Long days, longer nights, headaches for breakfast, and no sign of relief. This is the ugly sight of taking on a new project without proper guidance. We’ve all been in this position at one point or another. Whether it’s shown up in your personal or professional life (or both) will dictate your understanding of just how necessary guidance is.
In the land of technology, being underprepared when taking on a software development project can lead to stress and wasted time. And what’s even scarier here is that this is something that, when done improperly, will hurt your company's wallet. For this reason, companies outsource.
Outsourcing software development is a cost-effective and efficient way to bring new products and features to market, especially for large enterprises. By partnering with a third-party software development company, a large enterprise can tap into a pool of talent and resources that would otherwise remain out of reach.
4 Ways This is Made Possible
Time-to-market: Outsourcing software development can help a large enterprise bring new products and features to market faster. The software development company can handle the development process, freeing up the enterprise to focus its energy on other tasks.
Cost: Compared to scouting and recruiting in-house developers, outsourcing software development can be far more cost-effective, especially if your enterprise is located in an area with a high cost of living. By outsourcing, an organization now has access to an array of talent and can offer competitive pricing.
Access to specialized talent: Many software development companies are going to have a team of developers with a wide range of specialized skills and expertise. This can be especially useful for a large enterprise that needs to develop a complex software solution, implement new technology that they’re unsure how to materialize, or if they simply need proper guidance.
Flexibility: Outsourcing software development allows a large enterprise to be flexible and scale its development efforts up or down as needed. This can be especially useful for companies with fluctuating demand or those that need to quickly respond to changes in the market.
Entities Who Outsource
We could sit here and dish out every little detail of why outsourcing development will help you and your business, but why not just show you? Some large enterprises that have benefited from outsourcing software development include IBM, which outsourced the development of its Watson artificial intelligence platform, and General Electric, which outsourced the development of its Predix industrial internet of things platform. Other familiar names include:
Google
Apple
Oracle
Amazon
Facebook
This list is undoubtedly just the tip of the iceberg, but it gives you a sense of how the biggest and most successful companies use outsourcing as a resource to remain the best at what they do. It’s a competitive market, especially in the digital realm where the demand for skilled talent is high and lucrative for businesses.
How It Can Be Applied
Getting started when it comes to a new software development project is more often than not the hardest part. Commonly, this is simply because the project has been overthought or there is still a level of uncertainty. When this is the case, it requires company leadership to resort back to the basics which include:
Defining the goals of the new system
A comprehensive evaluation of all options for outsourcing providers
Outlining and communicating expectations
Tracking progress
Outsourcing can provide many benefits, but to reap the rewards, these are the kinds of operating procedures that need to be in place. Again, like anything in business, for this to work, it requires leadership to be aligned with the goals of the project.
The Takeaway
There are no shortcuts to success in business— or anything for that matter, even in a world where resources are abundant. There is only hard work that can solve the problems of an organization. To prioritize quality in all aspects, you may have to leave certain things up to others to ensure it gets done right and that your business can focus its efforts where it counts.
Written By Ben Brown
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ISU Corp is an award-winning software development company, with over 17 years of experience in multiple industries, providing cost-effective custom software development, technology management, and IT outsourcing.
Our unique owners’ mindset reduces development costs and fast-tracks timelines. We help craft the specifications of your project based on your company's needs, to produce the best ROI. Find out why startups, all the way to fortune 500 companies like General Electric, Heinz, and many others have trusted us with their projects. Contact us here.
