Offshore Software Development Trends 2022
Hiring offshore software developers is becoming an increasingly common pathway for many software development companies over the past decade. This has allowed companies to experiment with new ideas more frequently and given a boost to global innovation in the IT sector.
According to Computer Economics (US & CA), 60% of software companies are now outsourcing software application development in part or full, which is also the most frequently outsourced IT services function. With the industry growing more competitive with each passing day, companies have recognized the massive game-changing impact remote teams can have in the face of growing challenges. New research from Commit has projected outsourcing for software development to increase by another 70% as we go into 2023.
Are you planning to find an offshore software developer or team? Be sure to check out some of the latest outsourcing software development trends we’ve observed this year. They might even give you some new ideas for your next project.
Why Hire Offshore Software Developers?
Although the idea of outsourcing hasn’t always been a welcome thought for many companies, it has become a far more practical, and in some cases necessary means of getting new projects off the ground since the COVID-19 Pandemic. And thanks to innovations in technology and communication software, creating outsourcing models has never been easier.
Offshore software development allows you to take advantage of remote operating costs, lower hourly rates, existing development teams and infrastructures overseas, and language is no longer the unbridgeable barrier it used to be. Not to mention in most cases, outsourcing software development also lets you choose developers from a much wider pool of talent. Countries like India, The Philippines, and Mexico are brimming with talent that is able to work for far less than the domestic wage.
Of course, there can be some caveats to outsourcing software development from time to time which is why it’s important that you know how to find the right software development firm. But once you’ve found the right team, your project might just get on its wings and fly much sooner than you anticipated.
Growth Of Hybrid Organizations
While hybrid organizations always existed, they were somewhat on the sidelines for the most part. But now, software companies are beginning to recognize the benefits of keeping remote teams because of the advantages it gives them in terms of being able to scale more flexibly. Competition is at its highest and ever since the pandemic it’s been clear that a large percentage of the workforce won’t be returning to offices.
According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center that surveyed over 5,000 US adults who were working at home during the pandemic, 54% of the respondent group said they’d prefer to continue working from home even after the Pandemic ends. Advances in apps that can facilitate communication and workflow like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Team amongst others have made working from home a lot more comfortable and efficient. The rise of hybrid organizations will be one of the most life-changing aspects of this digital transformation.
Creating hybrid employee teams and models is arguably one of the largest current software development trends right now because it makes operating on a restricted budget much easier. This means a lot of software companies will no longer have a ‘fixed’ place of work or set of employees so to speak. Businesses have recognized that flexibility or mobility, is now the more cost-efficient approach to creating software and surviving in this economy. By 2022, we can expect to see a sharp upsurge in the number of offshore software developers and hybrid business models.
Increased Usage Of Collaborative Tools
There are still a lot of challenges in the way of setting up a hybrid business model composed partially or fully of offshore software developers. Getting people from different countries or cultures together and achieving common goals isn’t easy. However, collaborative tools have been like a godsend for software companies with internationally scattered teams. Not only do they connect employers with future employees but also help organize meetings, tasks, schedules, and projects via an AI system or an operations team. This has made everything from communication to delivering project milestones and support much faster.
Here are some of the best collaborative tools today that you can use to work with your remote team on all kinds of software projects.
Asana is a web and mobile work management tool that provides users with a platform where they can organize and track their work. It also integrates with other well-known tools like Google Calendar to complete the home-office environment.
Podio is one of the most trusted tools on the market for software project management. It uses a system that centralizes material, context, and interactions to transform your project data into one tool and one collaboration point. By tailoring to your custom needs, Podio saves a lot of time that is lost in communicational errors or excesses.
Like Asana, Trello is a project management tool created especially for companies with dispersed teams. It makes use of a Kanban-style approach to task management which has been found to boost efficiency and ease of work for numerous developers.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing has allowed software businesses to put their resources online and make them accessible to dispersed teams with minimal effort. The growth in cloud technologies has made exchanging data much more streamlined, and secure. But the benefits don’t stop there.
Offshore software development companies are moving to cloud-based applications in hoards due to its clear advantages in the realm of customer service. For one thing, it allows you to work from any location provided your internet connection is open and fast enough. It allows you to make all your important services, resources, and data easily accessible to clients overseas.
By enhancing the experience of your customer service, opting for cloud-based tools and apps provide offshore developers with a strong competitive advantage.
Establishments Of Offshore Sites
Not all projects can be done remotely, and many projects may benefit greatly from bringing teams and resources physically together in one location. Especially large projects that involve hundreds of developers and testers. However, flying over your offshore employees can be quite costly, so it makes more sense to establish a site in their country.
India has been the number one country of choice for offshore sites. You’ll sparsely find any major tech giant that doesn’t have an offshore site in India. Having an offshore site in a country with relatively lower living and business expenses can give you a strong competitive edge over your domestic rivals. Approximately 80% of the world’s largest tech companies all have an offshore team and work site in another country. It’s a trend we can expect to see continue.
DevOps And Agile
DevOps and Agile are two of the latest software development trends we’ve seen since the start of this decade. They’re philosophically the same in that they’re people-oriented approaches to communication and organizing workflow. But what do they mean?
To explain it simply, we all know what a normal software team looks like. It comprises people with distinct traits and unique expertise that make them suitable for certain roles. These software teams keep growing smaller and smaller with each passing day, and the smaller your team is, the more in-team dependence each member has in order to do their job. In a situation like this, ensuring that the employees’ respective skillsets complement each other is very important.
DevOps and Agile is the practice of bringing the operations and development teams together so they can collaborate effectively. Both emphasize on a continuous feedback and communication to ensure the workflow never stops and the best products are delivered. DevOps has more to do with constant prototyping, testing, delivery, and feedback from the customers whereas Agile has more to do with constant changes to increase efficiency.
As we see smaller and smaller software teams going into the future, Agile and DevOps are going to become one of the hottest offshore software development trends.
New Technologies
One of the most underestimated impacts of COVID-19 we’ve seen is on human behavior. There’s a growing distrust in the old monetary system, cybersecurity, and modes of investment which has given rise to new technologies that have promised better solution. These include the likes of cryptocurrency riding on the blockchain technology, the Metaverse and AI to name a few.
The Metaverse is as the name suggests, a metaphysical universe that allows users to meet, interact and perform tasks virtually. With working from home growing more popular with each passing day, we might live to see virtual homes and offices become an ostensible part of our work life.
The market for blockchain has expanded rapidly in the past two years and is expected to grow further. This means more and more industries will be looking into ways to invest in blockchain technology. We can also expect to see a rise in crypto-currency or blockchain-related software design services in the software industry due to the numerous advantages it has to offer from data security to faster transactions and lower cost.
Conclusion
We’re living in an era of continuous digitization due to which we can expect to see many drastic changes in our business models, work, and life in general. We can also expect a lot of changes in the nature of software development itself. It’s important to prepare yourself for the offshore software development trends for 2022 which can mean anything from adopting new strategies to remodeling your entire business if need be. If there’s one takeaway you can use from this article, it’s that flexibility and staying up to date it paramount this year.
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