Outsourcing Concern #4: Compromised Work Quality and Failure to Deliver

Some business owners have a misconception that outsourcing is bound to deliver lower quality compared to on-premise development. They presume that an outsourcing vendor’s focus is limited to developing software on a contract-by-contract basis, rather than a long-term commitment to the client’s product and business success.

In reality, everything depends on the particular outsourcing vendor. Many vendors utilize mature software development and quality assurance models able to deliver high quality products and services. Often, their quality exceeds that of the client’s own internal IT team. At the same time, some vendors can use underskilled inexperienced developers who lack proper leadership, which indeed leads to low quality deliverables and missed deadlines.

We suggest that a client evaluate its vendor’s maturity by exploring its internal practices and processes, from project staffing to code review. Special attention should be paid to the candidate interview process, the project team assembly practices, the team management capabilities, the experience in project delivery, and the maturity of the development model. You should ask for references from completed projects and talk to other clients of the outsourcing vendor you are considering. Usually (but not always), this is sufficient to gain confidence in your vendor’s service quality and ability to deliver.

It is always a good idea to start with a small pilot project to test drive the outsourcing vendor. Such a project involving 1-2 engineers for 1-2 months is the best way to get answers to all your questions and doubts. Its only restriction is the client’s ability to execute such a pilot project without it affecting the existing timeline and business goals.

At the same time, clients should fully understand the necessity of proper knowledge transfer and project ramp-up required by the outsourcing vendor. Without a thorough understanding of your requirements and the existing codebase, no vendor can provide high-quality deliverables within the deadline and the budget. You can only expect high quality deliverables if you take steps to provide exact requirements and supply your vendor with all the necessary information.

At Solead, we guarantee high quality services and timely deliveries predicated on:

• Very deep technical and managerial expertise of our key people, many of whom have 20+ years of IT experience
• A well-balanced professional project team and use of in-office team work under local management (per our DMT service model)
• Use of agile best practices in Solead’s development process; robust recruiting and multi-stage candidate interview process
• Full transparency of the project execution on Solead’s side, timely communication regarding changes or delays
• Regular product demos/deliveries to the client, gathering feedback and continuous improvement

In our next Post #5 we’ll touch upon another common concern related to data security and confidentiality. Stay tuned!