you need to have your own clear vision of your product so that your outsourcing company can help you with additional research and business analysis.
You need to ask yourself what you plan to achieve with the app, what real-world problem are you looking to solve with your app, whether you want to build an iOS app, an Android app, or a hybrid app, what features should your app incorporate, what bells and whistles can make your app stand out, and so.
Knowing these things in advance would also help you find a service provider and establish expectations of what you want to receive at the end.
Estimate your budget
The app development options available to you, including in-house development, offshore companies, or off-the-shelf solutions, will depend on the budget that you have allocated for app development.
For instance, off-the-shelf apps cost the least but then they hardly stand out or make a mark. So, if you need to work on a unique business idea, you will have to partner with a specialized app development company.
Similarly, the cost of custom apps varies greatly depending on how many features you wish to integrate, the platform you are using, the complexity of the app, and more. For example, a simple app can cost up to $50,000+ whereas complex apps can rate as high as $300,000+.
Research Developers
Before you can outsource app development, you need to find the perfect app developers that match your requirements. You need to check their proficiency with the technologies you want in your app, their experience with different platforms, look for attractive, user-oriented applications in their portfolio, ensure if they have previously worked with clients in your industry, look for reviews and recommendations, as well as their geographical location. All these factors are important to consider when it comes to choosing an outsourcing app development firm.
When you are looking for an outsourcing partner, you’ll need to decide on the location pretty early on, since their geographical presence will impact your communication with developers. There are different types of IT outsourcing.
For instance, offshore outsourcing is when you outsource your IT-related projects to a foreign country, which ultimately offers political stability, tax savings, and reduced costs, while onshore outsourcing involves contracting an external service provider in your own country. On the other hand, nearshore outsourcing involves partnering with an app development agency in a neighboring country, which makes it easier to travel and facilitates communication between the two companies.
While working with onshore companies is definitely the easiest, many companies opt for offshore developers located in India and Eastern Europe due to their lower average costs.
The best way to gauge a potential app development agency is to go through their portfolios to check their experience in your industry, as well as in using the tools and technologies essential to your app. Also, check reviews and comments their previous clients have left to find out the strengths and weaknesses of a particular company.
Choose a Service Model
Once you have decided on an app development agency, you can choose a service model that caters to your needs. For instance, you can choose a Project-based service model if you have predetermined requirements that you need to see completed within a defined timeframe.
In this service model, everything is outlined by the client before starting the project, which means that the client is responsible for the project's success. A project-based model includes limited team members, a fixed budget, and a defined timeline. Mostly, startups and small-scale businesses prefer project-based working models
We also have the dedicated Team model in which your app development partner is responsible for allocating resources to your project, ensuring the top-notch quality of your app, and allocating resources to your project as needed.
This service model includes a full-cycle development team, complete with business analysts and project managers overlooking the entire development process. Under this service model, the outsourcing company takes care of scheduling tasks, ensuring proper project management, dedicating team leaders, assigning tasks, and following up on the project status, leaving the client with limited decision-making capability. Most mid-sized companies opt for a dedicated team model.
Lastly, we have the Out-staff working model, in which you assign certain aspects of the development process to an external party and also provide them with the office space to work.
Since you are practically hiring them on a contractual basis, you will be responsible for regulating the development process, vacations, working times, and salaries. Huge enterprises hire specialists for specific tasks within the project’s budget instead of full-fledged outsourcing.
Why Are So Many IT Outsourcing For App Solution In UAE?
UAE’s economic, legal, political, and social environment makes outsourcing companies in UAE most popular for both domestic and international businesses. IT outsourcing in UAE has undergone a boom for many reasons. For instance, there is an abundance of government support for businesses in the UAE, as well as the possibility of getting various concessions and tax waivers.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Dubai has become an outsourcing hub for companies all across the globe. Not to mention, the UAE government’s determination to support a serious economic boom has led to a serious inflow of international businesses to the UAE.
As you expand your business across the border, we recommend that you outsource your IT processes to software development outsourcing companies in Dubai to overcome any barriers that you may face in your app development process. Outsourcing your app development process to outsourcing software companies in Dubai also frees up a considerable amount of your business’ resources.
Harms Associated when any company outsource its IT or App Development Project?
Risk of Leakage of Sensitive Information
Even though there are a plethora of benefits associated with outsourcing IT processes, there are a few downsides as well. For instance, involving a third party and external outsourcing partner to your business operations may result in a leakage of confidential information.
An app worth its salt needs to be fully integrated with your business processes, which is why possible when you allow your outsourcing partner access to even the nitty-gritty of the business. Not to mention, they may also require information about your customers, which may compromise your data. However, you can mitigate the risk by having your outsourcing agency sign a non-disclosure agreement and IP protection agreement, backed by appropriate legal and organizational measures.
Challenges of Expectations Mismatch
While professional outsourcing companies are competent and skilled enough to develop even the most complex apps within the stipulated timeframe, there is an inherent risk of an expectation mismatch. This may be due to physical distances or a miscommunication, but the agency may decide to do something different from client's expectations.
In the worst-case scenario, your app development agency may not be able to gather clear requirements, leading to a serious flaw in the app design, which could be hard to rectify once the app has rolled out.
Loss of Flexibility
In the highly fluid business environment of today, scope creep has become a norm. Industry requirements and customer wishes may change faster than you can keep track and a new app may need to co-opt changes right through the gestation lifecycle, in accordance with the needs of the market.
However, an outsourcing project goes according to the laid down upfront agreement, leaving little room for revisions limited scope for flexibility. Asking the outsourcing agency for changes or tweaks could really outgrow your budget.
Loss of Complete Control
Since partnering with a mobile app development agency means working with someone outside of your organization, you won’t be able to monitor and control the progress of the project. Working with an off-site development team doesn’t come naturally to organizations that are not used to working with remote teams, but an experienced agency can make the transition seamless.
However, if you are worried about the quality of a final app, rest assured that most mobile app development companies work with agile methodology, where each project module is coded, tested, and then sent to the client. As you receive each module, you can suggest changes and get them easily executed as the project progresses.
Also read: Mobile App Development trends to Abide by in 2019
