It’s clear that digital change is happening nearly everywhere we look – there’s more mobile applications, more connected devices with IoT, new web platforms – anything and everything is now connecting to the internet. But what’s not clear is knowing what moves to make today to keep businesses competitive in the years ahead. The 2019 “State of Digital Transformation” research report indicates that top tech investment priorities are centering around cloud, cybersecurity, and A.I. (Source: Altimeter). Also, companies are also investing in development capabilities and focusing on integration between legacy applications and cloud platforms. However, building new applications and software in our digital ecosystem is no easy feat. It requires bringing together the right team with the right IT talents. And in an increasingly digital landscape, IT resources are becoming more scarce. According to LinkedIn, the U.S. is short some 472,000 professionals with skills such as software development, performance tuning, and SQL. (Source: LinkedIn).
In this competitive environment, how can businesses find the talent they need to make investments and stay relevant? In a word: outsourcing. Companies are finding outside experts to help with everything from software development and cybersecurity to data integration. (Source: CBS).
How it works
Thanks to high-speed internet, cloud computing, and new real-time communication tools, outsourcing has become more effective than ever before. Why? Because it’s no longer necessary for software developers or other IT workers to be physically working side-by-side to contribute to a project’s success. Hiring external software development teams can provide significant benefits, such as reducing time to market and improving competitiveness. Instead of going through the process of screening, hiring, and training full-time staff – and competing with other firms for limited resources – companies are finding the right candidates much more quickly with contractors. By supplementing internal IT teams with a remote team of software engineers – sometimes called a ‘hybrid outsourcing model’ – companies put themselves in the best position to leapfrog the competition. Benefits also include accelerating time to market, increasing talent pool flexibility, gaining access to partner best practices, plus maintaining local control and project ownership with lower pricing.
Mobile app and software development
Businesses in nearly every industry can benefit from developing mobile applications. That might include a customer-facing mobile app or an enterprise app that helps companies to streamline and manage critical processes. Research by Adobe shows 77% business find enterprise apps to be beneficial, and by 2021, the market size for enterprise apps is estimated to amount $430 billion. (Source: CustomerThink).That’s part of the reason why mobile app development has one of the best success rates following the outsource model. Options for nearshore, offshore, and US-based mobile app development are available all at varying rates. As a reference, hourly rates for US-based iOS developers average around $150/hour where development costs in South American, Eastern Europe or India or Asia, are usually below $50/hour. For a smooth project, organizations should make sure app teams have a handle on each phase of the development cycle from discovery, scope evaluation, development to control, and production. (Source: Qubit Labs).
The hiring outside expert model also works for other areas of software development, which often require extreme talent pool flexibility for matching project requirements to the right programming framework. Are internal developers familiar with Angular, Ember.js, and Node.js? By hiring software developers on a project-basis, teams don’t have to retrain staff when moving from one project to the next.
Complement existing talents
Making a move to hiring external IT resources requires investing time and energy into comparing partners and studying best practices. The most successful companies spend time up-front and look for ways to optimize their internal teams with complementary skilled specialists, whether they are US-based, nearshore, or offshore. Often a hybrid model that uses a blended team approach gives companies the biggest ROI in terms of increased project control, improved team flexibility, and optimal results.