Having the right offshore software product development partner is very crucial for a business. Many organizations have started outsourcing software product development services looking at the various advantages it has to offer. Cost-saving was an important reason until 2009. Since 2010 the core purpose of offshoring is more from the logic of distributed teams, ensuring on-time deliverables, with exposure to the latest talent and quick scalability. Selecting a tech partner based on cost factors either resulted in a negative or not-so-positive experience. Undoubtedly, the offshore partner will help in reducing the in-house cost, but be sure that you don’t jeopardize your tech product’s quality over cost.
Always look for an offshore tech partner who understands your product properly, adds value, works as an extended team located in different locations, and is genuine. Outsourcing helps the business to access the top industry talent based on their requirements, access to new technologies and tools, and professional problem solvers. Well, managing a long-distance relationship with your tech partner is not at all difficult. All you have to do is to onboard the right tech partner. Now, the question arises how to find the one who aligns with your product’s vision? To find the right match, we have curated a list of key points that an organization can check out before choosing a software development partner for their product.
Six Steps help you choose the right tech partner:
1. Do a background check of your potential partner: With the various option available for an offshore development tech partner, choosing the right partner can turn to challenge at times. Every outsourcing company portrays itself as having the ability to deliver successful results and matching up with the expectations of the client. Thus, it is advisable to narrow down and identify the potential partners based on your requirements. Carry out an extensive background check to know their competencies. Things that you should observe include company portfolio, reviews, as well as testimonials from their previous client. With all these data you can measure the offshore tech partner’s competencies, professionalism, and work quality.
2. Set up your goals: Just sit with your team and draft a coherent and detailed account of your business goals. You should be thoroughly aware of the things that you expect or want out of your business or your software product. Most of the time, the offshore development partner has to go through the burden of explaining their offerings, the working method, and what makes them an ideal partner. However, if we look at the real scenario, the organization onboarding a tech partner should equally be responsible for explaining their requirements and expectations thoroughly. If you wish to achieve successful results, then make sure that you are examining the requirements properly to send out a clear message to the outsource tech team.
3. Inspect the tools used for source control and track bugs: You should examine the tools that your offshore partner uses to control and check the source and bugs. Get in a detailed discussion with your partner to understand the exact functioning of the tools that are used by them. If for example, you are collaborating with an offshore web development tech partner, then inquire about the tool used to control the source and bugs. Tracking the changes made in the source code is usually of great help at the time of project maintenance. With the help of a bug tracker tool, your offshore partner will be easily able to track, discover, log, and fix the bugs found during a web development process. Thus, a source code tool and bug tracking tool are highly critical for a development project.
4. Communication is the key: Try to communicate with your offshore partner effectively and often to stay in the loop. Especially during critical projects when communication plays an important role, as it requires a lot of back and forth engagement of both parties. And, this is only possible by communicating in the right way. Conduct daily meetings and ask for weekly status reports to stay updated on the status of the project. This helps in keeping across the points easily when you communicate on a daily basis, this will ensure that you all are on the same page.
5. Flexibility: There might be times when your project will get complicated, in such situations the approach of your offshore development partner should be flexible. The partner should be flexible enough to adjust effectively on the basis of the project’s requirements. Any long-term partnership will have a scaling process, thus, the ability to scale up when required and being able to deliver the quality within time is very important. Even the development methodology used by the offshore partner is crucial. The agile development approach surely creates more room for flexibility via the development.
6. Check the pricing model: The main reason to opt for an offshore software development tech partner is cost. Many organizations look for partners who are capable of providing them the required software services at an affordable price. So, before you select your offshore partner, check out the pricing models for as many partners as possible. Look for a partner who is able to provide a team of experienced and dedicated engineers within your budget. Check for the tech partners who match the requirements of your financial expectations.
Therefore, before you choose an offshore tech partner, keep the points mentioned above handy to achieve better results. We, at EmbarkingOnVoyage, work as an offshore technology partner and have enabled a good amount of organizations with successful software product development. Highly skilled engineers who hold nearly two decades of development and delivery experience in various domains.
As an offshore software product development partner, we first understand our client’s challenges and give our best to address their challenges. Help clients staying focused on their core business. Thus, we always make a point as a team that our client considers us like their extended team at a different location. And, we highly believe in aligning ourselves with our client’s ideas and vision.