The satellite beaming your television signal has been placed in space by an India rocket. The power of outsourcing is here to stay!
As a company who has been partnering with Global organisations since last 15 years, it will not be fascinating for you if we list our accomplishments. While not listing them, we cannot deny that made an impact. A serious, useful impact in the effectiveness for companies developing software for a large aircraft manufacturer, a global pizza chain and a government.
4 points describe the importance of partnering for software development:
1. Liability
2. Speed
3. Cost
4. Flexibility
Let us start with the first point:
1. Liability
Any project or business has a spike in demand for resources which can stem out of a need to speed delivery or expansion in scope. It could also be out of temporary unavailability of a talent.
At this point of time, you have to choose between recruiting you an asset or getting this done by a partner. The big question that has to be answered is, are you hiring an asset? Or will this recruitment slip on to the liability side after a couple of months, irrespective of how good is the talent.
An honest assessment needs to be made in this area.
If you are recruiting a skill which is not a regular requirement or if you are fulfilling a spike in work or you are temporarily speeding up the process of development then in all possibility you are not recruiting an asset.
The cost of recruitment and overheads apart of any recruitment for short or special needs is a costly process. It is time-consuming and slow. It also has the baggage of human factors as people take the time to acclimatise to the new situation.
With Partners, the situation is dramatically different. There are multiple skills sets which are available in various technology stacks with teams who have sharpened their ability by working on diverse projects over the years. This allows them to dive into the project immediately. This advantage itself surpasses all other benefits one may envisage.
Also, diverse and multiple project experience brings in thinking which is not in a conventional box, and a solution from a partner will be surprisingly effective.
Remember, in this model, no one quits midway. You get an replacement immediately as per the obligations in the contract.
2. Speed
Speed in starting and the speed in finishing. Both these dramatically change. Recruitment period is self-explanatory, it ceases to play a role. So you have the project rolling from the day one! The speed of completion will be faster as the resource will be focused on only one activity.
3. Cost
The cost goes down in multiple areas. In the partner model, you may be paying an equivalent or at times less than the cost to the company. If you add all the cost from recruiting to over heads with the salary and then factor in the risk or the person not delivering or leaving midway, outsourcing offers a very compelling answer.
There are compliance challenges, the cost of failed recruitment, the cost of periods when you cannot put the resource to full use; the list is quite long.
4. Flexibility
Business plans change, development projects turn, customer requirements expand, some unexpected bugs show up. You need to more, less and new resources at short intervals.
If you are developing a product, this becomes critical. Would you hire a Salesforce expert when you have just to build a connecting API to Sales force? You would outsource this.
The flexibility of resources gives you and your business the unprecedented power.
Advantage – Advantage
I would have written Win-Win, but it is so cliché. There is a process gain; there is a cost benefit, there is flexibility, freedom and opportunity to use diverse technology experts. It is an advantage to build your product or project on time, without any compromise.
