Mobile Outsourcing Success Stories To Debunk Your Fears

Introduction

To outsource, or to build in-house? This is the one question that mobile app developers have asked since time immemorial. If you are an app development company, at some time or other you must look for an outsource app development firm for the overall benefit of your business.

According to Statista, the global market size of the outsourcing industry has reached $45.6 in 2000 to $85.6 in 2018.

Unless you have a fantastic combination of ideas, a great mobile app development team, and plenty of time, it is difficult to work on a couple of projects simultaneously. Hence you would gather a lot of benefits from outsourcing app development for your business, while you handle all other important projects that specifically require your vision and energy.

Besides bringing in a way to minimize cost, outsource app development also ensures that enterprise managers also get to focus on building robust models while their app is being built by the experts of that field. Isn’t this a great arrangement?

Let’s have a look at some of the most valid reasons to outsource app development projects and top examples of organizations that use outsourcing to build high-performing apps for their business.

Should you outsource your app development projects?

We all know that coding a feature-rich app is a difficult and long process with no place to skip anything. This is a huge responsibility and as an enterprise, you have many tasks that require your undivided attention.

Here are a few reasons that would help you understand the need for outsourcing app developers:

So, what is the solution here? Outsourcing. Yes, you can easily outsource your app development project to a team of skilled developers. App developers-whether freelancers or working in an organization are highly dedicated to building scalable and high-performing apps. Outsourcing provides you with the freedom to hire teams that are well versed with the latest app development company, and can also extend their help with development and rounding off your idea. As long as you are working on your research and choose the right mobile app developers to outsource, you are on the right track. This also brings light to the next critical concern- how to choose the right app developers to outsource?

Best app outsource app development practices

So what is the trick for finding the right team who you can entrust with your app project and how exactly you can control the development while giving them the necessary rights? These are a few questions you’ll need to answer before you dive into the actual development process.

Here’s a step-by-step map to help you with choosing the best outsourcing organization and we have tried our best to make sure you don’t miss any important details:

1. Need for the assessment

Knowing what you need is the most important step while selecting an offshore app development team. Choosing the right team of mobile app developers would require a great deal of hardwork, but searching and analyzing the right team would help you reduce your workload. You would go through a phase of interviewing developers, comparing, and finalizing the right fit for your organization.

The first step is to analyze what you need from the developer and to determine that you need to perform an assessment. Having a detailed plan at this stage would be the most helpful thing, and answering questions like,

• What is the purpose of the app?
• How soon is the app launch?
• Do you want social media integration?
• Is there a need for a payment gateway?

And so on, would help you better determine the qualities you want in your developer. This would also make shopping around developers a lot easier.

2. Create a Request for Proposal

Most of us start the internet, but to attract the proposals from the right app development companies, you need to craft a well-detailed and specific Request for Proposal or RFP. A generic RFP attracts freelance developers who have basic skills and are generally competing at a price to grab the project and provide you with the lowest possible app development rates. If this is what you are looking for, you might just get a basic cookie-cutter solution. Hence, designing the RFP strategically would help you level up from such proposals and attract truly skilled and experienced talent.

Here are a few points that would help you come up with a good RFP:

• Be specific: Be specific and discuss your needs. For instance, if you are looking for experienced developers in iOS app development, mention that straight to the point. No lurking around with specifications that are not necessary for your project. The idea here is to set clear expectations from the beginning itself, and not spending time weeding out developers that don’t fit.
• Create developer profiles: Your app is the face of your business. So, developers must thoroughly understand the vibe and the personality of the app you are trying to send across. You need a specific developer that would turn your brand into an app, and work diligently towards turning the app into a success. Hence, create a developer profile that very well defines the type of developer you are looking for.
• Encourage healthy conversations: Try and create an RFP that encourages the developers to begin a conversation. If they are into asking more queries and expectations about your proposal, initiate a healthy conversation.

3. Set up protocols before you begin

If you want to build a good app, all you need is a collaborative effort between designers, developers, and other stakeholders. Make sure that all the app guidelines are precisely followed to see that it lives up to your vision and you give adequate space and creative freedom to try new technologies and develop standout apps.

To accomplish the balance, it is important to balance rules and protocols and understand who has the last word in the project.

4. Explicitly discuss the code ownership

Make no bones about this one, code ownership is the most important part of the contract in the long term. If you are planning on owning the code, state that before you start building the project. For instance, if you wish to work with an app development agency, you have to rely on this organization for all the updates and maintenance. In legal terms, different rights are given to different sources of code, and it is the contract that reigns supreme.

The best outsourcing success stories

Here are a few examples to help you understand how outsourcing can help build high-performance apps for the business:

1. Alibaba

Alibaba is one of the world’s largest and finest marketplaces that have taken the world by storm and moved global giants such as Amazon and eBay. The secret behind Alibaba’s success goes to its US-based developers that helped Jack Ma develop an outstanding mobile application. Jack Ma in his book mentioned that a few years ago finding suitable app developers in China was a daunting task, but that didn’t stop Jack Ma, the visionary, from making Alibaba a success. He hired app developers and outsourced multiple projects to turn his idea into a successful reality.  Jack Ma could also have decided to develop his app locally which would have cost him more time and money, and have affected the services.

Through outsourcing, Alibaba gained access to a bigger pool of talent that he could have found locally. If this is what your business is looking for, outsourcing is the way to go. 

2. Basecamp

Basecamp is a project management tool that started as a design firm for hire and ended up being the most popular project tool in the app market. Basecamp was born out of a need for better tools to manage the business processes and streamline communication.

For businesses working with diverse teams, Basecamp acts like a life-saver. According to the founder Jason Fried, Basecamp was found when they found it hard to organize their internal processes and suffered losses in productivity which also deteriorated their image in front of their clients.

When the team realized that there is no ideal platform that serves their needs, they decided to build one themselves. Being a fully-established design firm, Basecamp already had plenty of high value clients to look for. Therefore, outsourcing was the only option they had. By outsourcing the mobile app development, Basecamp very well focused on their business priorities and spent more time pitching their product to businesses.

3. Google

Google is the world’s leading tech business and the topper in the list of organizations that use outsourcing. From virtual assistant projects to development, Google is outsourcing several projects to professionals all across the world, just for one simple benefit- that is efficiency.

For an organization that offers a number of products and services, developing all the projects in-house can be a difficult task. Hence, Google hires several contractors, and vendors to help them handle non-core development projects and tertiary parts of their business for different reasons.

As far as the examples for successful outsourcing goes, Google is the winner of them all. Outsourcing the non-core work allows Google to stay focused and put their maximum effort into the core parts of their business. According to a report by Bloomberg in 2018, Google had more contractors than the number of in-house employees.

4. Slack

The founder of Slack, Stewart Butterfield was very well aware of the power that outsource app development beholds. The owner knew he had a vision and all he needed was some brilliant minds and hands to implement his idea.

Stewart created a rough prototype and brought it to Metalab, and asked them to work on the idea and make it great. Metalab then worked with Stewart to design the app from the scratch, and build a brand and everything that goes along with it. At that time, the enterprise apps were built to boring, with little to no innovation and creativity. But broke all the norms and created a fun and vibrant app that was destined to be a success.

As an excellent example of outsourcing, the story of Slack also puts forward the fact that having an idea is not all. Outsourcing is an easy and safe alternative that many people tend to ignore.

Conclusion

Outsourcing the app development to an organization requires a transparent, trustful, and mutual relationship. The type of outsourcing organization you chose, and how you work with them would help you determine how well your app performs and the engagement and revenue streams it would attract.

The practices mentioned in this blog would help you choose the most suitable app development organization and hire the best app developers for your organization.

Now, if you are looking for an mobile app development services to grow your business, we would be more than happy to answer all your questions. So, drop us a mail and let’s discuss your idea.