Mobile App Development Outsourcing: A Extensive Guide With Proven Tips

Are you looking to outsource mobile app development? This detailed post is a sure-shot source that can help you ensure a smooth app development process with exceptional results.

App development outsourcing plays a significant role in making the app process fast and much better and totally boost your mobile marketing. It can be proved beneficial as it is cheaper and efficient for businesses to opt for.

By outsourcing app development services from a reliable source, you can shorten the time to market, improve product cost, and decrease project cost. This is why around 52.5% of companies go for app development outsource to bring better results for their investments.

The below graph explains the scope of outsourcing in today’s web world.

This article will give you a detailed yet informative insight into different outsourcing aspects you can implement to smooth your outsourcing process.

What exactly is outsourcing, and why should you adopt it?

Outsourcing is the process of hiring an app development company to build an app for you instead of building it yourself or hiring employees.

It is one of the best alternatives to hiring people to work full time to build your app. The services are cost-effective and ensure a better quality of the developed product.

Outsourcing is great for web app development, mobile app development, Facebook ad campaigns, etc.

Whom do you have to pay $30 per hour when you can get the job done in $10 per hour.

There could be a lot of arguments on the Internet about outsourcing being a great option or not. This article is curated to educate you on how things work when you outsource web or app development services from a credible market resource.

How do you build a team around you so that you can outsource for your mobile app development?

It is not that easy, but it can be if you learn about a few aspects that you shouldn’t be doing when outsourcing an app development company.

Naturally, when you are doing something, you fail and learn the hard way. But outsourcing is different as it provides the best hacks that can help you win the battle with ease.

It is vital to get things right the first time, and it is possible to reach perfection on the first go. But don’t worry If you don’t get it right for the first time. The given steps will guide to improve your process of outsourcing.

Let’s start discussing all the steps to make the app development process better and easier.

What should you outsource?

The first thing you would listen about outsourcing is affordable rates, hassle-free management, and high-quality work.

Many entrepreneurs get into outsourcing without having an understanding of how it would impact their business. They don’t take time to answer the questions like:

• What type of work should they outsource?

• How much money do they want to save through outsourcing?

• How would they integrate the outsourced team into the existing team?

Learning about a few factors can give you ample knowledge of how to set up your mind for app development outsourcing.

• You need to write down every task that you are responsible for within your business.

• Sort the list of tasks which are most accessible to the most difficult ones

• You need to go through each task and identify the skill set needed to complete each one.

• Create a list of the skill sets that you need on your team to get these tasks accomplished.  

• Finally, determine how you want to outsource. For example, you want a credible app development company or freelancers from an online outsourcing marketplace.

The step you’ve just finished is the most crucial, and this is where most of the companies choose the wrong path that makes them insecure about outsourcing in the future.

Have a thorough interview process

The first place you would look up for outsourcing is on the internet as here you will find enormous companies that have a lot to boast about their app development work.

At this point, you might’ve never thought about the interview process, and you’re about to take another wrong step by not having a prepared approach to the interview process.

When you don’t have a strategic interview process, the partners that results can go significantly down.

So how do you find the right one?

• You need to cut off immediately if there is a lack of response, bad reviews, or even high charges per hour.

• Know the client’s necessary information, like the location, working hours, schedules, hourly rates, past projects, experience, and time to connect in a week. Some clients might be working on the other side of the globe, but you could still manage if you know the best time to contact them.

• Ask role-specific questions, how-to questions, real-life scenarios, and communication-related queries.

By being prepared for the detailed interview, you can go forward in hiring a reliable, skilled, and affordable outsourcing team that would help you build a great team.

Hiring a team based on rates and skills

Why would anyone want to pay more if you see someone offering the same thing at the lowest price?

It’s a normal human tendency to get attracted to the lowest price, but you need to be careful while outsourcing. Price is not everything. You should also look for the development aspects while discussing the cost factors with the shortlisted partners.

The work you get out of what you’ve paid is the thing you should look forward to.

Next thing, you should focus on the skills that you are looking for the app development team.

Clarify all your doubts by asking them a few questions

• What types of apps have you developed so far?
• What is your specialty in mobile app development?
• What tools and technologies do you use to build a full-fledged mobile app?
• What is the best tech-stack you will use to develop my mobile app?
• How much experience do you possess?

Similarly, you can ask any other questions during the interview with your selected team.

Set clear expectations in the beginning

You need to set high expectations from your hired app development team and should look forward to the process by regular interactions through calls and reports. Daily reports are most recommended, but a weekly status check isn’t bad either.

You need to take care of the below points. These would help set expectations with your new team.

• How often would you want to be updated on progress?
  • Daily? Weekly? Or alternate weeks?

• We manage daily updates via Skype and email.
  • How do you prefer to be communicated? Skype? Email? Call? Text? Or any other source you’re feasible with?

• How do you want issues communicated? What defines an issue? What defines an emergency?

• How do the workers ask for in-between time off?

• What hours do you want them to work each day?
  • Is it a fixed or flexible schedule?

• When should a worker ask for a raise?

• Are they allowed to outsource work to a friend in busy hours?

• What should workers do if they cannot spare time or not available?

By setting up expectations like these, you and your new team are definitely on the same page. It would help you avoid nightmares.

Train your new team

When you outsource your work, you need to make sure things should go your way, and your team is there to help you reach your target.

It is your responsibility to train them and get what you want from them.

To reach your goal with this new team, you need to create a detailed training process.

It’s all right to fail because that is how we learn. But if you follow the given steps to train your outsourced team, you can mitigate your chances of failures.

• Create detailed guidelines or process which you both would be following.

• Conduct all training sessions through chat or email

• Using team viewer for the training process is a great practice. It’s not just about TeamViewer; in fact, any screen sharing tool is useful to proceed with any training process.

• Use screen sharing to view what your outsource team is handling situations at regular intervals. Give them a test by having them go through the process with you watching. Providing feedback always helps them to learn the process, and they are perfect to approach.

• Provide them with the training guide and ask them to update the same.

When you follow this set of training directions, you make them confident to run the process independently. It’s always a smart step to check their skills at a regular interval.

Integrate your outsourced team into your team

Most online workers seek new opportunities and may work for hundreds of clients over an annual period.

Online workers are accustomed to short term contracts, but most come from a professional background working for a company for a long period.

An external team is best utilized when fully integrated into your team.

One of the biggest misconceptions that many business owners have on outsourced work is that they aren’t a part of the home team. Instead, they are a foreign support team that performs specific tasks within the company.

Introduce them to your company’s history, team, accolades, and show them your office premises. This makes them understand your company better and make them more committed to work harder and stick around to achieve long term goals.

If you want to squeeze out the most of your outsourcing team, you need to focus on fully integrating them into your business operations. The more effort you put, the more loyalty you will gain from them to help you grow your company.

Ask for feedback and listen to their ideas

You must be at a stage where your outsourcing is going great, and the team has well gelled up with your team. They probably know a decent amount of your business and how it makes money.

Many entrepreneurs overlook the truth that your online workers can bring great ideas to the table, but you have to be willing to ask and listen to them openly.

Here’s what you could do:

• Schedule a one on one meeting at least once a month with your outsourcing team. Make the purpose of the meeting learn about how they think the company or their team can grow. Ask them for business feedback. This will help you know better about your business from an outsider point of view.

• Anonymous surveys are always great for getting honest feedback, reading the results, and creating proper action steps.

• Create an open to ideas culture. Your workers’ comfortability is shaped by the culture that you create initially. If you are always posing questions and rewarding people for their ideas, your outsourced team will feel more open to sharing ideas to improve your business.

Allow your outsourced team grow along with your team

The outsourced team understands that their biggest asset is performing the given specific task, but that does not mean that they are content with performing that task with no growth for years on end.

If it is your best team, you must capitalize on that opportunity and let you’re the team grow with you.

Here’s how you can manage the growth of your outsourced team:

• You should always offer growth opportunities, which means you create less work for yourself.

• You can also give your online workers the ability to make a positive impact on your business operations. If the additional responsibility does not work, you have to move them back to the same pattern they were structured before.

• You can also bring in the incentive system, which always motivates the team to reach greater targets.

Offering this notion indicates that they can grow within the company.

When both (internal and external) your teams have goals to strive towards, they work harder for your business, and your job becomes much more manageable.

The next thing we need to discuss is the cost to outsource an app development company.

How much does the outsourcing cost for mobile app development?

The below image can give you a rough idea of the cost factors of app development outsourcing. Rest, to get a clear idea, you can consult with a leading app development company.

Conclusion

Outsourcing is an effective way to expand your business. It is not only about cutting your costs down but also a powerful way of getting things done.

Outsourcing a mobile app development company is not an easy task, especially when many companies and developers are available in the market. But if you find a reliable company, your app development provides good results and gives a pleasurable experience for business exposure.

We have tried to describe all possible ways that you can use to make your outsourcing process easy, smooth, and fast through this guide.

About the Author

Mohit Maheshwari is Chief Strategist at NMG Technologies, a full service IT Company offering world class user friendly mobile app development services. He has been in the industry since 2000 and focuses on long-term strategies, intuitive user experience and successful customer acquisition. Follow Mohit on Twitter and LinkedIn