First World Country Challenges in Custom Software Development
Let’s consider the case of a Texas-based Dental Surgeons college. The internal IT team was tasked with bringing a certain range of customizations on the internal knowledgebase of their official app. Any update made by a specific department was automatically getting reflected on the common knowledgebase which was creating confusions among the internal users.
However, this custom software development project was replete with challenges. Missing all the relevant teams in the project scope discussion resulted in an unclear purpose of the project. As a result, it led to multiple requests for changes which continued to disrupt the entire custom software development project.
Such requirement volatilities necessitated testing and retesting to fix bugs. This process became a cycle which made it an even more arduous task for developers to isolate issues that required specific focus.
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Caught with different IT admin tasks, the inhouse team overlooked the importance of testing the capacity of the customizations to be integrated into the software. This failure costed the organization with an entirely derailed custom software development project.
How Different Would be the Case if Outsourced to a Software Development Company?
- The company would have adopted an agile development environment to promote collaboration between the business, IT teams, and the vendor to have a clear understanding of the project scope prior to initiating any action.
- Domain-experts would be dedicated to provide an end-to-end support to the projection without any external or internal deviations.
- A reliable software development company will have the foresight to create customizations that can be easily integrated into the existing software.
Unlike this Texas-based Dental Surgeons college, not all enterprises have a readily adaptive operational infrastructure. Neither will all the enterprises have that perfect custom software development vendor ready to be contacted, nor will they have the budget to make improvisations in their software platform.
As a matter of fact, a majority of small and medium-scale enterprises located in developed countries are inhibitive of partnering with local custom software development companies. Let’s take a look at the reasons:
Custom Software Development Challenges in Developed Nations
Custom software development is a resource sensitive task and can entail frequent budget revisits because of regular tweaking in the customization blueprint. Both of these factors are not usually accommodated by the US and the European software development markets. Here’s a look at why:
Manpower shortfall– The US software technology market experiences a stark shortfall of skilled manpower that acts as one of the major inhibitors in custom software development tasks in the country.
Did you know that according to Datausa, the US witnesses only 35,000 graduates annually in the computer science discipline?
A custom software development project typically demands long hours of labor and intense technological acumen. It requires a professional to dedicate almost over 60 hours in a week to meet stringent deadlines. Such demanding conditions often demotivate developers who either shun a project midway or look for better or a comfortable work opportunity. It must be understood that such opportunities are generally abundant in developed nations like in the US and European countries.
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Recurring cost of operations– Minimum labor wages are generally on a higher end in developed nations. Stringent labor laws ensure that employers strictly adhere to the standard wage rules. To top it, the lack of skilled resources and a high demand for the same skyrockets the average salaries of software developers. This is an extravagant addition to all the secondary costs such as employee training, office infrastructure, benefits associated with custom software development task.
Did you know that according to Arcgis, an experienced engineer in the US is likely to demand a salary of about USD100,000?
This is not ideal for a small or a midsize enterprise with stringent budget who ultimately opts for an off-the-shelf software product to avoid cost.
No assurance of a dedicated team– New product development is given due priority in developed nations that are concentrated with leading technology companies.
According to a Forbes article, emergence of new technology companies jumped to a 76% rate and is continuing to increase.
This means that along with the in-house software development team of the companies, outsourcing software development companies too have their hands full with new product development project.
They will have no skilled resources to dedicate to an end-to-end support for custom software development projects. However, chances are that the thirst to get more business will drive such outsourcing companies engage into a custom software development project. They will mislead their clients into thinking that they have dedicated highly skilled software development team and will charge for their resources and time accordingly. But in reality, they will engage mediocre engineers with low payscale working on their project. This will result in the creation of low-quality codes and product development that are detrimental for a custom software development project of any scale.
Custom Software Development- Is Outsourcing to Developing Countries a Potential Solution?
According to a Stack Overflow Survey, India produces a larger number of developers with a major in computer science when compared with the US, UK, and Germany
The above statistics is one of the most critical enablers of custom software development outsourcing to developing nations. Here’s taking a better look at the advantages of outsourcing to developing countries as opposed to developed nations.
Abundance in resources– The wide talent pool of software professionals located in developing nations is an answer to your custom software development project bound by a stringent deadline. An abundance of resources gives you an opportunity to explore more options and choose the best from a cost and quality perspective.
Cost efficiency– The average salary rate of a software engineer in regions like Asia is lesser than those residing in the US, UK, and Australia.
According to a Stack Overflow Survey, 50% of the developers in India work on an annual salary that is lesser than USD10,000.
Outsourcing custom software development projects to developed countries can save over 30% of operational expenditure in addition to saving on the standard employee benefits.
Uncompromising quality– Cost efficiency does not come at a cost of quality when it comes to relying on offshore software developers. As opposed to the developed nations, students in developing are familiarized with modern tech stacks as a part of their formal education. This helps them to sharpen their software skills right in the beginning of their career and bring value for their future clients.
Did you know that India produces about 1.5 million highly talented software engineers annually?
24/7 robust support– Outsourcing to countries situated in different time zones means a continuous support for clients during a custom software development task. A resource will always be ready to address clients’ anytime query pertaining to the progress of a project or any 11th hour tweaking in the development blueprint. This is a hard-to-achieve benefit from companies located in the same time zone.
Parting Note
There is no doubting the fact that outsourcing custom software development to developing nations is cost-efficient and is feasible in terms of resource abundance. However, enterprises should do a proper analysis that considers the value they may get after customizing their software platform, their business goals, operational infrastructure that can support a customization, and budget before finalizing a contract with an offshore vendor.
Who Are We and Why Does Our Expertise Matter?
getSmartcoders is an enterprise-grade custom mobile app development company. Our workflow is underpinned by robust quality check that enables us to help clients create customized products with an edge. Our custom software solutions are highly functional in helping clients address their cross-functional business requirements. With over a decade-long experience in the industry, we trace the changing business trends and readily adopt it in our services to bring tangible value to your business.