Book a Call with Us
Enter your contact information and our manager will contact you
8 traps a company should recognize before choosing an outstaffing company
Software outstaffing is a powerful and a popular way to strengthen the team on a complicated project. IT outstaffing matches startups and businesses that already have in-house developers.
The most notable outstaffing feature is following the on-demand trend. Thus, any company of any size and with any hierarchical structure can ramp up capacity faster and more easily without hiring expensive specialists on staff.
You regulate the duration of cooperation, and at the necessary moment, you can stop assistance without difficult dismissal procedures. Simplicity, quickness, accurate problem solving, and the personal selection of the right people for you identifies outstaffing from the classic approach.
Today you need 5 specialists: 3 JS Seniors, QA, and PM. So, you get them. But in a month you already have another project, and you need, for example, 3 Middle Java experts. Miraculously 5 specialists turn into 3 Java developers due to one phone call. This makes life easier and saves time and money.
So, let's take a look at when outstaffing is the perfect solution, and when it's an embarrassing failure.
You regulate the duration of cooperation, and at the necessary moment, you can stop assistance without difficult dismissal procedures. Simplicity, quickness, accurate problem solving, and the personal selection of the right people for you identifies outstaffing from the classic approach.
Today you need 5 specialists: 3 JS Seniors, QA, and PM. So, you get them. But in a month you already have another project, and you need, for example, 3 Middle Java experts. Miraculously 5 specialists turn into 3 Java developers due to one phone call. This makes life easier and saves time and money.
So, let's take a look at when outstaffing is the perfect solution, and when it's an embarrassing failure.
Trap 1. A Big Brand is not a guarantee of high quality
Usually, the big market players hire smaller IT teams because they are overwhelmed with projects. So, you can save much more money by agreeing to a medium-size company first. Moreover, by ordering outstaffing services at the highest bidder from the hugest companies, you are overpaying for the brand, but not for the quality. Besides, if your project doesn't fetch as much as the company's average check, there's a chance they'll do it in a slapdash fashion.
Medium-sized companies under 200 employees do their work better because they are interested in any projects and good customer feedback. In addition, medium companies' team members usually open to dialogue, so you can freely contact them with any questions.
Medium-sized companies under 200 employees do their work better because they are interested in any projects and good customer feedback. In addition, medium companies' team members usually open to dialogue, so you can freely contact them with any questions.
Trap 2. Freelancer is a bad idea
The other extreme is to go to freelancers. The crucial difficulty is that one person cannot be equally proficient with the entire technology stack. You need a team enhanced by Leads, PM, QA, and several developers with similar experience. At best, the freelancer will stop answering your calls, and at worst, you will get a project, which will take many months to finalize. Saving money, in the beginning, leads to overpaying after faulty release. So, don't waste your money and time.
Trap 3. Stressful communication
If you notice obvious unprofessionalism: ignoring the time difference, being late to the meeting or postpone it, neglecting your requests and goals, it is better to stop cooperating. In a company with a high-grade management system, there are no such failures. So this is an early signal that you should look for another outstaffing company. In long-term projects, the soft skills of the outstaffing team always come to the fore. So, take care of your comfort.
Trap 4. Choosing a company at a low price
Cheap IT services can mean several disappointing things:
- low developer rate, which is typical for zero juniors,
- absence of an office and as a consequence, the system of quality control and collective brainstorming,
- lack of understanding of the complexity of the project,
- hidden payments, which will occur a bit later.
Trap 5. To take on trust that the company is best of the best
Before you start talents' CV analysis, check out reviews of the company. Find ex-clients and ask them if they felt comfortable during the work process. However, if the company has a lot of NDA projects and they don't disclose details of the collaboration, that's a plus. Then it's just a matter of looking for references and researching the company's social media. Do your independent research and follow your professional intuition.
Trap 6. Be afraid of the rate per hour and choose a fixed one
Changes to the plan are inevitable. It's difficult to prepare every separate feature of the project previously. Thus, every change will go through time-consuming discussions on whether this change is covered by the fixed price or not. If it isn't, then you continue to the 'change request' procedure, again leading to a project cost overrun. Moreover, you will find compromise on quality, usability, and corrections, because the value of the work becomes less important than the price.
Focus on the quality and completeness of the software product, and give yourself a chance to make adjustments or improvements during the process.
Focus on the quality and completeness of the software product, and give yourself a chance to make adjustments or improvements during the process.
Trap 7. Composing a contract yourself
Outstaffing contracts should match every special detail of the project to avoid technical, communication, and administration troubles. So, engage a skilled IT lawyer who has experience working with a country of the selected outstaffing firm.
IT lawyer should compose a contract with transparent fixed service levels based on the rule of shared risk. The contract should be linked to a detailed Statement of Work in which everyone agrees to take responsibility for the part of the work. To avoid the game of hot potato: "oh-la-la, we thought you would do it" make sure your contract covers the littlest details possible about your future project.
IT lawyer should compose a contract with transparent fixed service levels based on the rule of shared risk. The contract should be linked to a detailed Statement of Work in which everyone agrees to take responsibility for the part of the work. To avoid the game of hot potato: "oh-la-la, we thought you would do it" make sure your contract covers the littlest details possible about your future project.
Trap 8. Not preparing your team is incorrect
When starting an outstaffing, you face a lot of changes in supervision and development formation. Thus, prepare your in-house team to cooperate with their new distant partners. Do it as early as possible and make sure everyone in your team admits this transformation. Explain to your team the ways how they should work with the outstaffing guys: discuss possible communication rules, train about collaborative software and project management tools, explain the new job duties.
What problems outstaffing can solve for the IT company?
It is an ideal solution for those who like to cope with problems quickly and efficiently.
- Trouble 1. The critical need of a specialist or several specialists during the development process: an outstaffing firm drives a hiring process fast and easily because of the big base of proved professionals and established recruitment and assessment practices.
- Trouble 2. Administrative chaos caused by expanding the in-house team with extra developers: flexible and transparent supervision performed by qualified Project Managers will allow you to add or remove people, maintain communication and control the dev team without any dilemmas.
- Trouble 3. Rising costs of maintaining a large staff, some of which may not be contracted on any of the projects: cooperating with an outstaffing firm significantly reduces costs. You can select several engineers or a whole team or not hire anyone if you don't have orders at this stage. The overhead costs associated with occupying corporate real estate's such as rents, mortgages, or social payments are virtually nonexistent.
- Trouble 4. You are faced with a unique technology that no one in your country recognizes: the remote outstaffing model allows hiring the best talent globally. And skilled PMs will do their best to make sure you don't feel hampered by different languages and time zones.
To conclude
So, outstaffing is a smart, compliant approach that will please you with flexibility, speed, and clear processes. A dedicated software development team can guarantee a faster, cheaper, and easier software solution. By avoiding these traps and troubles, you will be able to have the most wonderful outstaffing experience of your life.
Karina Doronyna
Content Strategist at SweetSoft