Navigating the world of outsourcing can be complex; but one thing is certain, pretty much everyone already knows how to do it because we personally outsource many of our personal tasks such as cooking, landscaping, handyman tasks, and more. When we are pressed for time, we look for someone who can accomplish them skillfully at a cost that we are willing to pay. We have more time to spend with our family and pursue our dreams, as these tasks are completed by someone who is more skilled at them.

Companies also outsource a range of activities and tasks to gain the strategic advantage of choosing which areas are critical to their business, allowing them to be more effective in their areas of core competency. Two of the world’s biggest Fortune 500 companies, Apple and Nike, don’t manufacture their own products. They have highly crafted long-term partnerships with a select group of businesses and factories. Even major software companies like Oracle, Microsoft, and Google strategically outsource many of their software processes. For many small and medium-sized businesses, the advantages of outsourcing have been a little more challenging to achieve.

Find A Partner who Shares Your Values & Has Low Turnover

My advice – don’t outsource your software work, partner with your external software developer! To do this, you need to find a partner who shares similar work values, culture, and the willingness to try. A company that embraces team spirit and has low turnover exemplifies this.

Capitalize the Time Difference to Your Advantage

Use what might be considered a negative – the time zone of your partner to your extreme advantage, but make sure your partner can accommodate your schedule. While physical communications might not occur every day, there should be specific days when this virtual communication occurs. For emergencies, you need to be able to have a point of contact 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

Coders Are Easy To Find – Find A Partner With Great Program Managers

To ensure the success of your project, find a partner who has the best, competent project/program managers, every bit as good as your development partners, maybe even better to oversee the progress and regularly inspect the work quality.

You Might Even Find A Partner With Excellent Design Skills

Some development partners also specialize in design graphics, UI interface, and everything in between. A huge factor leading to success in your selection decision is the design capability, user design and aesthetics, which is unusual to find when seeking a partner, but you can find them.

Don’t outsource your software work, partner with your external software developer by finding a partner who shares similar work values, culture, and the willingness to try

Find Skills In Specific Areas That Where You Lack And Get Them Immediately

Outsourcing can be highly efficient. You can immediately get access to the skills of hundreds of developers who your budget simply couldn’t afford, which helps you concentrate on your core competencies without the extra fixed cost burden of hiring, training, and supplying offices and equipment.

Your Costs Are Significantly Reduced

The most important advantage is that your costs will be lower. There are no additional costs for health care, vacation, sick days, social security, computers, space, recruiting, and the myriad of other potential personnel costs. Moreover, onsite software licensing can be reduced, as your developer will have licensed many of these required tools.

Increase Your Flexibility To Match Project Peaks And Valleys

By partnering, you have much more flexibility and the opportunity to scale (up or down) to match your project peaks and demands. This is based on actual project cycles which help your business reduce fixed costs and turn them into variable cost.

Some Additional Checklist Items To Help In Your Partner Selection:

• Communication – your partner needs to be able to communicate well (written and spoken language) with all levels – the managers as well as the actual developers. Ask them for an example project plan.

• As the employee churn rate for outsource partners can run as high as 50 percent or higher, ask your prospective partner what is their employee churn rate and how do they keep it low.

• Before you begin discussions with development partners, make sure that your organization has carefully outlined the requirements and expectations

• After a thorough background check of your possible development partners, winnow the list to a small handful of potential partners.

• Request a detailed price quotation proposal with a summary of the partner’s business background, references, their terms and conditions and a sample contract to review in advance.

• Evaluate the proposal(s) for completeness, professionalism, and price with details of ownership of code, timelines and the inability by the developer to utilize the same code in other projects. Protect your project plans with an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) if your work or discussions involve sensitive company plans or information.

• Ensure key members of your team are available when you need to contact them.

• Detail a payment method and plan that meets your requirements and efficiently compensates the partner.

If the checklist is followed well, you will be more confident in your decision-making process while selecting your outsourcing partner.