As businesses delve deeper into digital space, they face a common three-fold problem-
- They can’t avoid but resort to more sophisticated and powerful technologies
- It is tough to find professionals proficient in those technologies, and
- Even if they do, they are quite expensive and risk draining time and resources from the core business operations.
While the first problem should be rather treated as an opportunity that comes with its own set of benefits if correctly implemented, there is a way around for the latter two- offshore development services.
Call it the global village phenomena or simply, an interconnected world, the boundaries of office space have long collapsed to the point that employees working from home seem primitive. Businesses can now hire employees from the other face of the earth to work on their projects. Why do businesses do that? Because they are highly skilled, inexpensive and come with no additional overheads that are normally attached to hiring employees on-premise. But to leverage these benefits to their full potential, you also need to keep these factors in mind:
Communication gap
The first consideration that you need to investigate is the fluidity of communication between the two. No, we are not talking if they will be available on Skype or Slack, it’s about the language barrier. If you have only English speakers in your team and proceed to hire offshore web developers who speak Mandarin and aren’t much fluent in English, your application is a disaster waiting to happen. That is, even before you take a look at the services or expertise on the offer, make sure there is no communication gap.
Services
One of the grave misconceptions that many have is that the more number of services that offshore developers offer, the better they are. Save for exceptions, it’s quite the opposite in the tech industry- less is more. That is, the fewer services one offers, chances are, the more proficient they will be. However, to get a true picture of their competence, match their services with their workforce.
After all, if an offshore development company with 25 professionals promises to cover all domains, skepticism is what you need. But if another agency with 250 professionals offers the same large set of services, it is most likely that they will match their words.
Workforce considerations
While numbers are important, it isn’t all there to look for. Technology is an ever-evolving space and those who do not evolve with it, are left redundant. Additionally, since there is no way you can test their skills, you look for qualifiers like experience or certifications.
For instance, if you are looking for eCommerce development, Magento certified developers is a good sign and similarly, if they are AWS or Azure certified, you can trust them with cloud applications.
Analyze the portfolio thoroughly
After you have a basic idea of what services they offer and the quality of professionals they have, proceed to see how competent they have been in their previous works. And don’t just hover their website like a catalog, but carefully analyze what technologies they have used and how they can be leveraged for your own project. More importantly, look for what they haven’t done yet that you need for your project and confirm with them if they have the required skills and expertise to make that happen.
Match your requirements with their skills
As explained earlier, numbers aren’t everything, but it is the expertise that matter. After all, if you are looking for offshore web development, an agency dedicated to web development might serve you better than the top app development company with zero expertise in web-related technologies. Yes, having additional skills certainly doesn’t hurt, but they must not come at the cost of the skills you are particularly looking for.
