Hiring an offshore team for product development.

Outsourcing product development >> is of the most effective strategies companies use to achieve strategic business goals. For product development to work, organisations need to build a strategy that involves quality design, reasonable action plan, and well-charted stages of development. Only once all these elements are in place, the company can start looking for the best offshore partner to help realize this goal.

In the context of product development, an offshore company works as an extension of your internal team. Working in accordance with a development plan that you can easily share and communicate helps to keep everyone on the same page.

But why are so many businesses choosing offshore product development companies to help them out?

Benefits of offshore product development.

As local economies become globalized, many organisations consider offshoring product development to take advantage of the most talented workers on the market.

Offshoring product development comes with many different benefits:

It’s cost-effective - by outsourcing the task of developing a product, you’ll be saving up on all the costs associated with sourcing, attracting, and hiring new candidates for the job. You won’t have to spend time on recruitment, onboarding, and training new employees. Moreover, by teaming up with an offshore product development team you’ll be saving up on office space and equipment.
It helps to save time - outsourcing the entire process of product development saves the time and energy of your internal resources. By having someone else build the product, your team gets to focus on the bigger pictures.
It gives you access to top talent - by expanding your talent pool to the entire world, you get the opportunity to work with highly-skilled experts in the industry. Offshore teams often have extensive experience in their field and may have previously worked on similar projects, offering you insights into problems that might arise. Moreover, you get access to a ready-made team that has experience working together already - they have tools and processes in place to make the product development process smooth and successful.

Choosing the right product development outsourcing partner.

It’s essential to partner with an offshore company that is experienced and trustworthy. That means you need to do some research, develop a clear vision for the product you want to build and review the portfolios of potential partners.

It’s smart to create a list where you compile all the critical questions you’ll have for your potential partner. Here are some examples:

Is the vendor experienced in creating products for other companies?
Do they have a quality management system in place?
How do they approach communication, and in particular project transparency?
How much control will you have over the process and team?
What were your vendor’s biggest success and failure over the last year?

Check the company’s portfolio of case studies and references. Be sure to ask for contacts to previous clients and ask them about their impressions. A professional product development company will share these details with you right away - after all, there’s no reason to hide if they did a great job.

Sometimes a face-to-face meeting might be necessary to understand the culture of the company with which you want to team up. Why not travel to the vendor’s office? Have a look around, meet with account executives and project managers, talk to the staff and get the general feeling of the atmosphere at the company.

Our process

Key factors to consider while hiring an offshore product development company.

It’s possible to build an effective working relationship with an offshore team - but only as long as you prepare for that type of collaboration. With some careful planning and a thorough vetting process, you’ll hire a partner who will help you bring your product development project to success.

Here are some best practices to get you there:

Define your goals - make sure that your internal team has a clear understanding of why you’re entering a partnership and what your objectives are. You can focus on core business processes or simply reduce the workload of your in-house team. Once you know the goal and scope of your project, you’ll be more prepared to hire an offshore team that can help you succeed.
Create good communication practices - lack of communication is the most serious pitfall of offshore collaboration. That’s why you need to check that the offshore team has solid communication tools and processes in place. Consider how working in different time zones may affect your ability to reach the team during business hours. Remember to be clear about your expectations in terms of communication.
Understand the culture - understand the cultural differences and customs of the target country to which you’re outsourcing. They may impact your collaboration. That’s why so many organisations are partnering with companies located in Central European, and especially in Poland - the professional culture is similar to Western standards.

Are you looking for a highly experienced product development team? Get in touch with us, we’ve developed a broad range of software products and have the skills to create yours in the best possible way.