Risk-free software development outsourcing: Top tips for easy outsourcing—and development success.

You know you want to outsource your software development to reduce your costs—and to scale your resources. But knowing where to turn for reliable outsourced development is another story. If you do a Google search you’ll find hundreds of service providers that might fit the bill. But that won’t point you to the outsourced developer that’s the best fit for your business.

In reality, while outsourcing has many advantages, there are risks to your business if you don’t know how to evaluate your service providers. So how can you reduce your outsourcing risks and improve your chances of finding the perfect outsourcing partner for your development project?

Look for a blend of offshore and on-site collaboration.

Offshore outsourcing is cost effective, but it’s hard to expect an offshore company to understand 100% of your domestic business. And it’s hard to evaluate an offshore developer’s capabilities and understanding, given the geography. Some offshore service providers will promise everything, and you won’t realize they don’t have the experience you hired them for until the contract is signed.

Offshore outsourcing is a great way to economize, but it’s best deployed when it’s bundled with some on-site support to ensure seamless collaboration. When you have an on-site representative from your offshore service provider, you have a local representative to bridge the gap in cultural and time-zone differences between your teams and the offshore development team.

At Shinetech, we provide our offshore developers with an Engagement Manager who works by their side, in their office, until knowledge transfer has occured and trust has been established.

Choose relationship building over fixed-price contracts.

Fixed-price contracts often result in higher risk for outsourcing, because they put you and your service provider at odds. Sure, you want more functionality, flexibility and lower cost. But your offshore service provider wants fewer changes on requirements and more compensation. This contentious arrangement makes trust difficult to establish.

There are no perfect contracts, but there is value in building a long-term relationship with your outsourced service provider. ODCs (offshore development centers) are a good way to make this happen. With an ODC, you get a dedicated offshore development team that is committed to learning your business. They will collaborate with you on requirements and planning, which mitigates a lot of the problems that can occur with scope and compensation.

Shinetech has used our ODC to build more than 300 collaboration teams for our U.S. and EU clients over the past eleven years. This long-term approach has kept our business growing and kept our clients connected to high-quality and reliable outsourcing services.

Be smart—and realistic.

More small and midsize businesses are turning to outsourcing to stay competitive in a challenging economy—and that’s good. But don’t expect a one-size-fits-all outsourcing approach to work for your business. You should take the time and do the research to find an outsourced solution that’s flexible and customizable to your needs. This will ensure that you can build trust with your outsourced team. And you want to ensure easy, fluid communications for seamless collaboration.

Shinetech takes an advanced approach to partnership with our clients, by setting up teams that are dedicated to the project—and up to speed on the business. We continue to improve and adapt as the project progresses and provide support for our clients every step of the way.

Learn how Shinetech takes the work and worry out of offshore outsourcing with our collaboration services.