When Does Software Out Sourcing Make Sense?

We generally are asked “What is truly the main value of software outsourcing?” when many of us communicate to prospective customers or colleagues. It’s surely not always a fit, but we consider certainly, there are a lot of scenarios in which it’s really a no-brainer. I generally break it down depending on the software philosophy of your organization, the type of business that you’re in plus the focus belonging to the organization.

The term “software philosophy” is in fact simpler than is sounds – does your business concentrate on deploying primarily COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf Software) or Custom Developed Software? In general, it makes more sense to deploy COTS for established, non-strategic needs. More on that in a subsequent post. If the focus is COTS, you’ll find often connectors to legacy and SOA-enabled systems, customizations and plugins which might be developed and designed into the COTS product. These benefit from software outsourcing because they are often tightly scoped, templated components of work which may be easily transferred to another team. They are likewise not hard to transfer back to an IT shop for maintenance after the fact. Finally, these components of work are generally using a “unique skillset” area where, when the project is complete, there is very little value in keeping that skillset in the organization. If the main objective is on custom software development, the option of software outsourcing or developing custom come down to other factors.

What type of business you have is a critical point to consider in software outsourcing. In the case of non-technology businesses, it generally is just smart to outsource your software development and focus on your core business. Where things get murkyis when a company posseses an established and running IT department that already incorporates software development. In those cases, the corporation has to examine its software process carefully to ascertain whether it is getting value out of this work. What we often see is that IT departments are managed in an exceedingly specific method to be certain that all of the systems remain up, running and completely functional. The greater part of projects use the mode of “building a house” from plans rather then “inventing a lightbulb” (More about that in a later post). Therefore, many times, it will work better to outsource software for new project implementations and integrate the final product in to the IT environment like an IT project. It relies on applying core focus in the best areas – when the outsourcer concentrates on their core – creating fun new software – and the IT department concentrates on their core – driving business value by the implementation and management of IT systems. When the business does have a separate software group for internal development or external product development, there can be another range of things to consider.

With organizations who have software development for a focus plus a core competency, you have got usually the question of how software outsourcing corresponds. There are two scenarios that we’ve seen work rather well. In both cases, the question boils down to which software the organization really wants to target. The first scenario generally pertains to internal software development – either for operations or for a SaaS product. When an institution offers an existing custom built application that they’re planning to maintain at the same time as rolling out a fresh version of the application, there exists generally a short-term need to “duplicate” their team. At that point, software outsourcing and, particularly, our Variable Demand Services, works nicely. Generally, with this approach, we recommend that the corporation take a look at outsourcing taking care and enhancement of the existing application while their core team, potentially with some assistance, develops against the new one. This ensures that the modern application is supportable and closely maps to the business requirements. The second scenario generally refers to software product companies. The core focus of software product companies could be the roadmap. Their roadmaps are carefully crafted to develop the characteristics that will contain the widest appeal in their market and therefore propell the process of the company forwards. However, these organizations are generally plagued with customization and integration requests from end users. While these requests are usually funded, it isn’t really in the DNA of those organizations to offer “Professional Services” and it’s past their core focus to work on these items as one-offs. As a result, software outsourcing to an organization like ours which makes our cash on professional services, is a great fit and we’ve had some fantastic relationships with product companies to accomplish this type of work.

That being said, software outsourcing can be a good fit for virtually any the category of business but it is vital that you find the area carefully and to work closely along with your outsourcer to make sure of a consistent and high quality result

When considering software outsourcing or software development, come and see us at Tindr.co