Not only today’s modern time even it is an old-age technique, but we also rely on outsourced services to fortify and reinforce our business operations.
For most tech startups and big businesses, the secret of success of their business lies in selecting the right outsourcing partner.
Businesses in the mobile generation are incomplete without a mobile application. But while hiring the IT outsourcing companies for building software, the business needs to consider multiple aspects. Despite a great number of advantages, there are still some significant blunders that hiring the wrong offshore development company can cost a business more time, money, qualitative shortcomings and performance glitches which can result in failures, increase cost, and time loss. There are some following mistakes most of the businesses make while hiring IT outsourcing companies-

Lack of in-depth knowledge about the outsourcing companies

One of the significant blunders is the lack of in-depth knowledge about the outsourcing companies. You always need to be updated about the development companies you are hiring for your next app development because you need to make a shortlist and thereafter measure the pros and cons for each one of them.
A company hires an outsourcing company with a limited skillset and exposure to technologies and platforms can never be better options for building sophisticated apps. This is why it is important to go for development companies having experience and exposure across different technologies and platforms.
The outsourcing companies who offer app development services at a fixed price are likely to have no experience in dealing with complexities of the rich, custom apps. You must know before opting for any experienced companies who quote a price as per the technical requirements and challenges of the project. The best way to know about the best options among the lots of choices among development companies is to hire a technical expert who has a great experience and knowledge in hiring offshore development companies. Such experts can help you through the selection and hiring process.

 Lack of research

Make time for research and preparation — it’s worth it. Most startups base their outsourcing decisions totally on cost-efficiency. Although the cost factor plays a vital role in the decision-making process, it’s not the only one but also other things that must be taken into consideration include – the vendor’s portfolio and expertise, reviews and testimonials. Selecting software development outsourcing without conducting thorough research is a usual blunder that most small businesses make. There are a couple of factors you should research to make sure that your outsourcing partner will be best for your project. You may even ask for personalized resumés from the team and everything you would like to know:

• Are you familiar with the industry and user base?
• How will you communicate with the team?
• Who are the responsible personalities to get in touch with?
• Which team will be working on the project and are they experienced?
• Will the developers be working only on your projects?

Finally, after a thorough analysis, it becomes much easier to identify whether that team can realize your project.
Market research is the tool and process that will aware you and help you in dodging the ones that are not going to meet your requirements. Your outsource service provider should have the experience of delivering service to offshore business. You can research and probe the profiles of their portfolio of the service providers and if their style of work suits your business.

Not taking care of management gaps

Management gaps make the most common faultline in the selection of the IT outsourcing company. While some companies just do away with any managers for the IT outsourcing task, others don’t use any project management tools.
Company Not Having Project Managers: Since outsourcing companies will only help you in building the software product, a business still needs project managers. Ultimately, you need to be in total control of your project team and development project and that is why the role of project managers is very important.
Not conducting a meeting before starting the project: Before finalizing the contract, you should conduct a kick-off conference with the project managers from both parties present. You need to finalize such things as project milestones, the roles and responsibilities, tasks, schedules, and deadlines.
Not holding project management tools: You should hold some project management tools to take care of several tasks in a comprehensive manner. Some of the popular tools for apps and web development projects include Trello, Slack, and Evernote.

Not following a proper hiring process

The most generous roadblock for hiring quality outsourcing companies is the lack of a proper and time-tested hiring process. A development company should not be hired without evaluating the portfolio or prior work. How many web and mobile apps they created, the range of business niches and technologies they have dealt with meticulously evaluated. When hiring offshore development services businesses must interview the developers who are given responsibilities for the project. Besides that skills and experience, we need to evaluate the interaction and other attributes of the developers.
Hiring developers globally: Thanks to the global outreach of the internet, it is possible to hire developers from anywhere around the world. But hiring developers globally without keeping the cultural and communication constraints in mind, will be a serious mistake. The saving of time that you can gain by hiring developers from a different culture soon can turn into big cost factors.

 Not taking cost considerations

Cost in software development is one of the major considerations for any company. Several aspects let’s have a look at the key considerations about cost factors. Microsoft development tools are expensive and there are too many promising startups moreover small companies opt for non-Microsoft products for development. It is wise to widen your choices by considering both Microsoft and non-Microsoft users.
When negotiating on rates, it is advisable to have realistic and valid market expectations. Spending the entire budget on development is a serious mistake. You need to make a plan within the app budget launch for and marketing in phases.

Not prioritizing excellence

Some companies when hiring an offshore development company don’t give preference to developer excellence. But, the developer’s excellence can be ascertained by previous experience, knowledge about platforms, etc. Instead of hiring developers based on obscure experience, it is always advisable to go for one with knowledge in the respective niche.
Hiring a developer team with expertise in one platform can affect your app development if you want to build a cross-platform app. The product gets perfect with time when bug fixes and gets better with upgraded features. Always remember to ensure full control of the source code through the contract. Without full ownership of the source code, it will be not easy to switch to another development company in the future.

Not evaluating the business opportunities

An app comes as a gateway to business opportunities for a business. Naturally, from the very early stage of conceptualizing, you need to evaluate the business opportunities. If you are skipping market research just for the sake of faster time to market, you are at the risk of the non-utilization of resources in building an app with less market exposure. This is why it is advisable to check the current market trends, support, maintenance needs and revenue opportunity, recurring cost, etc. at the very early stage.
Hiring a development company not versed with the latest trends: Just think of hiring a development company that only built apps with backdated design and run of the mill features. Well, it can have a disastrous consequence as far as competition is concerned. Always hire companies who are well versed in advanced technologies.</br?
An outdated mobile application will not impress the user out there and it will be ultimately a loss of time, money and labor. Collaborate with professionals and IT service providers who are pro in their work and have a keen eye on the latest trends and upcoming ones as well. Go for the companies and experts who have extensive work experience and knowledge in the target field.

Lack of communication and collaboration

Beyond the initial conference and project briefing timely, communication should continue. Frequent evaluation and setting up checkpoints are important to focus and for quality assurance. When working with an outsourcing company, you need to constantly remain in contact to help developers to reply to their queries and to guide them on different aspects in solving any issue. Once the developers have started working with the project, you need to follow-up from time to time and get information about the life cycle of the product and the progress. The worst thing is to stop a development project in the middle.

Not Prioritizing Testing

For many businesses outsourcing the app development followed by marketing and pre-launch campaigning and quick testing just before the launch make the app ready and rolling. But unfortunately, it is not like that. App testing is not a last-minute statutory consideration but should be one of the top priorities.
The so-called waterfall protocol of building an app through successive steps and concluding it with testing is already backdated. Testing an app at the end of the development process ends up taking longer and costing higher. In contrast, the agile development process conducts testing concurrently throughout the development process and thus delivers a better product in less time.
Testing your project is vital to gaining a guarantee that your final project working fine with functionalities just the way it should. A tester should be involved in the development from the very beginning, otherwise, you are likely to encounter tons of bugs in the end. So, ensure that your software is tested appropriately.
Whatever you’re building, testing should be an integral part of product development from the initial stage. Quality Assurance should ideally be done by the same company that collaborates with you for your development projects.

Conclusion

Once you start avoiding these mistakes, you will find contractors you can trust and build relationships with. But when you are getting started, you must avoid making these 5 fatal mistakes. Overcome these mistakes and take a BIG step in the right direction.