Things to remember amidst the pros and cons of using an offshore software development service

Amidst the pros and cons of using an offshore software development service there are a few things every company planning to embark on a relationship of the sort need to be prepared with. To give you a background so as to decide reading this article in its entire form, I wish to tell you that I have been running an offshore development service for the past several years. Having said so I am a proponent of the same because it’s a win model if used rightly. This article is a synopsis of what I learned as both a provider as well as a customer of similar services in the past.

Irrespective of what ever a provider tells you about quality, scalability and other reasons, the single reason that stands out above all are Cost Advantage. It depends on how you word it. If you word it as cheap, then it will automatically drip over to having cheap quality as well. This is not always wrong either. There are several providers who might not be able to deliver what they claim to. But history shows that the ones benefited from the cost advantage far outweigh the ones who have burned their fingers.

That being said cost is not the only criteria that you should base your decision on. You should be able to say how that cost advantage can directly influence your bottom line in anyway. Saving money and releasing budget for other things is always good but calculating the hidden costs within the savings is also important. If its a small engagement and to make it work over cultural barriers and communications gaps; you end up with sleepless nights, you might just not be ready to offshore now.

But if you have been putting a few important tasks due to budget unavailability or time and resource crunch that could be great starting point to think offshore as a potential choice. Cost advantage is a default result of off shoring, but how that converts to business value is what you need to judge. In my experience I have seen clients embark on an engagement only to find that it does not add the value as they expected and wind up later. I have also seen businesses that start small and see the value and get more and more tasks done to the point that the offshore team becomes an integral part of their business strategy and growth.

ITFlux, offshore outsourcing company offers outsource software development, sugarcrm customization and more.