As much as 86% of software developers work remotely. This boon, starting with the pandemic, has far reaching benefits for the future we are creating. Hiring remote developers, particularly outsourcing development to an IT services company with proven track records, can benefit your business substantially by providing the following benefits

Access to a global talent pool

When your business is not limited to the barriers of geographical location, it gets access to the plenitude of talent available worldwide. This ensures you get your return on investment by spending on the right hire or contract, analysing which one can best meet your unique needs rather than compromising on hiring in your vicinity even if they do not meet your project needs.

For example, if you want development expertise in AI and cannot find the right expert locally, it is advisable to consider offshore developers from a country like India. India not only has the ability to solve global problems (consider India’s Digital Public Infrastructure that startups across the world are looking to adapt) but is also home to some of the most successful value-driven businesses we have known. Among these, AI startups are topping the list↗ with their innovative approach to long-standing issues around the world. This makes India a better option to consider for offshore development given the high likelihood of finding the right professionals.

Flexibility

When you hire remote developers for business, they can work round the clock, adapting to your project needs. Their flexibility is not just limited to physical location, but also approach to website or app development. This comes with their prior experience and knowledge of development processes inside out. The best dedicated remote teams make sure that your feedback as well as that of your users is factored in development right from the start, rather than once after the entire project has been delivered.

Experience of a Global Clientele and User Base

When you hire a dedicated remote team↗, its experts come with a vast experience. This is because they have worked with clients around the world and have seen the resolution of varied problems very closely. We can say this from first-hand experience, as a lot of our clients are international and cater to very diverse user bases. What gives us an upper edge is our ability to target the solution to address your business problem and suggest the best approach for it from our vast experience. We have, likely, seen the problem you are facing today, yesterday. This helps take a proactive approach to its resolution without affecting the development cycle and launch timeline.

Wide Perspectives

Dedicated remote developers bring crucial and diverse perspectives at the forefront for your business. This is extremely important because no digital medium like apps or webapps can function in silos, or in isolation, and it is important to view its development from all angles too. Diverse perspectives will give you a complete understanding of each implication in development and benefit from the perspective of user behaviour understanding, again, central in crafting desirable user experiences.

Faster Time to Market

Dedicated remote teams top the productivity charts because of not having barriers to office commute. They can work round the clock and reduce your time to market. Besides, they can fully focus on the project at hand they were hired for and complete it accordingly, without having to divert their attention towards other projects. This is invaluable to any business, either because of the first mover advantage it enables or product category registration it facilitates for new ones. These early opportunities can be game changers for your business by giving you more time with your users and understanding market forces better

When hiring remote developers on a budget is a significant concern for most businesses, a debate between having an in-house team or outsourcing development to a dedicated remote team often sparks up. Even if budget is not a concern, remote outsourced development makes sense for most businessess.

This is because of the kind of time investment having a competent in-house team demands. Its prolonged nature naturally starts to show on the budget. It entails lengthy (often broken) hiring processes, training, settling-in period, capability development, team alignment, compatibility issues, and so on. Even if businesses have overcome these problems, in-house teams may still need further augmentation from an outsourced dedicated team because of the sheer pace at which the tech world breathes. Globally, companies spent $731 billion on outsourcing↗, and as much as 64% of all outsourcing was related to software development.

Now, let’s look at how outsourced remote development compares to in-house team building -

Cost

Building an in-house development team is expensive, particularly for young businesses. This is because hiring and retaining top talent comes at a cost. Monthly competitive salaries and ongoing expenses must be accounted for, along with expenses for ongoing training, upskilling becomes non-negotiable for each of the professionals like quality analysts, front-end and back-end developers, UI/UX designers and so on.

By outsourcing development remotely, these recurring expenses can be eliminated. Businesses usually enter contracts when they outsource a software development team, which need them to pay for only the services provided. The outsourcing company bears the cost of hiring and upskilling their experts for ready business use, so all you have to spend on is the development service when your project requirement comes up. .

Flexibility

In-house development teams must be compensated for irrespective of the nature or scope of project work. There may be a time when there aren’t enough projects to justify having a full-time development team on-board, coming to office every day.

When you hire dedicated remote developers, you get the flexibility to spend only when there is a need. Bring in an experienced team when a project demands and not at times when there is no need. It is almost like having a subscription that lets you pay only for features or services you use.

Ownership of Responsibility

It is not that in-house teams do not take ownership of responsibility, quite the contrary. But this ownership is naturally mingled with your internal business processes, requiring them to manage their time and attention for the critical project at hand, and other ongoing projects.

When you outsource development to a remote team, they take complete ownership of responsibility, focus on meeting your requirement at hand and the best teams function as an extension of your own team. They take care of the end-to-end development process while always ensuring they translate to your desired business outcomes. This enables your organization to prioritize innovation by eliminating worries from the development lifecycle for you and direct that time towards other critical aspects of growing your business. This is particularly true for growth stage startups, or those in the process of raising funds for their multi-product line.

Experience

Efficient software development takes years of experience, considering it is the life blood of your business. In-house development teams may not necessarily have the necessary experience required to address a particular development complexity. Not in any way does this imply to their years of experience, but exposure to a wide range of problems outside of the projects your business has taken up in due course.

By outsourcing development, you can leverage the exposure of a remote team to a variety of software development complexities. Such teams have a global client base accumulated over years of creating value for businesses and can leverage that prior knowledge to address your present needs.

Hiring remote software developers is a crucial function for unlocking the growth potential of your business. Done right, it can give your business the required competency to succeed in this competitive world, where nothing less than continuously evolving the perfect application is desirable. Listed below are the factors to consider while hiring remote software developers:

Step 1: Realistic analysis of your current capabilities

This is imperative to understand which capabilities your business lacks for the requirement at hand. By identifying this gap, you can look for the right expert or team for your business. Even if you have an in-house team, a project might need you to look beyond your existing capabilities and bring someone on board who can address its requirements.

Step 2: Knowledge of technology

Technology evolves at a very rapid pace, and it is non-negotiable to constantly upskill to keep pace with it. Not doing so may unnecessarily burn up your resources and negatively impact your bottom line. It is important that you analyse the technical expertise of the professional or team you get on board and tap into their knowledge of the various technologies, frameworks and tools available. Suppose you want to cut down your time to market. Screen them with a question for the same and the right expert will be able to tell you which technology is best suited to this purpose and provide its complete implications.

Step 3: Portfolio of work

Analysing the remote dedicated developers’ previous work can give you a clear idea of the kind of projects they have worked on, the different approaches they can take to innovate, and the nature of business problems they have exposure to. This will help you identify the right fit for your business and even access their previous demos to see how their innovations look in theory as well as practice. The ideal one will have a rich portfolio from their diverse work experience, covering a wide user base and accommodation of unique needs.

Step 4: Approach to Collaboration

Effective communication is the backbone of remote work. While hiring remote developers or teams, consider how the collaboration will happen, how they will factor in your feedback, business and user needs, and frequency at which they will communicate project updates with the rest of your team. The ideal candidate or team will take a proactive approach to communication and suggest ways to eliminate potential communication mishaps, always keeping you in loop and making sure there is scope for regular updates and timely feedback.

Remote developer recruitment strategy needs a well-crafted approach to expanding your team. This includes the following best practices-

Well-defined Job or Project Requirements

Define your requirements properly once you have analysed your current capabilities to target the right candidate or team. Poorly defined project requirements can unnecessarily burn your hiring resources, invite experts that do not fit your needs and ultimately create chaos in team capability expansion. This will prolong the hiring cycle and escalate the cost of hiring remote developers, one of the key considerations when hiring remote developers for small businesses. If you are not sure of your requirements, it is often best to describe a project at hand and invite calls for the most feasible approach to it.

Targeted hiring approach

One of the most common challenges businesses face while hiring remote developers is not knowing where to look for them. This results in them spending their hiring resources poorly, in a loose and un-targeted manner. The best way to avoid this is to publish your hiring post on websites or portals specifically made for these professionals, increasing your likelihood of getting credible information and moving forward in the hiring process.

Network

No business in today’s world can function smoothly without a well-established network, or without associating with professionals in its space. Having a credible network will not just enhance your presence but also provide you the right contact at the right time, or at least the right direction. While hiring remote developers, a good network may guide you to the necessary resources and help you make an informed decision. It can even help you understand what businesses like yours did while hiring remote developers and what approach worked best for them.

Screening

While screening remote or offshore developers, create an assessment that analyses not just their technical capabilities, but also their problem-solving capability, willingness to collaborate and ability to act under pressure. This can be divided into coding tests, short, take-home assignments and pair programming sessions, which provide a clear idea of how they will co-ordinate with your team.

Discuss Financials and Agree on Collaboration Frequency

This is extremely important to avoid any confusion later. Discuss their monetary expectations and when payments will be settled. Find out if they are okay with it. Also agree on the frequency and method of collaboration that will follow with them and the rest of your team, to give everyone optimal time to co-ordinate, understand the context and fruitfully work together.

Knowledge of the essential qualities to look for in your outsourced development partner will simplify the process of making an informed choice for you. This understanding is extremely crucial because you are ultimately selecting a team that will work very closely with you and play a pivotal role in the success of your application. Discussed below are some qualities to help you identify the best remote app developers for your business-

Proven track record of success

The ideal software development company will have a proven track record of success to substantiate all its claims and their ability to meet your requirements. They will be able to take you through some of their diverse past work and show the transformation they have enabled for businesses with their end-to-end development support.

Agile Methodology

In today’s dynamic age, it is impossible to get into full-scale development, build the entire app and then re-visit it for feedback. In this Waterfall methodology, there is no flexibility to adapt to the requirements of modern businesses and evolving new categories. The ideal dedicated team will follow an agile approach to give you the scope to re-visit the app in short sprints, which provide ample opportunity to factor in your feedback, align user needs, and ensure what you are building is in alignment with business profitability.

Seamless Collaboration

The ideal outsourced development company will function as an extension of your very own team. They will take ownership of the project and always keep you in the loop, so you never feel like you are losing control because of not knowing technicalities. It is imperative to make sure that all relevant stakeholders are always aligned on project status and updates and can provide their suggestions for improvement.

Technical Expertise

The ideal outsourcing partner will always stay ahead with technological advances to prompt their best use. Additionally, they will ensure that the technology deployed makes sense for your business needs and ties back to your business goals. They should be able to tell you all about the essential frameworks in the developers’ toolkit for Android, iOS, hybrid and cross-platform apps, and give you device and tech versatility to bring your vision to life.

Turn-around Time

Knowledge of the available technology and its advances plays a pivotal role in cutting your time to market. Besides, the right outsourcing partner will be committed to shipping on time, at the cadence agreed upon, by streamlining the development cycle and eliminating any potential scope creep.

Custom Development

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to software development. The right dedicated remote team will offer custom development services to tailor the solution that is right for your business. They will extensively understand your project requirements and research deep to come up with a feasible approach for you.