Verify Your Offshore Development Partner | 4 Useful Tips

by The Scalers Offshore Development Teams In India

What's the purpose of an offshore development partner? To guide you through the process and take care of all the legwork. Therefore you want a company with years of experience building successful offshore teams.

They should understand the industry, the culture, and have seen it all before.

Unfortunately, while plenty of businesses call themselves "offshore development specialists," some of them are far from that. Let's take a look at how to verify an offshore partner early doors - checking they're truly reliable and competent - before you're in too deep.

First thing: are you sure it's offshoring?

While often used interchangeably, offshoring and outsourcing are two very different models. The problem is that as offshoring becomes more popular, outsourcing companies want their slice of the pie, misleadingly advertising "offshoring" or "offshore outsourcing" services.

Offshoring - Building a dedicated software development team (complete with office space, administration, and management) in another country. You own the team entirely and they're fully integrated into your business.
Outsourcing - Hiring contractors to temporarily cover a lack of capacity. These are more like freelancers: called in when required, but independent from your organisation.

Work is outsourced in every industry, usually because of lower costs. And often that's fine. Equally, for the right company, there are significant benefits to investing in an offshore development team.

1. Evaluate their demonstrated experience

It's 2019: there's no excuse for not having some portfolio pieces or case studies on your website. These can offer a perceptive window into what your offshoring partner can do, and how well they do it.

The company should be able to showcase their successful history of building offshore development teams. The details - approach to projects or relationships, timelines, results achieved - are most important. But also the delivery: do they sound professional and confident, or arrogant and showy? A company's writing usually matches the personality behind it.

Keep an eye out for vagaries: if a company really knows their stuff, they can describe is succinctly and make it easy to understand. Rambling language, vague descriptions, and very broad claims should all be red flags!

You can also go the extra mile, if you have time. Are their past clients still in business? Any evidence of significant growth or positive changes? In the UK, for example, you could review their accounts filing history on Companies House.

By doing this early research, you can begin to see if they're a good fit for you and your business.

2. Do they prioritise cost over quality?

One significant benefit of offshoring is lower costs. However, while price is an important factor, it's usually a mistake to simply snap up the cheapest offer.

So how do you guarantee getting your money's worth?

The cost of living in countries like India is significantly lower than in the US and Western Europe. That means you're going to get a good price compared to domestic rates - guaranteed.

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