How To Avoid These 5 Common Outsourcing Problems

Here are the most common pain points when outsourcing software development:

Pain point 1: Fake resumes and overstated capabilities

There are outsourcing companies out there that do this, unfortunately. These companies exaggerate their profiles and skillset in order to attract clients to avail of their services. Clients would later realise that they have been tricked when the development is already underway and their outsourced team cannot deliver what is asked of them.

Pain point 2: Difficulties in communication and collaboration

This is a common misconception when working with outsourced teams, though this is not always the case. There are some outsourced companies and teams who are difficult to get a hold of. Some teams suddenly become unreachable while working on the project—most of the time at the expense of the clients.

Collaboration is another issue. The difference in time zones is a challenging aspect for the teams to find a common time to hold a meeting. There tasks that take more than a day to finish when both sides are involved. Fortunately, there are vendors that let their teams work on the same time zone as their clients that address the time difference.

Pain point 3: Difficulties in tracking progress

In relation to the previous Pain Point, another challenge with an outsourced team is the issue of tracking their progress. With an unreliable outsourcing company, clients have a hard time assessing the performance of their outsourced team and assure they are clocking in the required hours to work on the project.

Pain point 4: Slow completion of the project

This does not only happen with freelancers, unfortunately. Working with smaller and cheaper outsourcing agencies often puts clients at risk of stalling their project development beyond their targeted deadline—eventually costing the clients a lot more than they intended to spend.

Pain point 5: Greater risks and added costs

Partnering with established medium-sized outsourcing agencies are safe enough to work with—it’s those smaller vendors with suspiciously cheap prices that potentially put clients at risk. Keep in mind that a failed project will cost the clients, not just money but also time, and other resources.

All of these sound scary! However, these do not happen to everyone and these situations can definitely be avoided.

Here are two effective methods that you can do to prevent all of these pain points:

Thoroughly check on the outsourcing provider

A  thorough background check is the best way to avoid one of the common pain points listed above—which refers to fake resumes and overstated capabilities. While this may already be an obvious thing to do, many businesses still do not put as much effort into getting to know their “would-be” outsourcing partner.

Aside from asking them questions about their services, it’s also encouraged to get insights from the outsourcing company’s past clients. How is the outsourcing provider’s overall service? Are they consistent and clear with their communication? This way, you can receive a reliable source of information and a third-party opinion.

Establish regular communication

Good rapport must be established right at the beginning. And that should be set by you—their clients. Here are a few effective methods you can apply for more seamless collaboration between the clients’ outsourced and in-house team: require a daily or weekly scrum meetings, regular updates via email or messaging apps used by both in-house and outsourced teams, and video calls.

In addition, any issue with regards to monitoring the clients’ outsourced team can be prevented or solved by implementing a project tracking system or utilising project management tools to easily delegate and monitor tasks.

Even with the aforementioned common pain points, I still encourage you to outsource. These risks and pain points mostly occur when you fail to do your due diligence and instead opt to work with deceptively cheap outsourcing vendors out there. The success of your software development heavily relies on finding a reliable and trustworthy outsourcing partner that offers services that fit your needs.

At Cloud Employee, your customer satisfaction as our top priority with our free zero-risk trials. If you’re interested in learning more about our outsourcing services, you can simply talk to me here on LinkedIn or send us a message here.

Also, here are some more IT outsourcing reads that you might find helpful:

Get the Most out of Offshoring with these Tips

5 Tips on Getting the Most from IT Outsourcing

12 Industries that Benefit from Hiring Remote Developers

INFOGRAPHIC: How Outsourcing Drives Startup Growth and Innovation