Outsourcing App Development Guide for 2022

With the wave of COVID-19 across the world from 2020 to 2021, every life and commerce came to a halt. Fortunately, the blessings of technology have helped us resume our lives differently than before. Everything has become technology-based, from business to students’ classes.

Every business needs a user-friendly app interface to capture the market’s attention and target the right audience regardless of its type. Otherwise, the company will run out of commission. Simplicity has top priority in this internet era. With the increasing number of netizens, developing a user-friendly app that doesn’t require too much expertise to handle is one of the primary keys to a successful business organization. 

Keeping all these points in mind, the market has given rise to an uncommon profession, outsourcing.

What is Outsourcing, and Who does this Work for?

Outsourcing is the term for hiring an organization or agency to cater to business needs. It exists in any field, including app development. Experts in their respective fields mainly do this full-time or part-time. 

main types of outsourcing:

• Nearshore: when businesses hire an agency near to their geographic or time zone location to develop their app.
• Offshore: When a business hires an agency from a different country and time zone. For example, many companies in Alaska and Mexico hire dedicated developers in UK, mainly when they lack sufficient technology in their countries.

Why should you Consider Outsourcing your App Development?

As a business owner, you should be well versed in your company’s financial management, studying the market and your target audience, and customer research. All these require investing a lot of time and money, apart from the capital. The outsourced agencies will result in the following benefits. 

• Saving an ample amount of time is
• high-quality products.
• I saved a lot of money 
• If you own a startup and experienced agencies in countries like the UK, hire mobile app developer in the UK who can give you expert guidance on the digital onset of your company.
• Highly efficient client interaction and demands. Many countries hire dedicated developers in UK who are experts in catering to your needs. 

Hiring an app development team requires a lot of money and time. As a result, it may hinder the growth of your business for years. Additionally, you may need a strong sense of essential app development if you hire an in-house team.

Also, engaging an in-house team requires checking individually which platforms they can create for: to hire dedicated developers, you have to hire different people who can code for android, iOS, Windows, and Linux. With outsourced agencies, you do not require such concepts and focus on other business stuff. 

Considerations

If you are outsourcing your app development, there are a few things to consider:

1. Outlining

It would be best if you had a clear idea of what the app will look like and what components will it cover. If you have a clear idea of your idea of the interface, proceed with explaining the idea very specifically to the outsourced agency. There are two vital components you have to specify:

• Non-Functional interactions

Non-functional interactions include color, opening animations, content arrangement, security measures, and many more. These include those features that do not require further operations by the user or the administrator but will contribute to the app's look to attract users. Front-end developers usually deal with these things. 

• Functional interactions

Functional interactions are those in which the user or the administrator can navigate to explore the app or perform any specific task. These typically fall under the app's user experience (UX)/user interface (UI). The interface should be such that it would allow exclusive admin functions. 

It must also be an interface that allows a wide range of language selections, and the target users find it easy to navigate and perform their tasks. For this reason, many companies hire mobile app developer in UK who are the best in this field. Making this clear to the back-end developer is essential.

2. Business Requirements

To outsource mobile app development, you should have a clear idea of the objective or purpose of your app. Make business strategies to provide unique uses to your app according to the current market of target audiences. Provide these detailed business strategies to the agency you are outsourcing.

3. Target Audience

The most important thing about developing an app is its intended audience. After customer research, when you have a clear idea of your users, make a chart for the intended audience and easy-to-understand security policies.

4. Marketing

Highlighting the unique features of your app is the primary key to successful marketing. For th

is reason, many companies hire mobile app developer. Their agencies are well reputed for hiring expert marketers who can advise their clients in marketing.  

Factors to Consider When Outsourcing

The data you provided to the agency may not always require them to include a total force of app developing experts. Based on your demand, the project model may vary in various ways. 

1. Short-term projects

If you outsource your app based on your requests, they may decide to handle them as a project. The agency will provide you with the services for a specified time. After your service is provided, they will not take any responsibility for maintaining your app. This method is very cost-effective and is apt for new startups. 

2. Team service model

The agency may hire a team to complete the project if you need your app built within a specific time frame. This typically establishes a team leader, and you must communicate your requirements with the team leaders. 

If required, the team may travel to your location for an on-field project if you or they find it fit. You may also hire any team outside of any agency. Many businesses hire dedicated app developer in UK who work as a team to complete your project. 

3. Agency-level projects

If you hire an agency and they find it too complex, they will take the work within the agency. It will usually require the intervention of big-shots like the vice president or the chief executive officer of the company. 

4. Freelancers

Freelancers can also be an option to reduce your budget significantly. The only disadvantage is that some freelancers can adequately communicate with you, which may result in a poor-quality app. 

Steps in Outsourcing Mobile App Development 

To properly develop an app, any agency or organizations follows four significant steps:

1. Organizing/planning period

• The initial step of any app development requires a planning period. This will require you to directly contact the agency and discuss your needs and their terms of work and guidelines. 
• You can also have talks with their developers and interview them about their expertise and soft and communication skills. 
• The agency will provide rough app documentation for you to approve and ask you about your target audience. 
• At this step, signing an NDA (Non-disclosure agreement) is essential. This will ensure your idea data are secure with them, and they will not share any data on your work. 

2. Developing

• This is entirely up to the agency, and they rarely need to contact you. 
• They will work on the documentation you have provided and give the work to respective experts. Most agencies that hire dedicated developers in UK have a limit of debugs, revisions, and feedback counts. 
• If you wish to make further changes to your app, you may hire mobile application programmer for your supervision of the developing process. 
• However, to manage the cost-effectiveness, you may opt for the agency policies of constant demos. The company will provide continued demos to you at every step of their development, which increases the agility of the work and prevents any reworks. Getting demos may require you to be patient and invest a periodic amount of time in the app. 

3. Deploying

• At this stage, the app is almost developed and ready to use. Many agencies which hire developers have their product tester. 
• They check the app for any bugs and any possible improvements that may be made. 
• Few agencies release the product over the internet as beta versions for customer reviews. During the beta versions, it may not be available on all platforms. 
• For the agency to release the beta versions, you will need to sign an opening document that will state you permitted them to release the app beforehand for development purposes and feedback. This does not defeat the purpose of the NDA agreement; it is still in effect. The agency cannot share documentation with outside parties until you allow them to.

4. Maintenance 

• At this point, the app is fully developed. The agency demonstrated the app to you and how to use it, and you are satisfied. You are the admin of the app. The agency has the DevTools enabled now.
• Since the agency developed the app, it is their responsibility to collect reviews and continue upgrading the application or fixing bugs that may appear based on the mobile OS. 
• You can contact the agency and sign a contract agreement with them. According to the contract (E.g. Five years), they will handle any modifications after the deployment phase based on the reviews. 
• Maintenance also includes cost management of the app. You have to keep up with the market and know which features are currently being used and available in the market at a cost-effective price. The agencies that hire dedicated developers in the UK may not have the technology to add a feature. In that case, they may need to buy from outside markets at a cost-effective price. 

Where to find an outsourcing company?

• Google: Searching on Google will have millions of results. The problem arises when you have to choose among all of these results. The key lies in not going beyond the first page. You may search on Google based on functionality or websites from a blog of a specific company. 
• Website listings: Many specific websites list agencies that take on outsourcing projects like the clutch. It would be best if you were versatile in technology and researched different markets to find them. 
• LinkedIn: It is a social platform for this kind of work. You will find agencies and many freelancers available there. Communicating is way more effective on LinkedIn. 

How will you choose the correct outsourcing agency?

1. Project History

Any outsourcing agency, whether you find them on Google or any website, should be able to provide their project history, customer reviews, and work policies. Choose the company you think fits your outlining of the app and your working values. You should also check the criteria they need to hire professionals in the field.

2. Systematic check-ins

It requires you to check in with the app developers and interview them. You may want to know about their education, the problems they handle, and their flexibility in development. 

3. Follow-ups

After you have given the project to an agency, the developers often miss the deadlines and go for a rush completion of your app. To prevent this, you must check in with them often, assist them with their queries, and look at their progress. Keep in mind to not create pressure on the developers.

Managing budget 

While the quality of your product is of utmost importance to you, it is also essential that you manage your finances. App developing agencies will cost you appropriately. The cost will increase with its complexity.

Conclusion

Outsourcing has its great advantages as well as it also has its disadvantages. Hiring an in-house team will result in the developers focusing entirely on your project. You can change the specifics of the interface as many times as you want. The greatest advantage of a dedicated in-house development is that it will cost much lesser. Hiring an outsourced agency will not give you these advantages.

The above mentioned are a few guidelines for outsourcing your app development. However trustworthy the company may be, you must remain updated and research your customers and market. These crucial keys mentioned above will surely help your business flourish. We wish you luck in your startup/business.