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Nowadays, in the age when a good Internet connection plays a much more important role than the physical distance between team members, software development outsourcing has become a common practice. Yet, while it’s not a problem to reach out to any person who is a thousand miles away from you in just a few seconds, many business owners are still full of doubts. They are not so sure if it’s a good idea to use services of software development outsourcing companies.
It’s relatively easy to find an outsourcing company but can you really entrust your project to outsourced developers? Well, the benefits of cooperation with outsourced developers are quite obvious. It is a more cost effective, safe, fast and easy way to get exactly what your company needs but cannot create on its own. To prove our point, we have completed research and discovered that many business giants across the world resorted to outsourcing services to complete their significant projects. Wondering what they are? Then keep reading.
In this post we will share with you some interesting successful outsourcing examples, cover some major benefits of this approach and describe how we do everything at Altamira. So let’s delve right into this topic!
The best examples of development outsourcing
We use so many different solutions on a daily basis, but we so rarely think about the people who stand behind them. Every solution has its story, and most of them are the stories of how business owners successfully outsource software development.
Let’s take Skype as an example. Its owners made a game-changing decision to outsource back-end development to three developers from Estonia. And that’s what helped Skype enter the market and win the hearts of millions of users worldwide. Or let’s speak about Google that is known for its wide implementation of outsourced work to complete and then maintain various projects (one of them is AdWords).
As you can see, outsourcing is not an extreme, it is a rather common practice that helps to achieve the best results with minimum input. Let’s take a look at some other great success stories to prove that outsourcing is an extremely advantageous approach that saves businesses a lot of money and nerves.
What is the best example of outsourcing software development? I would say it’s WhatsApp. The app was launched in 2009 and then rapidly hit 1.5 billion app downloads in both – App Store and Google Play Store.
What’s so special about this application? WhatsApp is a messenger that allows people to stay in touch by sending text messages (including group chats), as well as send files, photos and videos, and share locations. So basically it makes global communication much easier. Also it has no ads, which is a great advantage for any user. And let’s face it: people just love messaging – sometimes even more than in-person communication and definitely much more than phone calls.
But how did everything begin? From the outsourcing, of course! WhatsApp founders needed to keep development costs low so they found Igor Solomennikov, an iOS developer from Eastern Europe, on RentACoder.com (a platform for hiring freelancers). Igor developed the early version of WhatsApp as an offshore contractor and only later became a full-time team member. This inspiring story, which is also a great example of outsourcing success, shows that even a really long journey can begin from development handled offshore.
GitHub
It’s hard to imagine a development project without GitHub and everyone in the tech world knows what it is. GitHub is a web hosting service that is used for version control of a computer code. Developers usually create numerous versions of the code, making lots of changes and revisions in the process. GitHub stores these modifications in a central repository that allows for the collaboration among all members of a development team.
Why is GitHub one of the best examples of companies that outsource software development? Well, the story is quite trivial. GitHub founders had a brilliant idea but its implementation required hiring top-level experts in Git, an open-source language GitHub is based on. Fortunately, they met Scott Chacon, who was a perfect fit for this position. Yet, Scott (as any very skilled professional) was too expensive for them to hire full-time, so they decided to apply the outsourcing strategy.
The results? As of June 2018, this service had 27 million active users. Are you still wondering what to do if your company lacks professionals, extra hands or funding to maintain an in-house development team? It is time to put all your doubts aside and become one of those successful companies who outsource software projects.
Slack
I bet everyone knows what Slack is since it’s one of the most widely-used cloud-based services for team communication and collaboration. Slack was launched in 2013 by the company called Tiny Speck (now Slack Technologies, Inc. with headquarters in San Francisco, California) as an internal tool. Speaking about Slack success, we can only highlight that even such large companies as IBM, BBC and Oracle use Slack in their day-to-day activity.
As to the money Slack brings to its owners, the numbers are very impressive as well. The company is privately held (although it was recently acquired by Salesforce), so there is no publicly available information about its finances. However, it was estimated that Slack hit $200 million in annual recurring revenue in 2017. So you can only imagine what numbers the company reached in 2021.
Whom do they owe their success to? If your answer is ‘outsource developers’, you’re totally right. Slack is one of the best examples of companies that outsource. Its logo, app and web design (the things that make Slack look and feel different) were created by a Canadian development agency. What conclusions can we make out of this story? Well, even the most crucial parts of a development project can be outsourced and such a strategy can lead to great results.
AppSumo
AppSumo is a website that is well-known among startuppers, entrepreneurs and all people who are interested in marketing, business and technologies. As of today, it has 730k subscribers and an extremely active community on social media. And it’s no wonder, since AppSumo distributes daily deals on digital goods such as apps, courses and e-books on favorable terms. For example, you can find not only a discounted price but also a lifetime access to this or that service.
The website was launched in 2010 by Noah Kagan, an entrepreneur who worked for Facebook before that. Initially, it was planned only as a side project and no one expected it to grow to the 8-figure business it is now. And, thus, it made no sense for Kagan to hire a full-time in-house team.
In case the app owner wanted to develop or do some tweaks to the product, he could always use some external resources which seemed a more logical option at the time. This is, actually, the reason why we see AppSumo among other examples of companies using outsourcing. The story of how Kagan found a developer to make a PayPal button and credit card form for as much as $50, has already become a legend.
Alibaba
Alibaba is one of the world’s biggest marketplaces where, among other things, outsourcing companies can sell their development services. But few people know that Alibaba is also in the list of companies that outsource.
The company was founded in 1999 by Jack Ma Yun, and now it is a successful business juggernaut and its founder- a magnate. At that time, it was called China Yellow Pages and one of the problems that it faced was the lack of professional software engineers who could take over website development. What was the solution? Alibaba decided to outsource software development to a company from the U.S.
I believe all of us know the ‘happy end’ of this one of the least known outsourcing success stories (minus the recent regulatory hiccups). Not so long ago Alibaba group reported consolidated revenues of $39.9 billion from active buyers (within the preceding twelve months). Could this be possible if they had a website with poor design and performance? I don’t think so, so kudos to the outsourcing development team that made Alibaba very user friendly.
Infor
Infor is one of the leading agencies that provides cloud solutions and cloud-related software services. It has more than 2000 reviews on glassdoor.com. With 10 000+ employees and around 2 billion USD in revenue, Infor is definitely a major player in the area of cloud computing. Its direct competitors are SAP, Microsoft and Oracle.
Though much younger than Microsoft or Oracle, in fact, 20 years younger (started in 2003), the company is now considered a respected provider of software enterprise, providing products and service for an astonishing 68 000 companies around the world.
Infor has offices all around the world: in the Philippines, US and Europe. It successfully outsourced developers to allow workforce diversity, looking for talent wherever possible.
Choose the right outsourcing partner
We hope that all of the examples provided by us above inspired you to consider outsourcing as an option for your business. So in case you are wondering what steps should be taken and where to start, we are here to help you.
First of all, you need to think about the tech stack or skills that you lack at the moment. Also you need to formulate more or less exact project requirements, so that when you come to your potential outsourcing partner you can explain what you expect to get. Once you’ve done it, it is time to look for your partner. Check such platforms as Clutch and Goodfirms, explore companies’ websites, clients reviews and portfolios. Select several candidates with necessary skills and domain expertise and get in touch with them. And only after negotiating all matters – make your final choice.
Let’s take the Altamira team as an example. For more than 10 years in business we worked on different projects, our developers joined other teams as dedicated specialists and we’ve even gotten requests from companies like Amazon and Booking.
So by cooperating with us you get a cohesive team full of various specialists starting with Business Analysts and Project Managers, and ending with high-class developers and testing experts. With such a variety of talent, you don’t need an in-house team or even a CTO. You may come to us with the project request and end up having exactly what you’ve expected.
And that is exactly what makes outsourcing so great! You get a bunch of specialists who will do all the job for you – write specifications, code, perform all kinds of checks, deliver the solution and even help you with its integration into the working environment. And all this with a perfect pricequality ratio.
FAQ
Wrapping up
In this article, we featured only the most outstanding outsourcing stories, but, of course, there are way more of them. And the main goal was to show you that hiring outsourced developers can positively influence your business and its digital transformation. Among all the benefits you can get from cooperating with outsourced development companies there are:
- cost-effectiveness and time saving;
- access to the best tech talent from all over the world;
- minimization of resource constraints;
- creation of a perfect specialists’ balance (having in-house experts and adding some extra takes);
- high quality of the end solution and maintenance possibilities.
If you think about it, outsourcing is truly the most effective way to spice up your business with great solutions or to help you create a highly competitive software able to win the market and users’ attention.
