Speed and agility are two primary requirements companies look to deliver services. However, it is fairly difficult to find a highly-skilled, outsourcing services company who delivers within the budget and meets the deadline.  

1. 
   

   Check out their Core Competency

Always look for an outsourcing product development company has specialized expertise in your desired area. Look up for their previous projects and success record your domain. Also, check if the outsourcing company has some dedicated process of value-addition or not. How skilled are the resources?

Whether it is rapid prototyping from startup concept to development or enterprise CMS and business intelligence tools, in-depth knowledge is a must. A responsive software developer should be able to pivot and align their skills with your core strategic objectives.  

2. 
   

   Find out about the Project Delivery Process

Now, that you have a clear understanding of the team’s core competency, it is time to find about their project management and delivery process. For this, you should request for project-specific information prior to the execution phase. You may ask the outsourcing partner, the following questions:

• Project scope details
• What to expect? (as end solution)
• Time frame or deadline
• Project reporting & analysis
• Costing and budgetary requirements

3. 
   

   Know about their Customer Service

Often looked, but one of the key things to mind while choosing an outsourcing partner is to find out about their customer service. To do this, analyze their online reputation by checking out customer ratings, reviews, authentic testimonials, and social media posts. Also, you may ask some reliable online review service, social network, or friends to give you experienced-based opinion.

However, one must keep in mind that many fraudulent companies use paid tricks, sponsored reviews, and testimonials to present themselves as a reliable service provider. Checking responsiveness throughout your pre-hiring process gives you some idea about their whereabouts.  

4. 
   

   Know about their Development Methodologies

You may be a technology startup trying to find your feet or you may be representing a core team member of a big corporate house, you must always ask about the development methodologies followed by the outsourcing partner company. You may have a small team with an expanding niche, your product’s maturity, ideal customer profile, and product-market fit all factor into the decision-making process.

Ensure that your product development company understands lean methodologies, market needs, trendy practices, and your business needs. Check out their previous samples and user profiles to understand their level of expertise in particular technologies.

5. 
   

   Best Practices

Most IT solutions providers and consultancies provide a variety of methodologies and frameworks to engage your project successfully. Ensure that the prospect service provider follows a structured project management methodology (Agile, Hybrid, and Scrum) with an integrated quality assurance process.

The product development firm you select should be able to provide visibility and keep you updated on the development process and implementation phases. Remember that consistent communication and reporting that ensures good results.  

6. 
   

   Terms and Conditions

Perhaps the most rarely read page ever on a company website is the terms and conditions page. Most of us forget that all companies lay down their product development cycle, terms and conditions, and transparency policy under this most neglected section. Please make sure that you have thoroughly read all the terms and conditions, well in advance before signing on the dotted lines.

Take time. Ensure that the technology outsourcing partner is using an agile methodology to develop the software product and ensures transparent communication of everything on time. Find out about the cycle of status reports, financial transactions, testing, and releases.  

7. Maintenance and Support

Most important of all, the outsourcing partner for product development should be able to provide maintenance and support after product or app development. You may find, after the regular QA, have some issues with the application in extensive use. You must include this after-sale service in the long-term contract (which may add a few bucks to the budget) but will ensure timely support after the sale.

The above points will help you find the right outsourcing partner for your business needs. Of course, there are no codified rules for hiring the right product development company for outsourcing. The guidelines may be modified or altered at your convenience. Read my earlier post on key considerations for hiring freelancers.

Pixel Solutionz is backed by a team of outsourced product development experts that can provide you with end-to-end product design and development services for your business needs. Want to share some thoughts? Let us know.  

Five Problems of Hiring Freelancers

• Not getting the right match: Not finding the right candidate is one of the common problems faced while hiring freelancers. You may be looking for a test lead with more than 7 years of experience, but candidates with a mixed profile (less than 7 years, not having testing as one of their core skills) are all that you are getting. To make sure you’re hiring the right person for the job, reach out to an agency that has a qualified resource pool. They will allow you to take a screening test and also a personality test during or before the interview. This way, you can check if your future freelancer is likely to thrive as a remote worker.

• Lack of Commitment: This is probably the worst challenge of hiring a freelance resource. You can never expect the same level of commitment from a freelancer, as you would normally expect from a full-time employee. It is because of the short-term engagement you have with them, that they tend to look for greener pastures. The only solution to this is to look for dedicated resources from an outsourcing company. You will surely get remote workers committed to long-term projects. Expect better turnaround from them.

• Communication issues: Individual freelancers often take up multiple projects and communication becomes difficult. They work according to their own schedules and at times, as per their time zones. Communication for work is often very difficult, as they respond according to their own convenience. If you hire freelancers from an agency, you can clearly specify your conditions to make sure that the remote resource working for you works in tandem with your schedule.

• Payment Issues: This is actually a two-way issue. While most freelancers complain of being underpaid or not paid, you as a recruiter may find it less profitable to pay a handsome amount for a freelance resource who will contribute only a few hours per day for your project. If your resources are working from abroad, you might have to make international bank transfers. That will burn a hole in your pocket. It is better to avail financial services of companies like Payoneer, Skrill, or PayPal. Also, check if their offer is profitable enough for you as well as for your future freelance worker.

• Deadly Deadlines: Deadline is perhaps the most dreaded word if you are hiring a freelance resource. Unlike a regular full-time employee, a freelancer is almost always trying to balance two or three projects. These projects may again be different from each other, with different payment models. Quite often they happen to lose out time and miss the deadline for one project while trying to deliver the other on time. Chances are high that your project may be put away for when the freelancer has free time, or for when inspiration strikes them.

  The result? Missed deadlines. Not a pretty picture, is it? It is a better idea to hire offshore resources from an outsourcing partner that has dedicated resources for projects to work on. Also, if you’re outsourcing your work to unified freelance platforms, look up for reviews and policies they use for handling deadline issues.

Having considered the downsides of hiring freelancers, you need to look for alternatives. You may, therefore, talk to an outsourcing partner like us. Working with Pixel Solutionz, allows you to reap multiple benefits of working with freelancers, such as easy access to a large tech talent pool and lower labor costs, as well as the dedication of full-time resources. We help businesses from all over the world hire skilled software developers/designers/testers/content developers. When you contact us, all you need to do is specify the skills you’re looking for, and our recruiters will get back to you with matching candidate profiles. We also give you the liberty to manage your development team directly while we handle office management, HR, payroll, taxes, team retention. Like what you just read? Let us know.    

Outsourcing IT solutions can enhance your organization’s infrastructure. A good service provider would make available certified technical and network support professionals, and the resources and expertise to overcome any IT challenge your organization faces.

10 Key Outsourcing Mistakes Made By Entrepreneurs

However, if your outsourcing practices go wrong you are most likely to damage customer relationships, and sometimes even ruin your business.   Here I have discussed the seven most common outsourcing mistakes, and how to avoid them: 

The time difference with the United States counterparts: The 12-hour difference with MST (Mountain Standard Time) makes it very difficult for remote workers to coordinate. Most often it turns out so, that the technical team in India is all set to leave for the day when the US team wants to discuss the technical details.

Or, your developers in India, have just begun their day, but it is still a Sunday for the project team in the US. Though time differences are no big obstacle today, with cloud applications in use and work-from-home options for remote resources, the time difference is still a pain in the neck, for smaller outsourcing vendors.

 The pyramid of salaries = inexperienced developers

Most Indian consulting firms are infested with layers and layers of good managers while the quality of their developer pool is very pitifully low. Their best resources are visible during the sales process but are not available for projects, most of the time. The success of a software project depends largely on the quality of the code produced.

It is very difficult to find talented developers older than 28. Most developers lack true business experience. The key to good software is having developers that can think abstractly in terms of framework and patterns; this thinking process takes years to develop.

High Attrition rates: The attrition rate is notoriously high in India in the BPO and KPO environments. This impacts productivity and business outcome, entrepreneurs fail to build in-depth corporate, client, or product knowledge within the Indian teams.

High attrition rate results in poorer service and increased costs. Highly educated, ambitious, enthusiastic resources like to thrive in a stimulating business environment with immense growth prospects.

Employers often find it difficult to retain resources that are hungry for higher pay or growth opportunities. Enterprises must have policies and processes in place to counter the attrition issue.

 Lack of initiative: One of the commonest issues that cause outsourcing failure is that the US counterparts rarely show any initiative. Indian resources often receive only partial instructions and they then do precisely what has been asked of them, and needless to say, this falls short of the home teams’ actual expectations.

Both sides need to look into this. Failure to address this issue contributes to building inefficiencies.

Over-assumptions – The home teams live with the assumption that their Indian colleagues will somehow automatically understand the way things work in the West, what client expectations are in the USA, how a product line fits into a wider supply chain etc.

What they refuse to understand is that they have never been to the States or have no previous knowledge of the industry.

The average age of workers in the BPO and KPO industries in India is around 27 years old. Though technically very capable, talented, and enthusiastic they are not necessarily commercially astute.

Therefore, enterprises should not just train people on technical, process, and product issues, they must also look at their commercial development as well.

Putting all your eggs in one basket

Do you only have one vendor or supplier for a critical supply, product, or service? Outsourcing should also be looked at in the same way. imagine your outsourcing partner unexpectedly going out of business.

Or if your activity spikes and your partner is unable to handle the workload. Most enterprises make the mistake of putting all their eggs in one basket. They do not have the redundant capacity or a concrete plan to cover a variety of “What if?” situations.

 Not having a well-defined exit strategy: Every outsourcing agreement must include criteria for disengagement: Failure to meet standards, failure to maintain sufficient capacity, or simply how and when you can disengage if outsourcing has not paid off in terms of cost or time savings.

Unfortunately, most Indian outsourcing vendors do not have well-defined SLAs in place.

  Do you know of any other outsourcing mistakes to avoid? please share in the comments below.

More jobs on the radar
Smt. Mamata Banerjee, the honorable CM seemed highly enthusiastic over the newly developed IT parks, which will generate more jobs for the people in West Bengal. She expressed over social media that nearly 20,000 new jobs will be created in these IT parks. The honorable chief minister of West Bengal further added that big shots like Wipro, TCS, and Cognizant are planning to build new IT campuses in Salt Lake City. Wipro will be adding 2400 IT professionals in the next few years and has already started with campus expansion. TCS already has a new campus in Rajarhat area and has plans of hiring more than 20,000 IT professionals in the next few years. Cognizant too has plans of hiring 5000 IT resources for its new campus at Bantala.
According to reliable sources each IT Park can house up to 12-15 companies, each unit is 400 sq. ft in size. Larger companies may take three or four units, since they have a much bigger workforce, as compared to small and medium companies.

New Campuses for New Opportunities
SEZ status has been obtained for the Kolkata IT Park at Bantala (130 acres). The government has planned for the acquisition of additional land near the airport for over 300 acres which may house the 3rd IT hub after the Salt Lake Electronics Complex and New Town in Rajarhat which are very much in demand for knowledge industries.
Also, STPI, India’s largest software technology park is coming with an estimated investment of Rs. 100 crore and promises to hire about 5000 IT professionals for small and medium enterprises. STPI maintains internal engineering resources to provide consulting, training and implementation services. Services cover Network Design, System Integration, and Installation. STPI-Kolkata and the government of West Bengal are jointly working together for bringing about IT revolution in West Bengal.

The same of optimism prevailed in Amit Mitra’s speech at the inaugural session of the 15th “Technology Senate”, organized by The Express Group last year. According to the Finance, Commerce & Industries Minister of the Indian state of West Bengal, the IT parks at Siliguri (in North Bengal) have already employed 700 people. Purulia’s new IT Park are getting a very good response from IT companies. The state government is searching for an anchor investor for developing data analytics business at the Kalyani facility (in Nadia district).

With new IT Parks growing in number, and the promise of more job creation, Bengal hopes to see a new sunshine in IT.