Is It Time To Build Your Dedicated Development Team Offshore?

Building a well-rounded development team, especially in the West, can be challenging. With a significant shortage of local talent, sky-high salaries, and insufficient technical skills among candidates, hiring a dedicated development team is a laborious process that companies simply don’t look forward to.

But what’s the alternative? Outsourcing is one route, surely. But is it really sustainable in the long run? If you outsource your development processes, you’re most likely going to be working with a hastily built team for a one-off project. And then what? Where do you go from there?

Another option is to build a dedicated development team in an emerging tech nation. But how will you justify that it’s the right time and the right move for your business? Obviously, taking your development processes to another country is a decision that requires deliberation. The primary question that needs to be answered is, “Are the benefits of building a development team offshore real and tangible?”

To help you answer, we’ve created a simple checklist of sorts. If your answers to the below are a resounding “YES”, then you’ll know what to do!

1. Are you struggling to find local talent?

Whether you intend to build software products and services from scratch or grow your existing development capacity, you need the right engineers.

This means proficient, reliable individuals who are specialists in their particular field. But when you’re unable to find these people locally, hiring a well-rounded development team can turn out to be a long, drawn-out process. In fact, 54% of companies globally report talent shortages — the highest number in over a decade. The 2020 ManPower Group Survey showed that only 18% of countries do not report a talent shortage and the number is only set to increase!

But that’s not all…

Even if you do find the right person for the job, chances are that they’re not going to stick around for long. Given the significantly high attrition rate, it’s only a matter of weeks or months before you have to start the recruitment process all over again. The result? Your project is going to suffer a setback. You’re not going to be able to deliver software on time. Your business will suffer, and so will your profits.

2. Does your existing team display insufficient tech skills?

A recent study conducted by SHRM showed that 75% of HR professionals believe that there is a shortage of skills in candidates for job openings. Over 50% of the respondents even went on to say that the skills shortages have worsened or greatly worsened in their organizations in the last two years.

Let’s consider a simple example — imagine you’re building a new and innovative software product that you’re very excited about. However, to ensure that your product passes all the quality tests and is the most reliable solution on the market, you need the best QA experts in the industry to back you up. Unfortunately, your local development team does not have the expertise to help you. If you want to hire QA experts, you’re looking at weeks, maybe even months of recruitment efforts and a slowly, but surely piling workload.

Does this situation sound familiar? If the answer is yes, you probably need to supplement your existing team with a dedicated development team of engineers who have advanced tech skills.

3. Are you overspending to stay local?

When you’re building your development team, you want nothing but the best. Your standards, therefore, call for only the most experienced software professionals, and there is no wiggle room or compromises on the proficiency level of the developers you hire.

But let’s face it. Developers of this caliber are likely very expensive in your area, and their rates are usually way higher than what you’ve budgeted for. And that’s exactly why IT professionals in the US, on average earned $5,000 more in 2019 as compared to 2018.

It’s simple — if you want to stay local, and work with the best, you’re going to have to pay a premium. Again, outsourcing your project to third-party vendors located in more cost-effective destinations like the Philippines may be an attractive option. But there’s always the question of sustainability. So, the alternative? Building a dedicated development team offshore!

4. Is scaling fast a challenge?

When it comes to building software products and services, time is of the essence. With global tech companies mushrooming like never before, and innovation at an all-time high, the time to market is extremely crucial. If you don’t deliver quality software before your competitors do, you’re just not going to make the cut. Your competitors are constantly on their toes, and if you want to pull ahead in this rat-race, you need a stellar team to back you up.

However, that’s easier said than done. With the talent and skills shortages, and the sky-high prices, finding the right development team can be a long, long process. In fact, according to a recent iCIMS report, it took companies an average of 66 days to fill a tech role in 2019! That’s 66 days that you just don’t have.

5. Are you wearing too many hats?

What does your typical Monday morning look like? Does it involve you juggling between recruitment, payroll, and administrative tasks? Well, that would make perfect sense if you’re the head of recruitment or even an admin.

But what if you’re the CTO and rather than working with your development team you’re faced with administrative duties? You’re technically focusing time that you don’t have and effort that could well be used in other productive endeavours on matters that could very well be taken care of by someone else. But there isn’t someone else, is there?

If the answer to all or most of the above questions is a yes, then clearly, hiring only local talent is not working for your business. You need a well-rounded dedicated development team, and the best way to build one is by going offshore!

Why offshore?

For starters, let’s talk about talent. There is immense pressure in the West to find the right talent, at the right price, with the right skill set. If you offshore to a country like India, that emphasises significantly on the importance of education and training its people, you get access to highly educated, qualified, and successful software developers with the skills needed to scale your business.

Further, because of the lower cost of living in India compared to the West, the salary that you would be paying a developer from India would be a lot less than for a developer who is living in the US or UK. So not only is your company getting access to exceptional talent, but it is also generating significant savings in the process.

As far as scale is considered, here’s an example. One of our clients, Preqin, already had an existing local development team in London before they reached out to us. However, they needed to scale their team quickly, and they weren’t able to do it locally. The scarce talent pool, the sky-high prices, and a time-consuming recruitment process meant that they needed to look elsewhere — offshore. By building a dedicated development team in India, they were able to build their dream team and scale it to over 60+ engineers in just 8 months!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. If you’re struggling to find local talent with the desired skills without paying an absolute premium, maybe it’s time to look elsewhere.
2. While outsourcing may seem like a cost-effective option, it isn’t sustainable in the long run.
3. Building a dedicated development team in emerging tech nations like India can be very lucrative for your business as you get access to a massive untapped talent pool at cost-effective prices.

Source: https://thescalers.com/is-it-time-to-build-your-dedicated-development-team-offshore/