Reduced price is one of the major factors that enforces companies to incline towards mobile application outsourcing. Generally, offshore
agencies have the technical devices and other resources that are
necessary to perform all the development tasks. Thus, you don’t need to
set up a whole in-house team with all the required resources, this is
another strong reason to prefer outsourcing.
Thinking of offshoring your smartphone app development to a third a party is a more viable and economical option for businesses as well as individuals. Usually, people prefer developing markets like India
and China to outsource their projects due to the optimal cost benefits
instead of developed markets, which has expensive development prices.
How outsourcing market has performed in the past years?
According to a report by the outsourced services from 2000 to 2015 achieved a great hike in the global market. Here is what the statistics are saying.
- In 2000, the total revenue generated by outsourcing was $45.6 billion and it reached $99.1 billion in 2012.
- A slight downfall of nearly 20 percent was observed in the total revenue of the outsourcing market in the year 2013. The market again
recovered in 2014 reaching $104.6 billion, but subsequently dropped
off by around 25 percent in 2015 with only $88.9 billion.
- The highest outsourcing revenue was generated from Africa, Europe,
and the Middle East, while the least from the Asia Pacific region.
How much your smartphone app will cost in other countries?
Since Android and iOS are the two major players in the smartphone
industry, let’s see how the cost of developing a mobile application
(Android/iOS) differs in different countries.
Many developers have a misconception that building high-cost mobile apps also guarantees top quality; however, building apps for low prices may also lead to unexpected results. Here is the estimation of cost
involved in different countries and platforms.
- The study conducted on mobile app development cost states that India is the country with least average charges per hour of $26 and $30 for Android and iOS, respectively.
- On the other side, North America is marked as the country with
highest average rates per hour of $168 and $150 for Android and iOS,
respectively.
- When the cost is estimated on the basis of complexity, the simple the smartphone application will cost nearly $3,000–$8,000, whereas the
complex application may require $50,000–$1,50,000.
- Outsourcing to the other major mobile app development markets such
as UK, Eastern Europe, South America, and Australia also offer the
solutions at optimal rates as shown in the graphs below.
Charges per hour for iOS app development
How you can search for the ideal outsourcing company?
With so many alternatives available on the Internet, you can search
for the outsourcing companies based on the following factors.
Google Search
Definitely a good start. But there are a lot of good companies that are not present in the top five positions of search results. However,
the right keywords will help you identify the best outsourcing agency.
But I would suggest going with the other options as well.
Freelance portals
Freelancing portals like UpWork, Freelancer, Elance,
etc., are also great platforms where you can find the perfect
outsourcing companies, along with their client reviews and ratings and
other important links to check their past work.
Conduct interviews to check their skills
Once you shortlist the companies, you can further conduct a short interview to check their technical skills. This way, you will have a
clear idea of whether the outsourcing agency is aware of the latest technologies or not. This final interview will help you to come to a conclusion.
How outsourcing can be beneficial for you?
Millions of apps are developed across various platforms such as iOS,
Android, Windows, etc. On average, 50 million apps are downloaded on
Android and iOS platforms. This exceptional growth is increasing the demand for outsourcing the smartphone application development work.
Outsourcing can be beneficial in many ways. I have explained some of
the major advantages that make it more powerful than in-house
development.
Saves money and time
It is not an intelligent decision to pay $170/hour to do the same work that you can get done overseas at the rate of just $100/hour.
Therefore, cost saving is one of the major benefits of hiring an offshore company.
Also, outsourcing helps to bring up the best outcome without any long-term commitment.
Easy communication/ 24*7 customer support
“The better the communication, the better is the result”. By outsourcing, you can easily communicate via. Skype, phone call,
email, video conferencing at any time. Most of the offshore companies also provide 24*7 customer support helping you to get the issues resolved immediately.
Experienced developer
Instead of hiring a fresh team, outsourcing helps you to get an
experienced team of developers, specialized in your niche with qualified
knowledge and skills.
Things you must consider while outsourcing
In order to get the solution with 100 percent cost-effectiveness and quality, searching for a company is not enough. To avoid the
Here is what you need to consider before hiring a company.
(A) Be clear and descriptive about what to outsource
“You will get the precise outcome if you have well explained your requirements to the outsourcing partner”. Therefore, be clear and
descriptive about the important details like:
- What features you would like in your application?
- What is your deadline to publish the application?
- What is your budget?
- Which market you want to majorly target?
- How your smartphone app should look like?
- Which platform your target audience is based on?
(B) Put the quality prior to cost
Cost-saving is the first objective of outsourcing your mobile application overseas, but the quality is the prior thing that can’t be ignored. It’s true that outsourcing to developing countries like India
and China can reduce the cost, but the quality of the mobile app might
be compromised if you choose less-skilled developers.
(C) Sign the non-disclosure agreement
Signing a non-disclosure agreement before finally handing over the project, provides confidentiality of your ideas and it also shows that
you’re serious about your project.
(D) Take a tour to research about the company
Just looking at some aspects doesn’t give a complete idea about the work of the outsourcing company. Thus, deeply research the company details like their previously completed projects, number of clients,
experience, team size, etc., and then decide the one you want to go with.
(E) Don’t forget to regularly test
Don’t just blindly trust in the outsourced company. Monitor your app progress at regular time frames. The outsourced development team should be able to provide a testing platform to ensure the progress of the application.
The future of mobile app development outsourcing – Look Bright
Outsourcing is a great alternative to in-house development from
the past 10 years, sometimes put a big question in mind – “Whether it
will be alive in the future or not”?
The increasing mobile app development market is a good indication where the business needs to outsource the work in other countries. Full
control on project activities, cost and time saving, quality outcome, no need for resource investment are some of the strong advantages of making outsourcing to grow fast in the future.
Taking a look at the huge growth of outsourcing in the past few
years, it can be undoubtedly said that outsourcing is carrying a bright
future with it.
Conclusion
In this post, I tried to cover each and every aspect of mobile app development outsourcing. From defining the term outsourcing to the
future of outsourcing, the guide has described everything you need to
know about it,
Do you have more than outside of this guide or want to share anything about outsourcing? Feel free to write in the comments below.
