A to Z guide of mobile app outsourcing

Outsourcing in the IT world has become very popular because of its benefits and cost-effective solutions. It has opened new ways to get rid of the challenges and delays of in-house development.

Do you also want to outsource your mobile app project?

In this guide, I have explained everything you should know about outsourcing along with its advantages and how to choose an ideal outsourcing partner.

Outline of the topics covered in this guide:

• What is outsourcing and where it came from?
• Why people prefer to outsource their smartphone application projects?
• How outsourcing market has performed in the past years?
• How much your smartphone application will cost in other countries?
• How you can search for the ideal outsourcing company?
• How outsourcing can be beneficial for you
• Things you must consider while outsourcing
• The future of smartphone application development outsourcing
• Conclusion

What is outsourcing and where it came from?

In business world, the term “outsourcing” is referred as contracting another party for business. The word “outsourcing” came from American glossary “outside resource” in 1981. It also refers to transferring employees or services from one company to another company.

However, in-house and outsourcing each have their own merits and demerits, but outsourcing comparatively offers a better option to get the optimal work output in minimum time frame. It helps to hire a genuine developer who can understand the clear picture of your smartphone application and develop it in a sophisticated way. Nowadays, from small to average as well as big companies, all are outsourcing their work due to its enormous advantages.

Why people prefer to outsource their mobile applications projects?

Reduced price is one of the major factors that enforces companies to incline towards the mobile application outsourcing. Generally, offshore agencies have the technical devices and other resources that are necessary to perform all the development tasks. Thus, you don’t need to set up a whole in-house team with all the required resources, this is another strong reason to prefer outsourcing.

Thinking of offshoring your smart phone app development to a third party is more viable and economical option for businesses as well as individuals. Usually, people prefer the developing markets like India and China to outsource their projects due to the optimal cost benefits instead of developed markets, which has expensive development prices.

How outsourcing market has performed in the past years?

According to a report by statista.com, the outsourced services from 2000 to 2015 achieved a great hike in the global market. Here is what the statistics are saying.

• In 2000, the total revenue generated by outsourcing was $45.6 billion and it reached $99.1 billion in 2012.
• A slight downfall of nearly 20 per cent was observed in the total revenue of outsourcing market in the year 2013. The market again recovered in 2014 reaching at $104.6 billion, but subsequently dropped off by around 25 per cent in 2015 with only $88.9 billion.
• The highest outsourcing revenue was generated from Africa, Europe, and Middle East, while the least from the Asia Pacific region.

How much your smartphone app will cost in other countries?

Since, Android and iOS are the two major players in the smartphone industry, let's see how the cost of developing mobile application (Android/iOS) differs in different countries.

Many developers have a misconception that building high-cost mobile apps also guarantees top quality; however, building apps for low prices may also lead to the unexpected results. Here is the estimation of cost involved in different countries and platforms.

• The study conducted on mobile app development cost states that India is the country with least average charges per hour of $26 and $30 for Android and iOS, respectively.
• On the other side, North America is marked as the country with highest average rates per hour of $168 and $150 for Android and iOS, respectively.
• When the cost is estimated on the basis of complexity, the simple smartphone application will cost nearly $3,000–$8,000, whereas the complex application may require $50,000–$1,50,000.
• Outsourcing to the other major mobile app development markets such as UK, Eastern Europe, South America, and Australia also offer the solutions at optimal rates as shown in the graphs below.

Charges per hour for iOS app development

Charges per hour for Android app development

How you can search for the ideal outsourcing company?

With so many alternatives available on the Internet, you can search for the outsourcing companies based on the following factors.

• Google Search

Definitely a good start. But there are a lot of good companies that are not present on the top five positions of search results. However, the right keywords will help you identify the best outsourcing agency. But I would suggest to go with the other options as well.

• Freelance portals

Freelancing portals like UpWork, Freelancer, Elance, etc., are also great platforms where you can find the perfect outsourcing companies, along with their client reviews and ratings and other important links to check their past work.

• Conduct interviews to check their skills

Once you shortlist the companies, you can further conduct a short interview to check their technical skills. This way, you will have a clear idea whether the outsourcing agency is aware about the latest technologies or not. This final interview will help you to come to conclusion.

How outsourcing can be beneficial for you?

Millions of apps are developed across various platforms such as iOS, Android, Windows, etc. On an average, 50 million apps are downloaded on Android and iOS platforms. This exceptional growth is increasing the demand of outsourcing the smartphone application development work.

Outsourcing can be beneficial in many ways. I have explained some of the major advantages that makes it more powerful than in-house development.

• Saves money and time

It is not an intelligent decision to pay $170/hour to do the same work that you can get done overseas at the rate of just $100/hour. Therefore, cost saving is one of the major benefit of hiring an offshore company.

Also, outsourcing helps to bring up the best outcome without any long-term commitment.

• Easy communication/24*7 customer support

“The better the communication, the better is the result”. By outsourcing, you can easily       communicate via. Skype, phone call, email, video conferencing at any time. Most of the offshore companies also provide 24*7 customer support helping you to get the issues resolved immediately.

• Experienced developer

Instead of hiring a fresh team, outsourcing helps you to get an experienced team of developers, specialised in your niche with qualified knowledge and skills.

Things you must consider while outsourcing

In order to get the solution with 100 per cent cost-effectiveness and quality, searching for a company is not enough. To avoid the

Here is what you need to consider before hiring a company.

(A) Be clear and descriptive about what to outsource

“You will get the precise outcome if you have well explained your requirements to the outsourcing partner”. Therefore, be clear and descriptive about the important details like:

• What features you would like in your application?
• What is your deadline to publish the application?
• What is your budget?
• Which market you want to majorly target?
• How your smartphone app should look like?
• Which platform your target audience are based on?

(B) Put the quality prior to cost

Cost saving is the first objective of outsourcing your mobile application overseas, but quality is the prior thing that can't be ignored. It's true that outsourcing to developing countries like India and China can reduce the cost, but the quality of the mobile app might be compromised if you choose less-skilled developers.

(C) Sign the non-disclosure agreement

Signing a non-disclosure agreement before finally handing over the project, provides confidentiality of your ideas and it also shows that you’re serious about your project.

 (D) Take a tour to research about the company

Just looking at some aspects doesn't give a complete idea about the work of the outsourcing company. Thus, deeply research about the company details like their previously completed projects, number of clients, experience, team size, etc., and then decide the one you want to go with.

(E) Don't forget to regularly test

Don't just blindly trust on the outsourced company. Monitor your app progress at regular time frames. The outsourced development team should be able to provide a testing platform to ensure about the progress of the application.

The future of mobile app development outsourcing – Look Bright

Outsourcing being a great alternative to in-house development from the past 10 years, sometimes put a big question in mind – “Whether it will be alive in the future or not”?

The increasing mobile app development market is a good indication where the business need to outsource the work in other countries. Full control on project activities, cost and time saving, quality outcome, no need of resource investment are some of the strong advantages making the outsourcing to grow fast in the future.

Taking a look at the huge growth of outsourcing in the past few years, it can be undoubtedly said that outsourcing is carrying a bright future with it.

Conclusion

In this post, I tried to cover each and every aspect of mobile app development outsourcing. From defining the term outsourcing to the future of outsourcing, the guide has described everything you need to know about it,

Do you have more than outside of this guide or want to share anything about outsourcing? Feel free to write in the comments below.