Outsourcing is the business practice where a company uses outside firms to do select projects and special work that might normally be performed within that company. Some examples of what might be outsourced (besides software development) include payroll processing, shipping and distribution, and accounting. You are essentially sending your work to be done by an outside, third party entity. Here are five reasons to consider outsourcing for software product development.
Finding the Right Resources
This is all about bringing in the right combination of talent with the right type of skills when you need them. Many times, companies use outsourcing because it can fill in gaps where they are trying to get something done and they do not have the right resources or the right amount of resources (or the time and money to track them all down). Resources can be people or equipment.
Energy/Leadership Conservation
One reason outsourcing is superior to hiring contract employees is it conserves energy and leadership. When you are outsourcing with a good partner, being a leader should be one less thing that you are worried about. You can devote your energy to other needs. You should not have to manage it – the outsourcing partner provides most of the leadership and energy in managing a project. Not all of it, mind you, but a large chunk. Outsourcing takes the headache of insuring a project gets done and off of a manager’s plate.
Protection of Focus
It is very difficult to be top-of-class in more than one area, and very few can maintain two core competencies. When you are outsourcing, you can outsource to a partner whose core competency is software development. Those companies that try to do too many things really well don’t do anything well. A lot of larger companies can understand this from experience and often startups have to consider outsourcing. Startups can free up their focus by outsourcing non-essential functions. So many companies whose background is not software development are finding themselves deploying software products. It can be much more effective to work with an outsourcing partner than to add another core competency.
Get Unstuck
For many companies, there are a number of projects that are on the books, waiting to be finished or something they want to put in place; however, it seems as though it never gets done. When managers take time to actually sit down and look at the project, it is usually a combination of things that are blocking it from being completed.
Maybe the company does not have the leadership. Perhaps the company does not have the right resources. Or it may be that the project just is not the company’s primary focus. One of the primary benefits of outsourcing is that you can get things done that have been stuck in the queue for a while.
Get Fast
Many companies are used to churning out a project slowly – maybe once a year. This approach doesn’t cut it for the new fast-paced consumer markets developing.
We have found that even when a large organization has a software development capabilty, their teams were not designed to move fast and adapt quickly to change. Bringing in a specialty partner can cut cost and time to market significantly.
We like to encourage companies to consider the complexity, volatility and domain knowledge of a project when deciding whether to do it internally or not. Fast moving, complex and changing projects are often best done with an outsourcing partner.
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