As we all know, startups come under small and medium companies, which are relatively new businesses registered and became operational recently. Startups always hire offshore services to mitigate expenses. For example, companies dealing with software development services in the UK can manage operations remotely at reduced costs.
There are several factors affecting business decisions. It doesn’t matter if you are a new or established business; you may need to improve in certain cases. When you decide to outsource, it is evident that you may face some difficulties or issues. However the impact will be greater in startups compared to established business firms. Today, outsourcing has become a common norm for several reasons, primarily to reduce costs.
Most Common Challenges Faced by Software Development Startups
As a business, you derive several benefits from outsourcing. However, when you adopt outsourcing for the first time, you will likely face many challenges. These challenges originate from the beginning of selecting the outsourcing firm and identifying the need to implement and deliver products and services. This article will investigate a startup company’s challenges while relying on outsourcing partners.
1. Cost Savings and Service Quality
One of the biggest reasons for outsourcing is to reduce costs in the first place. Companies adopt outsourcing to cut down huge expenses involved in maintaining an in-house team. Therefore, many software firms go with outsourcing partners who offer affordable solutions in search of a feasible solution to reduce costs. But in doing that, companies compromise the quality factor. In the long run, such decisions to go with an outsourcing partner who provides cheaper service would hurt businesses that hire offshore workers if they fail to meet the quality standards.
Some Quick Fixes:
When you look for offshore development services, ensure you receive quality services no matter the cost. Of course, cost is a concern, but it should not be at the expense of quality. Check for past references of your prospective outsourcing partner, the abilities and skills in finishing a project on time, the degree of expertise, communication and many more. Ask for customer testimonials before choosing an offshore software development partner.
2. Communication Challenges
Today, proper communication is one of the challenges companies prefer to outsource. Often such instances emanate from several factors, such as cultural differences, language barriers, etc. The language barriers can relate to pronunciation or vocabulary. Accent differences are a strong barrier to efficient communication and eventually affect the project implementation and delivery. Furthermore, it can even lead to misunderstandings as well.
Some Quick Fixes:
If you want to outsource projects to an offshore team, ensure that the team members have good communication skills in the English Language. Use face-to-face communication by way of video calls. Companies can use translation services for translating documents or use an interpreter. This way, communication between hired workers and businesses can be smooth and reduce the language barrier. Look for an outsourcing partner with expertise and language capabilities.
If you implement software development services in the UK and want to outsource projects to an offshore team, ensure that the team members have good communication skills in the English Language. Use face-to-face communication by way of video calls. Companies can use translation services for translating documents or use an interpreter. This way, communication between hired workers and businesses can be smooth and reduce the language barrier. Look for an outsourcing partner with expertise and language capabilities.
3. Time zone Difference
If you assume that cost reduction is the first big thing you need to take care of while selecting an outsourcing partner, you may be misled. Time zone differences can pose a terrible challenge while hiring an offshore service. Suppose you are a US company looking to outsource services to software companies in China and the Philippines; there is almost a twelve-hour time difference if they choose to work their day shift.
It can cause communication problems and impact project implementation and delivery processes. Similarly, scheduling meetings during a convenient time for both the outsourcing partner and the company hiring the services would be hard in most cases. Top of all, there would be delays as it is difficult to monitor the work completed/in progress/ finished when several teams work from different time zones for a single project.
Some Quick Fixes:
Check for time zone differences if you hire an offshore service, set up necessary meetings, and use time sheets to ensure seamless communication. Or, if you need more money to afford it, ensure that the clients have smaller time zone differences.
If you can maintain productivity and on-time delivery, always go for companies that can work with you during regular office hours. In case you need an experienced offshore partner, access our software development services in the UK to make your outsourced project an absolute success without affecting your budget.
4. Lack of Control and Transparency
When you outsource to far countries, they need help with project implementation, its quality and on-time delivery. There are several benefits, but the lack of control over the processes is a concern. It is perceived, and it is often true, that outsourced partners cannot match the service levels and quality when compared to in-house services. Mostly, this is due to the reason that the work policies and control system would be different from yours.
Some Quick Fixes:
Transparency and control are required between offshore partners and businesses concerning the administrative structure and hierarchy. A responsibility assignment matrix chart would help to fix this issue. The chart shows the responsibilities of each team member assigned to a particular project or task. Monitoring the results and establishing a communication cadence would also enable the outsourcing partners to send frequent updates to their clients.
5. Data Protection and Security
While outsourcing projects, you may encounter issues relating to data security and copyright violations. During the selection of an outsourcing partner, you must assess such risks. The outsourced partner is liable for any risks in this regard. To avoid this, finding a partner who knows how to handle security issues and adheres to the necessary steps to reduce risks is always wise.
Some Quick Fixes:
Ensure that you sign a non-disclosure agreement between the outsourcing company and the outsourced partner. Before outsourcing and sharing confidential or sensitive information, check the vendor’s internal risk management measures, responses toward data breaches, and so on. Ensure physical security and check if it complies with international standards. Also, make sure that they use advanced security tools that are good enough to protect your sensitive information.
People also ask for:
1. What is a software development service?
Software development service refers to the design, development, implementation, maintenance, support and testing.
and documentation services needed to build and update software programs per the project agreement.
2: What are the most common types of software development services?
Some of the most popular development services include application development, software tools development, web development, API development, mobile development, back-end development, and web design services.
3. Why should you hire the services of an offshore software development company?
Hiring a software development team and incurring heavy salary expenses will only be feasible for some businesses. It involves huge costs, particularly if it is for a single project. The share of outsourcing software development services has steadily increased over the past years. There has been an increase in outsourcing providers offering service quality through their unmatched expertise.
However, for any service, there exists a challenge. It’s not a dead end, though. As we have pointed out, there are several challenges, but at the same time, solutions are also available.
Top of all, the success lies in selecting the best partner with the skills and ability to meet deadlines, offer the best security measures, have good command over language and communication, use advanced technology systems, and offer cost-effective services.
Conclusion
With follow-ups and updates in real-time both clients and their offshore partners can benefit from the outsourcing.
If a startup business is looking for an offshore service provider, get the best expertise from ThinkPalm. You can ensure on-time delivery, project coordination, effective communication, and data security in the first place without incurring high outsourcing costs. Contact us today to fulfil your software development outsourcing needs.
Our local office supporting software development services in the UK offers cost-effective services without compromising service quality. Get peace of mind while you hand over your software outsourcing needs to ThinkPalm! 
Author Bio
Silpa Sasidharan is a content writer and social media copywriting expert working at ThinkPalm Technologies, who aspires to create marketing texts for topics spanning from technology, automation and digital business solutions.
