Now businesses can test multiple product features and make sure the end product meets the dynamic user requirements. This implementation and test feature of product development has enabled multiple businesses to introduce newer products soon and make changes in the product in a cost-effective way. Everyone in the existing market knows that newer products are sold like hotcakes so, if you want to make your product unique and different from the breed, you must timely update with the market and consistently introduce innovative changes and new features into your existing product.This blog  is a guide for all businesses who don’t know the processes involved  in software product development and on the other hand, it will also be an insightful guide for businesses who know and understand software product development terminology, its development stages and different types of product development methodologies. 

What is Software Product Development?

Software Product development is the process of creating a new product with some added value and features. It can be anything from developing an entire new product, or upgrading an existing product, or improving the process, technique, or development methodology of the system. To put it another way, With new developed software products we can bring change in the current market and give user a better customer experience. Development and innovation pave the path for new product innovations and it  will benefit the customers.. Software product development is a methodical, and steady process that aims to  represent a certain personal or business purpose, technique, or goal. It usually takes a comprehensive approach that includes several software development phases or procedures that culminate in the construction of a working software product.

Software developers also integrate a set of third party tools and features while developing a software product to meet the certain market needs.. It helps to improve existing processes, techniques, methods and overall customer experience. Existing production processes, methods, techniques, and systems might all be upgraded to improve customer experience and satisfaction. It also costs less for the organization. 

Why Does Software Product Development Matters?

1. Business Process Optimization

Every company has its own business strategy and internal procedures. Changing these procedures to fit a given application or software product, no matter how efficient or powerful it is, is difficult. As a result, software product development helps the company to smoothly work with their internal processes, business strategy, system requirements and optimize business procedures. 

2. Offers Competitive Edge

When you are developing an application, it is quite important for your business to see what works in the market and what doesn’t. Your business must have some unique characteristics that work differently. The business should employ a solution that  provides a significant edge over its  competitors. Software product development enables businesses to create a product that has unique features and processes developed from the unique ideas which can give them a competitive edge. 

3. Customized Solution

There are some things that may work for one company but  may not work for another. As a result, designing a bespoke software solution for your company ensures that it handles unique procedures and activities that are exclusive for  your business requirements. There are ready-made softwares available in bulk which may support your business activities but not completely. Many businesses are using it but  it would be more efficient if you know your custom business needs and create a software product based on those intended requirements . This has wider benefits than you have ever thought off. Benefits such as improved process efficiency, focused solution, faster results, and many more one can get from custom software product development.

Now, let’s understand what it takes to create a Software Product Development Plan. 

How to initiate a Product Development Plan

1. Envision a product

It all starts with a product vision, which can bring everything to one place with a common goal. The product vision—the product’s ultimate goal, who it’s for, and what it accomplishes for them—is next presented. Finally, it lays down certain ground rules for future development.

Primary goals for the product may be developed once the product vision and mission statements are in place. These may be a little hazy at first, such as determining product-market fit, but they may quickly grow into quantitative KPIs or OKRs. These quantifiable goals aid in determining which features, additions, processes, and capabilities the product will require to meet them.

2. Create a roadmap

You must have a blueprint before the execution of the action plan. After doing the actual customer requirements analysis and validation, the product team may create a product roadmap that prioritize the major topics to be addressed. You can plan the schedule as per the date-based milestones and defined targets. The focus should be on delivering value and responding to product goals and performance against key indicators rather than on dates.

3. Roadmap implementation for maximum impact

It’s time to put the product strategy into place after everyone has agreed on it. Implementation teams may make timetables, divide down major topics into sprints, and establish product iterations. The input of customer surveys, the sales staff, and support all provide input, discovering new opportunities, pointing out flaws, and highlighting areas to sharpen, enhance, and grow.Several key documents such as product design document, and software requirements specification document are prepared for implementation of the roadmap.

From then, it’s a never-ending cycle of examining data, aggregating input, and constantly revising the product roadmap while grooming the product backlog to ensure that every software development life cycle is put to the best possible use.

Software Product Development Steps

Stage 1. Product Idea Generation

Product idea discovery is the first step in software product development lifecycle. Everything begins with a brilliant concept! However, in order to implement, that notion must be thoroughly considered. The first and most important phase in software product development is careful planning, which includes determining the project’s scope, outlining how the new software product will achieve business objectives, cost-related challenges, resource availability, and timetables.

When you decide to develop a software product , it  must answer the needs of the market which means it should specify what difference it will bring in the market or in the lives of the customers. 

There are products developed after specific research and analysis of target customer requirements. You can examine, utilize, and evaluate related software products  and then decide to create your own software. This is just an ideation phase, the validation of the idea will be  in the next stage. 

Stage 2. Requirements and feasibility analysis

Now that the idea of product development is approved, it’s now time to analyze the requirement feasibility. Feasibility study for a project performs full examination of and how the project will be carried out throughout this stage of software product development. From a practical point of view, the study is carried and analyzed whether this product will bring impactful change within the organization or not. This process will define the product needs, design and codes, resources, and other areas contributing areas to develop an actionable solution.

All of the technical and financial components of the software development process are highlighted in the requirements and feasibility study. It aids in the early identification of perils of software products. With this, you can take an early step and devise risk mitigation methods as per the requirements.

Stage 3. Product Design

A significant part of the software product development process is product design. During the design stage, the organized software architecture fulfilling specified project criteria and requirements is produced, which is where the real conceptualization of the software system takes place.

Developers create specific procedures and standards for customized software products. The prototype design and representations are used to create the whole program structure during the software product development process. Once the design has been identified, it’s time to move on to its creation.

Stage 4. Product Development and coding

In the software product development steps , this process takes place after designing. This phase is the heart of software product development. The product development initialization starts from this phase. Within the software product development process, this  step includes writing code and turning design papers into working software. Because it is the core and complex process, this stage takes the longest time to develop when compared to all the other stages. Software developers make sure that their code adheres to the software requirement specifications as well as the demands of the stakeholders.

When it comes to developing a software product , the development teams can create and implement their development roadmap. You can summarize and communicate with their plans so as to build a robust and standard high-performing software product .  Also, arrival of new development tools and technical improvements improved development process efficiency and enhanced scalability of software products.

Stage 5. Integration and testing

Now that your product  is built, it’s time for it  to undergo the testing phase. It involves system continuous integration, functionality testing, system testing and interoperability testing, as well as user  acceptance testing, all done by the  software testing team.In this phase, you need to thoroughly examine the software product. You must ensure that whatever plan you create, the developed software product is as per that or not. Once you complete this, you can integrate all the features of the application into one resilient system. This system will be later tested and applications will be checked for a smooth flow of apps. Balanced mix of manual and automated testing can fasten the release process. This guarantees that the code is free of errors and business goals with this solution will meet.

Stage 6. Test Marketing and Launch

When it comes to software development, deployment refers to the process of preparing an application in the market for delivery. Planning, development, and operation must all work in tandem to provide a trouble-free and smooth deployment. Every critical part of development should be known to the operations team. As a result, you’ll want to ensure that everyone in the organization is on the same page. After deployment, the product will be available in the market for users to use. The next step is to launch these developed products. Software product launching will be done after doing a hundred checks to ensure it is ready for deployment. After this, the next step is to begin creating a marketing strategy or a product promotion plan.

Your developed app should be made public with all of its wonderful characteristics and features. You may even test the market with a minor product launch. You might change your plan for the major launch depending on the outcomes. You may also evaluate your marketing plan and, if it works, scale it up. At this point, there is still a lot of work to be done, as you must select how many goods will be offered.

Stage 7. Maintenance and Support

Now if you think your job is done once the development process is over, then it is probably a wrong notion. The job still continues until the software demands constant upgrades and services. The maintenance tasks is also taken up by software development services providers  and there is a fixed resource team allocation to resolve the issues if any occur. The support and maintenance service may include bug detection and correction, process upgrades, software upgrades, etc. and these make the product  performing bug-free.  

Traditionally, there are multiple software product  development methodologies in the market today, that would make the  development processes improvised and convenient. They offer benefits such as minimized risk, enhanced scalability to continuous iterations. Some of the popular names in product development methodologies include Waterfall method, and Agile  methodology. Let’s see each of them in detail.

Different Software Product Development Methodologies

Waterfall

You can use various methods of software product development. The waterfall model, which was one of the first software development approaches, consists of a set of consecutive steps: conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, quality assurance, implementation, and maintenance.  All the steps always take place in this order and never overlap. Before moving on to the next step, the developer must complete the previous one. The paradigm is suitable for software projects when needs are explicit and thorough, precise, and accurate papers outline how the system will be built since it assures unique goals are met. Because its representation resembles a cascade of waterfalls, this model is called the “Waterfall Model.”

Agile

The Agile product development methodology is an iterative approach to manage software development projects that focuses on managing continuous releases and incorporating customer feedback with every iteration. Software teams that embrace agile methodologies  have chances to increase their development speed, expand collaboration, and foster the ability to better respond to market trends. In agile methodology, you can also include newer upgrades, releases which enables clients to see and access frequent changes very easily.More product features  may be tested, added, and tested again after obtaining consumer input at each level of the product development process.

Incremental development is also a type in the Agile development paradigm. The creation of software is quick in incremental cycles. As a result, the incremental releases made are faster, with each one expanding on the preceding one’s features.

To guarantee that you maintain the software quality, each release needs to undergo rigorous testing .You can employ time-sensitive applications. Agile methodology saves time and promises the end product meets the decided requirement. In agile, you can also use scrum as a development methodology. Let us see what scrum is.

Scrum

Scrum is a major part of the Agile development process. The basis of Scrum is dependent a cross-functional team that self-organizes . In Scrum, a development team is cross-functional, which means that everyone is required to bring a feature from concept to execution. Scrum is a pragmatic framework focuses on constant learning and adapting to changing circumstances. It understands that at the outset of a project, the team does not know everything and will learn as the project progresses. The design of scrum is to let teams adapt to changing conditions and user needs naturally, with re-prioritization integration to the process and short release cycles to ensure that your team is always learning and improving.

DevOps

Development combined with Operation is one of the most preferable methods in the product development process. The reason why businesses choose this method is because it is quick, efficient and qualitative. The amalgamation of development and Operations shortens the life cycle of developing product and provides consistent updates and new-edge features with a goal to meet business agendas. 

The process of DevOps involves everything from conceptualization, design development, integration,testing, deployment and release. From the time, DevOps has been undertaking all the responsibilities as a mainstream methodology. Unlike other methodologies, DevOps works concurrently on all modules and builds an application that is open to change even after development and during the development process. It is less time consuming because it automates some of the essential processes like testing. As a result, companies can easily work on updates and release the product at a faster pace than expected.The main aspect that makes DevOps a favorable choice among developers is that it enhances efficiency while maintaining clean codes without the fear of failures. It comes with a quick recovery plan and fixes the errors or bugs in a go.

Conclusion

So, that’s all for this blog, we hope that through this extensive guide  on Software Product development we try to deliver the right information possible. We have shed light on all essential parameters. To avoid product failure and hear the right voice from the clamor space. You must  refer to this guide before you choose to develop an application. This definite guide is a one-stop solution for businesses to know and understand what all processes participate and which one will suit your business the best. You as a business must know what is new product development, how to create a product roadmap, implementation plan  and ways to achieve desired results.

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1. Telehealth – Technology Meets Healthcare Services

The majority of telehealth platforms are secure advanced systems. They are integrated with medical equipment residing on servers or cloud-based solutions. This can also include the integration of mobile apps that enables doctors and other medical professionals to treat patients via smartphones and ultimately improving the health care delivery. In such uncertain times, this medical help system has been extremely important for patients to consult doctors. They can even get treatment for their day-to-day concerns. The Telehealth system is like a blessing in disguise with the array of technology solutions to make the process better and improvised.

To define a Telehealth system, it would be an array of health information technology that involves using integrated screens,  wearable devices, apps, and systems that would refine the healthcare management system. This involves the design, development, creation, use, and maintenance of systems of the healthcare industry. For this may allow the physicians and Doctors to reach maximum patients by providing care and treatment through telemedicine platforms with a stored medical record and prescription if any.

2. The Need for Telehealth Services in the Healthcare Industry

The basic aim of modernizing the healthcare system with telehealth services or telemedicine systems was to integrate telecommunication  technologies in Healthcare treatment and consultation. Considering the shortage of medical care In the medical software development industry, businesses often misinterpret thatservices in rural areas and to reduce the cost of traveling, they discovered this method of engagement with their patients. The sole intent to develop this application was to facilitate client’s telecom-based assistance and offer consistent Patient-centered support in healthcare with a variety of solutions such as

• Video conferencing
• The internet
• Store-and-forward imaging
• Streaming media
• Terrestrial and wireless communications

In the medical software development industry, businesses often misinterpret that Telemedicine and Telehealth is the same, but there is a slight difference. Telehealth is a much wider concept when compared to telemedicine. Telemedicine is health communication between patients and clinicians by using video conferences or lab report exchanges and helping remote practitioners to consult patients with their treatment and medication. Telehealth services include clinical as well as non-clinical services such as training the healthcare professionals, setting up meetings  for health-related education, or sharing knowledge on specific medical terms and aspects plus remote consultation is definite.

The term telehealth has smoothly made an effort to merge with the tele medicine sector. For businesses who do not have knowledge about professional health related education will term both these terminologies as same. But that’s not the case. Telemedicine is trying its best to provide virtual medication and services and concurrently working on healthcare research and providing continuing medical education to everyone who needs it. Overall, Telehealth is responsible for taking care of all types of medication facilities from primary care providers, or health related services in person visit or and other access to medical information or health information services.While telemedicine works specifically for just clinical services.

This telecommunications technology has been a boon in medical history. It has been continuously striving to improve medical facilities by providing all types of telehealth and telemedicine services.

3. Digital Advancement in Healthcare Sector

There has always been a need for a robust and secure custom healthcare software app that is capable of enforcing the medical facilities across the world are getting advanced. This type of system will increase the support in providing world-wide services affordably and efficiently. If we talk about technology innovation then numerous products have optimized and streamlined the operations of the HealthCare system. In recent times we have seen some of the biggest tech advancements in the healthcare services sector such as

• EHR- Electronic HealthCare Record – This is a type of medical database record system that keeps track, saves the record for future analysis. Most of the offices in the USA are using this EHR system and this advancement has benefitted them by creating great strides of data centralization that would save cost and time and augment overall custom healthcare software development companies.
• mHealth- Mobile Health – Imbibing technology in healthcare systems is what the Technology aimed for. They have been successfully connecting multiple devices through wires and cords. This healthcare software development services has allowed wireless connectivity with an opportunity to manage everything through a mobile app.
• Portal Technology – This advancement in custom healthcare software development is similar to EHR where there is two-way communication in data storage. Both the patient and the Physician or Doctor can add details in this portal and can interact with each other online.
• Self Service Kiosks – These are automated portals just like bots that enable the business to register users without any manual intervention. This method in custom healthcare software development ensures the data is 100% integral as the patient has entered it on their own. Nevertheless, this would not prevent the humans from communicating but will advance this to another level.
• Remote Patient Monitoring System – The developed systems reduce the cost of going to physicians and consultants with a radical decrease in fees. Because the system enables users to monitor their health using remote monitoring systems. Advancements in healthcare software development services work with more efficiency even in virtual platforms.
• Sensor and Wearable Technology – Fitness bands are the best example of wearable smart technology. This is designed to monitor sleep, physical activities, heart rates, and other major aspects of the human body. The development sector is exponentially increasing by enabling certain integrated features in this type of healthcare software.
• Wireless Communication – The latest modern messaging systems and platforms are immensely advanced. This type of communication has enabled businesses to send and receive secure messages, and send reports as well as using smartphones or web apps or third-party clinical systems. By enabling these messaging systems in the existing ecosystem, businesses can boost the overall communication process. This will keep the information transparent and secure with all necessary options of sending and receiving.

4. The Core Functions of the Telemedicine System

With the introduction to telehealth care systems, businesses have already started taking leverage of various features and their potential. Aligning the business offers the best possible solution that will help businesses to devise a new path. This will streamline and offer the best mobile consultation services and enhance treatment facilities. As discussed, some of the key developments in the field of telemedicine were listed above. We will now address some of the critical considerations that are now part of the telemedicine method.

• Collaborative Apps – The objective of telemedicine facilities was to bring users out of a certain realm and offer them mobility. With mobile apps and their intriguing features, businesses can easily get care and consultation and interact with health care providers.
• Medical Devices Integration & EHR – Providers enabling telemedicine systems by integrating software can improve their ways of documentation and record-keeping. They can also add multimedia files to the EHR database system without any additional friction.
• HIPAA Compliant Video Conferencing Solution – For a healthcare software development company, HIPAA is a compliance activity. It does not allow businesses to tamper or use shared electronic data stored in EHR. Telemedicine systems also inline themselves on the same grounds as HIPAA. So even if video consultations are performed, securing patient’s information is also an integral part of this process. Not all devices offer this facility hence purposely such apps are built for security reasons.
• Eligibility Verification – The healthcare providers ensure that for every comprehensive video consultation, reimbursement is conducted. This is possible by adding rules to the software. It will calculate the amount and offer the services as per the calculated amount.
• Electronic Charting – This is another contributing factor in the telemedicine system where businesses can keep manage and track notes, vital information, e-prescriptions, lab reports, health assessment forms, and charting of other electronic essential details.

5. Key Aspects of Telehealth Software

A custom healthcare telehealth system is a customized software offering consultation and medication facilities for patients located at non-accessible locations. These platforms are committed to providing time and resources on a regular basis. So, businesses can simultaneously eliminate the pain of travel costs, childcare concerns, and costs. These are some of the features that you will find as custom Healthcare software services in your telemedicine systems.

• Online-Appointment Scheduling – Allows online schedule appointments for video consultation for a specific date and time without any manual efforts. This mobile facility helps customers to easily schedule appointments and send reminders to doctors  and health care providers using the app features.
• Patient & Doctor Dashboard – Start with assigning all the details in a format that is easily comprehensible for both the doctor as well as the Patients. This will simplify all the information in a graphical format which saves time in understanding the document.
• Appointment Reminders – Enables a reminder facility once an appointment is fixed. As time gets closer, this app is designed to send notifications on the scheduled appointment and time.
• HD Quality Video Chat – This is created using high-end programming which enables the business to chat with the doctor or clinicians via video chats. These are end-to-end encrypted and of high-resolution to make doctors understand the problem clearly.
• Video Session Recording – Facilitates users with end-to-end encrypted video sessions that will secure their information as per HIPAA standards. With this, the users can also record their sessions for future references.
• Multi-user Chat – In such healthcare software development services, we can have more than one user and Physicians involved. They can chat with each other on chats and video sessions.
• Reporting & Analytics – You can create a dashboard as per users or disease or any other filters. This will optimize the overall reporting by making it simpler for users to perform analysis.
• Prescription and Medication Tracker – The EHR system tracks all the given prescriptions of all the patients and provides easy accessibility from mobile locations which save the time of fetching information. Digitization has made everything at ease.
• Multiple Payment Mode – After the online consultation, it’s time for online payment. This telemedicine facility offers all types of payment models from digital wallets, credit debit and other payment facilities.

6. Telehealth Software Development Process and Cost Factor

Telehealth software development is an aid for all healthcare and hospital professionals to enhance their communication network and provide cost-effective solutions. It is a virtual platform that connects thousands of users using multiple features like intuitive designs, calling, appointments, dashboard facility, payment options, and many other influential ones. Most custom software professionals and leaders are under the incorrect assumption of believing the app to be costly. This is because telemedicine apps are developed using extensive and collaborative features.

Cost Factor of Telehealth Apps

The cost factor in telehealth systems is dependent on several factors that decide the price of the application. The influencing factors such as technology, complexity, nature of the application, domain and the market, and other important factors. The client demands more features which demand higher time investment. So, the custom healthcare software development expects associated growing costs associated with custom healthcare software development. The expertise of the developer or the development company is also one of the influential factors which might entail a longer time than expected.

Spending all the profits on a single application may not seem a wise choice and hence businesses are discovering ways to minimize the expense and boost productivity. Businesses can save on the whole by promoting in-house collaboration, automating tasks that will save most of their time and unnecessary man-hours. They can also cut down some of the non-essential features because the more they add features, the expense would amplify. Holistically speaking, telemedicine apps are a new edition of technology to the healthcare sector and initially, it would cost high. So if businesses are looking to develop a telehealth app, make a space for the budget before developing.

7. Benefits and Possibilities of Telehealth Apps in Healthcare Software Development

The emergence of software development in the healthcare sector has not started today. It prevailed for over a decade but the development was restricted in some areas and on a limited basis. The outbreak of the deadly virus that hasn’t allowed people to go out and take medication even for other normal diseases has promoted the use of leading-edge apps. In the wake of these uncertain times, when it is imperative to take medicines but on the other hand, people shouldn’t ideally go out. Telehealth apps are like a saving grace for healthcare companies who have already developed these apps and can easily treat patients virtually. So what are the benefits and best possible results that other custom healthcare software development that other companies are missing, let’s discuss each of them one by one?

• Improves Overall Business Model – Going digital in the healthcare sector is the new paradigm shift that businesses face in their existing business model. This change has brought several benefits with newer features that would streamline the way they currently process. To improvise this sector, the enhanced business model offers high-quality video services, EHR for keeping records of healthcare patients, a dashboard to overview the overall scenario and make decisions faster.
• Remote Patient Monitoring – The increasing chronic conditions of humans need timely treatment and hence this has enhanced business with ways of functioning. To provide the right treatment, it is important to monitor patients’ health history and vital signs, analyze their current situation, and provide appropriate ECG or blood pressure measurements. Remote monitoring is a fruitful benefit of the Telehealth system which helps to provide proactive treatment in a cost-efficient manner.
• Higher Patient Engagement – With no geographic limitations, the telehealth system travels across the globe providing improved treatment and engaging higher volumes of people. The custom healthcare software development has increased the reach of medical care providers and outside rural and normal care delivery.
• Reduces Overhead Cost – The patients are investing a lot of time and money in hunting for the right treatment. When you use a telehealth appointment application on your phone, the doctor is virtually visiting the patient via this app. Imagine how the expenses will accumulate for flights, parking, childcare, and taking time off work. It can be frustrating to fly to a remote doctor’s hospital with the extra effort it takes, but it is the costs that will add up.
• Enhances Healthcare Quality – The integration of technology in medical software development companies provides patients with improved deliveries and treatment for acute health problems. The patient no longer has to remember previous prescriptions because it gets stored and when the next time the patient visits, his/her data is fetched and details are displayed without much hassle. This has enhanced the overall process of healthcare treatment.
• Faster Treatment of Time – Telehealth is an autonomous software designed to enhance the turnaround time of doctors to patients. The sole purpose of designing this software is to increase the clinical efficiency workflow with a conduit of faster decision making by prioritizing the patient care services and offering a seamless communication facility to boost the time it usually takes.
• Expanded Patient Reach – As Healthcare professionals are not available in all the corners of the globe, there can be some rural areas, so telehealth services has helped to expand the reach of patients by providing cutting-edge remote consulting and treatment facilities. Multiple features of the application allow doctors and other healthcare professionals to outland some areas where physical visits are not possible even on normal days.

8. Sum up

From this entire discussion, one thing is extremely clear that Telehealth has fueled up the efficiency and reach of specialized healthcare professionals. By developing a multi-feature app, businesses have shaped a new strategy to help patients get rid of their pain and disease by enabling them with faster and qualitative consultation and treatment services. The best part that the pandemic has made us realize is that efficient use of technology in any sector will show fruitful business results. So why not revolutionize your company with healthcare software development and apps.

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When it comes to offshore outsourcing, the reality of current times was predicted by many thought leaders in the past. Usually, there is a rift between two simpler terms which often seems to have the same meaning. The two ambiguous terms are “Offshoring” and “Outsourcing”. Let’s start with understanding each term in detail.

1. What is Offshore Outsourcing?

“Offshore outsourcing” is a process of strategically engaging or contracting third-party services to get the desired work done in a country other than the actual business location. Offshore companies can be located in a different continent and yet work in synchronization. Using their technical prowess and organization’s capability, they deliver cutting-edge business solutions.

Offshore Outsourcing – combining offshoring and outsourcing. To elaborate the term “Offshore”, it means distant location. This means an offshore location is far away from the client’s business location. And “Outsourcing” means the process of escalating the tasks to an external organization which is authentic and has proven expertise in offering cutting-edge technology services considering primary and convenient business locations.

The term Offshoring initially started in the late ’90s and for many of them, this concept was ambiguous. Now that this concept has come a long way. Previously, businesses chose to outsource in order to reduce operating costs, drive innovation, get the benefits of a lower cost of investment, and higher profitability ratios. Primarily it was only a cost-effective agenda of offshore outsourcing. However, in current-day scenarios, in addition to cost-effectiveness, there are numerous other benefits that offshore outsourcing services offer like improved qualitative software, access to global talent, and flexible and talented business professionals which have made Offshore a global choice for most businesses.

2. What is the Difference Between Offshoring and Outsourcing?

After a quick brief on offshoring and outsourcing definition, it’s time we understand the concepts from the grassroots level. Outsourcing could mean differently at each level if we look to outsource, we can have multiple options such as nearshore, offshore or onsite outsourcing. Based on these specific criteria we have created a differentiator table based on specific parameters that make both Outsourcing and Offshoring. 

3. What Are the Types of Outsourcing?

Outsourcing services are in their throes when it comes to advancing business process and getting aid to a competitive edge. Businesses are contracting to various third party businesses by aligning their needs with respect to three major factors- location, relationship, and contract. There are innumerable other reasons that contribute to outsourcing depending on what business requirements are.

Statistics say that “Outsourcing dropped from 11.9% in 2017 to 9.4% of IT budgets in 2018. However, it increased to 12.7% in 2019.”- Statista

These statistics clearly state the rise of outsourcing business functions and so there is no second thought on how businesses would uplift their graph by outsourcing their demands to other leading businesses who are experts in this field. There are different outsourcing types like Business Process Outsourcing, System Services and Innovation. However, outsourcing is also classified based on locations. So here are some of the ways businesses can outsource.

1. Offshore Outsourcing

Offshoring is a subset of Outsourcing where all the benefits of outsourcing services are the benefits of offshoring business functions. As discussed above, offshoring is a process of hiring a company located in a distant location like a different country or a country located in a different continent. Most businesses are reluctant to contract offshore because of the cost it takes to travel when they decide to visit the offshore location in unforeseen situations.

2. Nearshore Outsourcing

The trend of cross-border trading is gaining a lot of attention with businesses able to leverage access to newer talent and capability. We can define the nearshore outsourcing model on the basis of the nearest location or neighboring country. The businesses trust the outsourcing company and to partner for their custom business needs. The advantage here is businesses can visit the country since geographically it is a nearing region and will cost less when deciding to travel.

3. Onshore Outsourcing

Onshore outsourcing means escalating tasks to a business located at the same location as the client’s business location. We call this type of approach onsite outsourcing. Here the business has full control over the outsourcing partnering company. Hence the most accessible and convenient way of outsourcing offers quicker benefits.

4. Onsite Outsourcing

Onsite outsourcing is a method of outsourcing where the outsourced service provider sends its professional and experienced workforce to the on-site client place. The onsite function is constrained with time. In comparison, this kind of outsourcing paradigm appears to be related to the rise in employees, but the only discrepancy here is that local or national firms are their first choice here.

5. Multi-shore Outsourcing

Businesses have distinct needs to achieve specific objectives. To enhance multiple processes at the same time, companies contract to multiple outsourcing companies and leverage multiple core business offerings. Mostly large enterprises use multisource outsourcing to keep up their work and manage the business models effectively.

4. How to Get Started With Offshore Outsourcing?

Every individual company has a unique business focus that needs to be achieved. On account of that, businesses either enhance their in-house skills or take the help of other experts from Offshore outsourcing companies. So how should a company start this plan of action of  outsourcing offshore services?

1. Understand Why Your Business Needs this?

To start with, businesses should understand the need to outsource and what profit will it bring to their business foundation. If there is a competitive benefit that businesses could achieve with best-in-class work done by experts.

2. Evaluate in-House Skillset 

It is righty said- “Strengthen your business by outsourcing your weaknesses”. And this will help businesses go a long way with their software or app developed. Offshore it outsourcing can be of numerous types by most of the business outsource IT to get the best results from IT experts.

3. Determine a Roadmap with Budget

The step before finalizing a company is to determine a budget, timeline, date of launch or project, which type of outsourcing to be chosen if offshore, which offshoring location to be specific, and more importantly, what is the budget they are ready to invest in this business.

5. How do I Choose Offshore Outsourcing Partner? 

An offshore outsourcing company will make your business win many battles of coping up with the latest technology trends. But the majority of businesses are not sure which business model to choose and how to decide on an offshoring partner.  This process is not as simple as going to a nearby vendor and asking them to help with their services. You need to meet certain factors while you choose an offshore outsourcing company for your business. So, to simplify this process of choosing the right offshore partner to increase profits, we have narrowed this process into specific steps. Let get into the process.

1. Aligning Business Needs

The first and foremost evaluating criteria for selecting an offshore outsourcing company is to examine whether the business can offer its services. In an ideal scenario, businesses can go and visit the company and understand what they are trying to sell. But in the offshoring business, this is not possible to go and visit the company. Here transparency and lucid communication plays a key role and so when your needs align to the outsourcing partner’s offering, measure them based on transparency and communication.

2. Business Background Validation

Once you have shortlisted the companies you want to partner with for outsourcing, the next big thing is to assign this to your business team. The team will now start researching the background of each shortlisted company and their service offerings with a more legit way of moving ahead to outsource.

3. Request to Propose and Quote

When you narrow down the list to a smaller list of companies, it is the right time to create an RFP. Businesses can now quote their prospects and propose business requests. If the given criteria meet in terms of budget, timeline, or technology needs then the business will go ahead giving a green flag to the potential partner. 

4. Choosing the Best-of-Breed

This process has now become simpler with the above-mentioned measurements, choosing the best of the breed means to check if each of the requirements addressed meets the price quoted and the timeline decided. In this process, you should avoid loopholes.

5. Engagement Models

After the whole decision on which business partner to choose, it’s now time to choose a method to engage with the shortlisted business. The engagement can be flexible based on the projects or a dedicated development team or a short-term engagement model. This is based on the requirements and objectives that the business targets to achieve.

Some of the Cutting-edge Qualities to Look for in an Outsourcing Vendor

1. Reliability
Trust is one of the key factors that any organization should look for in their offshore outsourcing company before they offshore their business activities. If there is a lack of trust, businesses cannot function seamlessly.

2. At-par Excellence
After trust, the next important factor is quality, if a business can offer qualitative products then nothing better than that. Reaching quality benchmarks will make businesses stand out from the race.

3. Experience
An experience is an added advantage for businesses to trust an experienced offshore outsourcing software development company. With experience, businesses can solve all types of complex business challenges and enable business with exceeding business results.

4. Range of Services
Variety of services is another business aspect that businesses should look for in their outsourcing partner. With the involvement of multiple technologies, the output will be more advanced and modern for current business scenarios.

5. Communication
A transparent and timely sharing of updates via any communication channel will enable businesses to be well-informed about their work and the timely progress report.

6. Value for Money
If the invested amount does not return a profit, there is no point for the business to spend on outsourcing business. Outsourcing was and will always be a way to improve business processes in a low-cost method.

6. Financial Engagement Models for Offshore Outsourcing

The focus on engagement models is as per the needs, desires, and convenience of the clients with an assurance that the needs are met with full-reliability, flexibility exceeding quality benchmarks. The business may have their reasons to choose the type of engagement models and all of this can be based on the certain market value of the company, experience, type of services they offer, reviews, ratings, and cost. The three generic ways of dividing the offshore outsourcing engagement models are into three certain categories namely.

1. Fixed Cost Model

A project engagement model where the price of the offshoring project is fixed beforehand when deciding the scope, project requirements, and timeline of the project. This model is useful if you do have any initial plans, estimations, and extensive research about the project. The change is not appreciated in the model because it is a fixed price model. In case you need any modification in the later stage, they may charge you extra from the estimation.

Suitability of this Type of Model

• Definite and well-planned requirements
• Small and medium projects with no big alterations
• Faster implementation and faster outcomes
• Restricted budget 

Pitfalls of This Model

• No flexibility
• Limited clients control
• Changes may cause repayment

2. Dedicated Development Team

In a dedicated development team, the business has the option of hiring or augmenting their team with a specialized team of experts consisting of all tech-savvy business managers, designers, developers and QA and project leads. This type of engagement involves skills, expertise and trust in the resources hired to achieve the business goals of this specific company. The team can either be at the client location or maybe working remotely.

Suitability of this Type of Model

• Variable and evolving requirements 
• Large size projects with flexibility
• Significant control of client on resources
• Cost-effective

Pitfalls of this model

• Needs proper process Planning
• Higher time investment
• Difference of opinions

3. Time and Material 

In this type of engagement model, businesses need to pay as they go. This means when a business opts for this type of engagement, they would pay for the work only after it is delivered. Factors like time and material are primary contributors in this model and thus the metrics here revolve around the technology stack used and the payment model measured on a timely basis (hourly, monthly or weekly). For changing business needs and long-term varying goals, this model is apt and will provide maximum profitability.

Suitability of this type of model

• Offers flexibility & continuous client monitoring 
• Update the price as per the changing market dynamics
• Scalable requirement modification
• Low-risk involved

Pitfalls of this model

• Lack of control over the scope
• Budget can overlap
• It does not have a fixed Launch date

7. Offshore Outsourcing: How to Choose Software Outsourcing Destinations?

The cross-border trading trends have leveraged businesses to access a global talented workforce by using outsourcing as their firm method of doing business. Outsourcing offers business three major types namely onshore, offshore and nearshore. For each type of outsourcing, there are developing countries like India and developed countries like the US that outperform in IT offshore outsourcing and show outclass results. Whether it is their nearest geographic location that is nearshoring or off the shore which is an overseas location. Many countries nowadays are also offering financial incentives and tax benefits to persuade foreign companies.

Based on certain criteria and market research, there are regions that offer promising results and impeccable business profitability and hence are favorable destinations for offshore outsourcing services.

1. India

Undoubtedly, India is the most favorite outsourcing destination from all the Asian countries with millions of technology leading businesses and innovative and talented professionals in the Indian Outsourcing market. We can say one of the prime reasons for outsourcing software development services to India is cost-effectiveness. They spare no effort in reaching all technology sectors and have augmented businesses with their expertise and experience for all sizes of businesses from startups to enterprise level. India’s strengths as an offshore outsourcing location are service quality and integrity.

Average hourly rate range- $25-$60, as per the outsourced business size.

Offshore Outsourcing cities  Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Gurugram, Ahmedabad

2. Northern America

This region has the biggest global tech disrupting countries in software development business like the USA and Canada. Their experience and proficiency in the technology stack are unparalleled and it is the world’s leading technology development center with best-of-breed business companies in Silicon techno hub and other regions of America. They have all the technological availability that makes them a highly developed nation and as a result, they charge more in comparison to others.

Average hourly rate range $75-$350, as per the outsourced business size.

Offshore Outsourcing cities: Seattle, San Francisco, San Jose, Dallas, Phoenix, Waterloo, Vancouver

3. Australia and Oceania

Even though these nations are not large in terms yet they are apparently in demand when it comes to technology. Their transparency to startups and innovations in technology makes them a leader in the domain of software growth. These countries concentrate on years of experience in software outsourcing to appreciate all types of technology techniques, whether standardized or non-standardized. Their only limitation is their separate geography that complicates the travel route.

Average hourly rate range- $90-$150, as per the outsourced business size.

Offshore Outsourcing Cities- Melbourne, Sydney, Wellington

4. Latin America

Software Outsourcing destinations are growing exponentially at a good rate, Latin America and its cities are gaining a lot of attention in terms of outsourcing tasks. This region has projects in abundance from medium-sized businesses and millions of software developers to cater to this need effectively. They have a large government-supported outsourcing market, but their policies vary and the services they offer may be devalued.

Average hourly rate range- $40-$75, as per the outsourced business size.

Offshore Outsourcing Cities- Monterrey, Mexico City, Tijuana, San Juan, Belo Horizonte

5. Europe

Europe is the largest continent in terms of area, number of software companies and economy. Their business arena is confined to onshore outsourcing and believed it to be a cost-effective method of software development and pay high wages to local developers. They follow GDPR and the level of security of outsourced data is therefore high. They provide qualitative, but very costly, services. Their services offered are primarily related to their businesses’ local needs and not global ones. Eastern European countries, however, are comparatively different.

Average hourly rate range-  $35-$175, as per the outsourced business size.

IT Hubs: London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam

Offshore Outsourcing cities- Warsaw, Kyiv, Minsk, Kishinev, Sofia, Prague

8. Offshore Development Team Structure

For any business owner before deciding to outsource, it is essential to understand the team structure and then initiate offshore outsourcing. Though this wouldn’t be an ideal way every business processes but the majority of them do. 

1. Project Manager/Manager
The PM is the communicator between the development team at the offshore location and the client. For all the communication involved in the process, the PM would streamline the work and pass information to the team. The PM has a vital role in this phenomenon because they keep both team and client posted about the project changes and modified targets.

2. Development Team
The team consists of developers, designers, QA engineers who are the key players in this new-edge project development and validation. For a large number of developers, there is an assigned team leader who manages the overall tasks excellently.

3. QA Testing Team
The QA will determine that developed projects match the final output. There is a general standard of evaluation that makes businesses manage the project effectively through various variations and testing methodology.

9. What is a Software Development Agreement?

Any organization willing to get support from another organization is obliged to sign a legal contract. It is necessary to establish roadmaps to communicate the legal roles and rights of each party to avoid any future conflicts. We can call this arrangement a Software Development Agreement.

A Software Development Agreement is a two-party partnership, one of which is the paying company and the second the supplier company. This arrangement is designed to conform to the laws concerning the provision of aid, service, and maintenance in the construction of the whole enterprise. When they intend to share their vision with offshore outsourcing companies, businesses may have several questions. The structure of NDA is determined with rules and other variety of options such as code ownership, intellectual property rights, patents and other terms & conditions that influence the outsourcing project. 

With more precision, this agreement can be defined by specific rules that need to be adhered to by both parties. So basically there are two major types of agreement.

• Project Software Development Agreement
• Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)

10. Non-Disclosure Agreement NDA and its Purpose

“NDA is one type of software contract used in the software development business to protect companies from any breach relating to classified and proprietary details during outsourcing and at the time of engagement is known as the NDA-Non Disclosure Agreement.”

This agreement is made because all the company conditions have been readily communicated by the two companies and their time and expense parameters are in agreement. In any case, the arrangement will contain a list of details that the individual wishes to keep private. This arrangement is not limited to business plans produced exclusively for digital products or source codes or other analytical information that cannot be revealed to the media. In this clause of NDA, businesses can decide on what to keep confidential and what not.

Enlisted are some of the major fundamental attributes included in an NDA

• The introductory section where both the business type and background are explained.
• Mentioning the confidentiality clauses for what should be public and whatnot.
• The agreement validity.
• The parameters considered and omitted in the software agreement.
• Rules of penalty for cases where clauses of NDA are overlooked.

Types of NDA

1. Unilateral Non-Disclosure Agreement

Uni-means one and lateral means sideways and in the same regards unilateral means the one-way contractual agreement between two parties. The prime focus here is out of the two parties only one will take complete responsibility in case of any information breach. The first part here is the client company partnering and the second party is the offshore outsourcing service provider. The recipient is the second party who needs to sign the document to adhere to the scrutiny of the agreement by neither manipulating the information nor leaking it to some third party. These unilateral agreements come with mandatory clauses that cannot be manipulated by any bearer. Majorly, you involve freelancers and consultants in this agreement.

2. Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement

The mutual NDA is an agreement created by involving two parties based on the mutually agreed rules on the confidentiality of the information between the two parties. Majorly, this type of mutual NDA is considered fair between the parties giving equal rights to both.

3. Terms and Conditions of Agreement

In all the terms and conditions, a Software agreement – an NDA encompasses rules that need to be adhered to by both the business parties and maintained throughout the tenure of business. These terms are made to clarify businesses about their rights and regulations of the agreement. Your NDA must answer the following questions given below:

• What is the timeline of the created NDA? 
• How much does an ideal term of NDA mean?
• What is the proprietary information included in an NDA?
• Which terms are an exclusion to confidentiality?
• What are the obligations of the agreement and its confidentiality?

4. Deemed Confidential

A strategic form of information to portray through NDA that warns the business to prevent them from any kind of data breach. This part of NDA specifically notes which information is confidential and which information is not confidential. Without any misunderstanding or loopholes in the disclosing party, this segment will expand on a clearer understanding of details. To be specific, this always leaves both the businesses in a verbal agreement which creates confusion in the future about the pact. This oral information, which must be confirmed in a written form by the disclosing party to notify the receiving party in order to keep it confidential, is also considered confidential. 

11. What are the Advantages of Offshore Outsourcing?

It is a common practice to outsource work to offshore locations. This benefits businesses in multiple ways. The practice of outsourcing a part of business to an offshore location is called Offshore Outsourcing. The rise of competition and other favorable rules applied by the government in cross-border trading has advocated offshoring. Most Companies tend to offshore outsourcing to offer businesses to countries where work is challenging but modern western culture allows finding minimal waged professionals to work harder. What are some of the obvious benefits of Offshore outsourcing, let’s get into the details of each.

1. Cost Savings

Your business will receive massive cost benefits for businesses making it a most opted choice of outsourcing. The most obvious reason is cost savings. Offshoring workers in a developing country is an optimal choice because it offers a lower cost of business operations, lower labor costs, technology, tools, infrastructure, and development. After evaluating the job done by offshoring, the ultimate output will be better in terms of quality, timeliness, cost, and customer support services.

2. Scalable Resources

During uncertain times of ramp down or fortunate days of great business day, the count of resources varies, and here is where offshore outsourcing comes into the picture. Offshoring offers businesses an opportunity to scale up and down resources as the state of business is.

3. Expanding Business Horizons

If the business has chosen an offshore outsourcing partner and this benefits the business in the long-term will allow them to grow their business offshore. By choosing to offshore, companies can easily focus on their core business tasks and in return it helps them to perform operations efficiently. Businesses can have an office in the offshore location for their hired employees and can strategically grow their business.

4. All Rights Reserved

The client gets to decide if they want to Offshore or not. It is the client’s choice and they always have an upper hand on how to successfully run the business.

5. High-end Deliverables

By choosing excellent, proficient, and high-skilled workers your business can expect to receive the best work with efficiency and timeliness. It is their niche skills, expertise and technical prowess that will ensure top-notch qualitative applications.

6. Faster Delivery Time

Offshore companies can create an entire team at the same cost that you spend on hiring an in-house employee. We can process the workflow rapidly using multiple development teams and quality assurance with no restrictions and hassle-free outputs. This enables us in a short time to deliver quality results.

7. Minimal Associated Risks

For any business Offshoring offers a financial cost-cutting in terms of infrastructural costs, hiring new employees, adding up their payrolls, additional investment on infrastructure, enhancing core competencies, and many more other technical concerns.

8. 24*7 Availability

The offshore business professionals ensure their availability as per the client’s timings. Say for instance, if the client is a US-based company and the offshore company is located in India, then the employees can work as per the standard business hours of the US for 100% technical support for businesses as required.

12. How does Offshore Outsourcing Reduce Costs?

There has been a lot of discussions already on what type of benefits offshore outsourcing is capable of offering. The main one of them is it helps to save money. But now, we need to know which one benefits the most out of all other types of outsourcing benefits. Here are some of the untapped cost benefits that offshoring offers.

1. Capital Investment

Offshoring prevents businesses from investing hefty amounts in any new technology, instead offers experts to take care of the software development with less risk and cut costs of capital investment. 

2. Operational Costs

Businesses can now operate seamlessly multiple tasks by offshoring their weaknesses to experts of other countries at a price that is economical and worthy.

3. Technology Learning Cost

If a business is freshly starting to invest in a technology platform, some initial tasks would require training and expertise, so there can be additional tasks involved in that section.

4. Infrastructural Setup Cost

When you want to develop an app using a specific technology, you might need to install the technology stack required for that in all the systems and this is an additional development cost. 

5. Hiring Costs

Empowering businesses with technology expertise need high-skilled and experienced resources and need an extra budget for hiring the resources while the project is initiated. And after the project is completed, the business may not be able to afford such high-paid resources.

6. Addition up-gradation of Technology Cost

Technology up-gradation occurs periodically and to keep business up and running, you need to be advanced with technology.

13. What are the Challenges of Offshore Outsourcing?

Businesses around the world have been hesitant with the thought of offshore outsourcing and they have their calculations and reasons for not outsourcing like costs, technology stack, operational savings, and others to save more for a successful outsourcing relationship. Here are some of the reasons or qualms of offshore outsourcing.

1. Concerns about Intellectual Property And Data Security

Most of the businesses prevent themselves from outsourcing to an offshore location because of security risks or incorrect use of data sent to the outsourcing company. Businesses without NDA agreement can also perform information breach activities like leaking the information to third party companies knowingly or unknowingly. 

2. Controlling Project Control And Decision Making

Most businesses think that if they outsource their work, the outsourcing company will take the charge and control the process of app development. Also, the decisions on quality control, what should be developed and how will also be taken by their experts.

3. No Direct View of the Development Process

As we know, offshore location is distant geography, probably in a different or opposite continent altogether. So transparency to the process of software development is one of the reasons why businesses do not feel right to outsource.

4. Language And Cultural Barriers

Outsourcing to a country where there is an unknown language and cultural barrier that doesn’t allow businesses to have faith in the offshore partner. 

5. Time-Zone Differences

Time-zone plays an important role when deciding to outsource because for countries like India and Canada when Canada starts working, it’s time for Indian employees to conclude their day. So this is also a reason why most organizations do not outsource. 

14. 7 Tips to Manage Offshore Development Team Effectively

For most businesses, it has been a complex task to manage their Offshore team efficiently. Offshore outsourcing creates a lot of stress on the outsourcing company which gets distributed among the team members of the company who decided to outsource. This majorly occurs due to inexperience or inefficiency to cater to the outsourced company’s business needs. So, let us concede and come up with some essential tips that will be helpful for businesses to manage offshore development teams.

1. Start with Crisply Communicating the Goal

The outsourcing business must understand the business goals that are targeted and want to be achieved. Share everything about the business goal aimed to be achieved using this software developed. So if the outsourcing business knows in-out of the goal so it will be easier for them to articulate the process and develop the app.

2. Make Everyone Aligned on the Same Rule-book

Yes, this is a very important step for businesses to understand that everybody is on the same page before developing a product or service. Businesses around the globe have different methods and standards of working and hence to narrow down in the same boat is of extreme importance. Aligning every business stakeholder with this need will make them achieve the target goal without any misunderstanding.

3. Responsive and Respectful to Work and Time-zones

Offshore business is located at a complete opposite location and their standard of working may differ from the outsourcing company. Time Zone is an added advantage to businesses for concurrently working round the clock for their business. In remote working, time zones add the benefit of time overlap when you conduct online Meetings and skype calls.

4. Conduct Regular Project Demonstration

After completion of every single milestone, ask businesses to give a demonstration of how it works just to gain the trust of the business and show them their continuous effort of working towards the client’s goal. This demonstration will benefit the offshoring business as they can incorporate the changes as soon as the project is under development.

5. Transparent and Communicable Project Management Software

A collaborative software approach that allows businesses to keep track of regular activities through transparent project management software. This software enables businesses to have rapid access and view to all the information about the project starting from the progress of the project, project data, team members involved, and similar other information.

6. Work Synchronization using Agile Methodology

All the team members of the both offshoring business and the client needs are at different locations and hence to work cordially they need to sync up work regularly. Syncing work on a daily or weekly basis will allow the business to show the appropriate work done and how much will be the actual timeline of ongoing tasks even though the outsourced team and the client are working in an agile environment with different time zones.

7. Communicate for Growth

Whenever there is feedback or an opinion towards the ongoing development, it should be apt and progressive. This makes software development more efficient and high performing. 

15. Concluding Thoughts

In this tech-savvy world, where customers are driven by fast-paced software changes and technology advancements, it is time for businesses to stay ahead of the competition in the best way they could. This narrows down with the thought of leveraging the capabilities of experts and partnering with outsourcing companies. Offshoring is the viable way to achieve a competitive edge. Turning to an offshoring partner is a matter of trust and communication. In this blog, we have tried to cover all the dominating factors that could make offshore outsourcing essential and beneficial for businesses. Offshoring has always benefited businesses with aids such as enhanced processes, boost productivity, scalability, improved business operations and offer profitable results. So, without much ado, choose the best fit team for your offshore outsourcing business. 

The post Offshore Outsourcing: Let’s Get Started with Software Development appeared first on TatvaSoft Blog.

Software Outsourcing is defined as “A method of employing a third-party service provider or expert to develop a software project.

Businesses around the world are experiencing a topsy-turvy ride in the uncertain times of economic downturn. In 2020, every business is holding tight with their finances and yet wants to outshine in this highly competitive world of technology space. Outsourcing software development can help businesses embrace technology solutions, improve business productivity, and streamline operations. Hiring an outsourced software development team to manage specific requirements of enterprises with a deeper understanding of business goals is what businesses need.

Outsourcing software development services is a smart choice to upscale businesses and see faster results without worrying about the technology side. But for that, we will have to start with what outsourcing software development is, and what are its pros and cons. 

Outsourcing software development has become prudent for every business to continuously evolve. It is challenging for businesses to stay abreast of changing technology trends, manage overall operations, within budget, and also gain an edge over the competition. This makes hiring a software outsourcing company a strategic decision for efficient, cost-effective, and successful software development. Previously, this outsourcing method was more inclined to the financial stature of the business, but now there are hundreds of influencing factors responsible for outsourcing software development. So why exactly do businesses utilize software development outsourcing services when they already have in-house teams? What benefits do they get?

Global Software Development Outsourcing has a market value of USD 333.7 billion in 2019. It is expected to grow to USD 397.6 billion by 2025, with a CAGR of 4.5% during the forecast period (2020 – 2025).-Source

2. Difference between Software Development Outsourcing and In-House Development

Uncertain times have taken a toll on businesses driving them more towards modern custom software solutions and applications. To progress in the right direction, businesses need to seek help from experts and pave their path ahead. But for businesses, it is challenging to find expert software developers in a limited period to meet fast-approaching deadlines. Amid all these uncertainties, it is more challenging to maintain an in-house team and train them in case of any technical inefficiencies.

In-house software development and software outsourcing services are generally two different methods of development. It is not always cost or lack of inefficiency that causes businesses to opt for software outsourcing. But there are numerous reasons for it and to understand that, let us start with the primary understanding of what in-house development is.

1. What is In-house Software Development?

Any business, whether from the software industry or from any other vertical with a set of IT resources or a technical department to look after their software development needs and solutions. In-house development means that the employed resources are easily accessible and expertise over the cutting-edge technology aspect of the business.

Specifically, if we talk about software outsourcing companies,  the software development process may differ from one company to another. The biggest limitation here is the right skill set and the amount of technical knowledge of the hired employees. These resources aren’t inefficient, but their knowledge needs upgrading with time. The pros of having a skilled in-house team are 24*7 availability and you can modify their work as per the technology changes.

However in-house development is an expensive option because of the numerous expenses involved. Like the recruitment process, infrastructure investment costs, and high payroll demanded by software professionals. Plus, the availability of potential talent is limited compared to software outsourcing companies because of limited vicinity.

2. What is Software Development Outsourcing?

“Software development outsourcing involves hiring an individual or a team from external sources to handle some or all of the software development projects.“

Speaking about the perks of software development outsourcing then the biggest one is cost-efficient in terms of time and money. But if you are employing freelancers or contractual employees, the rules of employment will be different. In comparison to in-house teams, there are risks associated with success and failure ratios. Hence the company’s brand image can get damaged with the same possibility of business profitability and enhanced cash flow.

Holistically speaking, the true value of outsourcing software development processes lies in the potential benefits it is capable of offering in the longer term. Your business has access to hiring global talent from anywhere in the world. So, while you think that your business should hire only the best mobile app developer, then you must tap the potential of outsourcing that gives you access to top-notch mobile app development experts who may live on a different continent.

Undoubtedly the results may vary at every level of partnership with the outsourcing software development company. Your business needs to take control of the outsourcing team because now they have become proficient with years of expertise in providing outsourcing services to various customers globally.

3. Tabular Representation of the Contributing Parameters of Both the Types of the Development Process

3. What Makes Businesses Decide to Outsource?

Certainly, multiple influential factors probe businesses to decide to opt for outsourcing software development projects. Previously in the 19th and 20th centuries, businesses never used outsourcing as a business practice but this has eventually changed with time. Unaware of the potential benefits, most of the business never considered outsourcing. So, what made current-day businesses outsource?

1. Reduce Cost and Expenditure

Money and time are the two impactful reasons why most businesses decide to outsource. Rather than employing full-time employees on payroll and investing in infrastructure and other licensing and training costs, it is better to outsource. Outsourcing is the most viable option for businesses to reduce their expenditure and improve profit margins.

2. Improved Efficiency and Focus

With specialists taking over the overall projects and services, there is no question of familiarity or knowledge of technology. They only take up the project if they have expertise in that specific field and capability in the same business arena.

3. Flexible Solution Offering

The businesses must now accommodate change quickly in these changing dynamics. For this, they have to enable agility in their entire development processes to meet current market needs and demands. With the ability to outsource their services, businesses can now cater to changing needs easily and stop looking at the escalating cost of hiring and other technology investments.

4. Globalization of Talent

Internal resources are limited to a city or state, no resource travels from one country to another. To access global talent, Outsourcing will be the best option for businesses. Access to the globalization of talent by hiring remote developers, and designers and working from offshore to give a boost to your business with their services.

5. Higher Strategic Time

If you have an expert to work for your business, it frees up most of the time you spend and adds up value to other essential tasks. While your outsourcing business is managed at the backend by experts, you can now invest your time and knowledge in making decisions that can lead to greater productivity.

6. Build Productive Partnerships

Outsourcing can help businesses to build and sustain their organizational goals. If you partner with the right company, your business will be able to improve efficiency, and productivity, improve the quality of the product, and create a scalable work environment.

7. Meeting Customer Expectations

Most of the time, it seems challenging to meet customer expectations. It may be because the business is grappling with several other functions that hinder the end goal of meeting customer expectation benchmarks. Software Outsourcing companies help you magnify your efforts in customer satisfaction by building high-performing modern apps.

8. Increasing and Scaling Team Skills

As per the demands of changing technologies businesses have to pace up hiring and releasing resources as per the need. This is not always feasible. Here, Outsourcing is a saving grace where businesses can easily hire the software development team as per the project needs. they can even scale up or down the resources as per the project demands.

9. Reaching a Broader Market

Changing customer demands need to be addressed with an innovative approach. Outsourcing companies come with diversified experience in catering to businesses from various geographies. Their standard practices have helped businesses meet expectations and reach a wider audience.

10. Stay Ahead with Technology

Market Disruptions are a threat and an opportunity for businesses, only if they know how to have an upper hand in technology. Partnering with the right software development outsourcing partner will help your business gain a competitive advantage over peers that promise innovation and sustainability.

4. Software Outsourcing and Its Types

The cross-border trading trend has offered businesses to leverage a newer stream of talent and capability. An outsourcing model is defined based on how they align across these three major factors- location, relationship, and contract.

With a wide list of services, it is vital to uncover the types of software development outsourcing methods. Among the list, there are different types of software outsourcing services like

• Onsite outsourcing
• Onshore outsourcing
• Nearshore outsourcing
• Offshore outsourcing
• Multi shore Outsourcing
• Staff augmentation model
• Managed team outsourcing
• Project-based outsourcing

Out of these, the two most renowned and largely accepted are NearShore Outsourcing and Offshore Outsourcing. Both these models play a large role in providing fruitful results to the client. Let’s start with understanding all the types of software outsourcing models and for more convenience, we have also accumulated a list as per the pricing and budgetary aspects.

Choosing the Best-fit model for Software Outsourcing

To harness the capability of the best-of-breed software outsourcing partner, you must know the models of engagement for businesses. Depending on the feasibility of the business, these models are categorized into:

1. Nearshore Outsourcing

As the name suggests, Nearshore outsourcing is an outsourcing model where geographic proximity is taken into consideration. The tasks/ projects outsourced will be performed by the people of the country or from the neighboring countries. For instance, if a company is based in the USA, then they outsource their services to countries nearby like Mexico and Canada. The countries within the limited vicinity are preferred in nearshoring with a fundamental goal of traveling. This enables them to travel whenever needed and can be easily communicated. Plus, the other advantage is they speak the same language and follow almost the same standard practices, so there are no cultural differences.

2. Offshore Outsourcing

In the Offshore Outsourcing model, the part of work or full work is outsourced to any feasible country. It depends on how well it suits the business needs and optimizes overall processes. This outsourcing model is an aid to optimize the overall budget and prefers to hire from a global pool of talented resources with hourly rates or monthly costs. For many businesses, time zones play a significant role in remote working. As a result, there is an added benefit of time-overlap during e-meetings and internet calls.

3. Onsite Outsourcing

Onsite outsourcing is a type of outsourcing where the outsourcing company sends their proficient and high-skilled employees to the client location- Onsite. The period of onsite work is limited. Moreover, this type of outsourcing model seems relatable to staff augmentation. The main difference here is local or country-wide companies are not preferred herein onsite outsourcing.

4. Onshore Outsourcing

In the Onshoring type of outsourcing, the business can contract with any other software development company within the country but not within the same company. Even if the same company is located in a different state, it won’t be considered as onshore outsourcing. It should be a different company in any location within the country.

5. Multi-shore Outsourcing

Multi-shore outsourcing can be defined as employing many companies concurrently based on their location and service provided. This type of engagement model is safe and often used by large corporations for their distinct business needs that are catered to by nearshore and offshore partners.

6. Staff Augmentation Model

With Staff augmentation, businesses are leasing their employees to another software development company. The business can add resources to their team as per the business requirements temporarily to augment their workforce and achieve business goals.

7. Managed Team Outsourcing

In the managed team model, the client hires a team that can be onshore or offshore and manages their day-to-day development process. The client’s in-house project manager regularly communicates with the outsourced team as well as assigns and verifies tasks. So key decision-making rights remain with the in-house project manager.

8. Project-based Outsourcing

In Project-based models, the majority of the responsibility is on the outsourcing provider and how he handles the projects. The outsourcing provider is the task-master of development projects who manages the requirements, owning the projects from beginning to end.

5. Onshore Software Outsourcing vs Offshore Software Outsourcing: What to Choose?

After a thoughtful projection of all types of outsourcing services, the most common debate lies between onshore and offshore outsourcing. Most businesses are confused about which type of model they should consider outsourcing. To shed more light on this, we have gathered information on both types and portrayed it through this comparison table:

There are multiple ways businesses can collaborate with other businesses and software development outsourcing companies. The above-mentioned were based on location preferences, now let’s discuss other types of engagement models based on financial aspects and budget.

6. Software Outsourcing: Financial Engagement Models

1. Fixed cost

The fixed-cost pricing model does not work on estimations but the payments are fixed and deliveries of software services are limited. The changing demands of businesses are noted, documented, and aligned to service offerings accordingly. These services can include anything from custom software development, mobile app development, website development, or any other cutting-edge software development services. In case any extra tasks apart from what is mentioned in the contract are requested from the client, then the client has to pay extra for that task.

In this model, it is advisable to discuss all the norms before imprinting them in a contract. It is a cost-effective method where the customer can decide the cost they would like to spend and then take action.

Which type of companies should go for this model? Companies with

• Small Projects with limitations
• Limited budget
• Clear requirements
• Faster results

2. Dedicated Development Team

In a dedicated Development Team method, the end customer is assigned a set of developers for their time-specific project. In this method, the client is billed as per the services offered. As per the project needs, the resources are chosen depending on the skills, experience, and expertise. The client company can manage the resources on their own and even assign a leader to report to them within their company. If the client wants, the resources can also work at the client’s company or work remotely on the company’s behalf.

The resources can be a business analyst, project manager, software developer, graphic designer, or any project lead depending on the business requirements.

Which type of companies should go for this model? Companies with

• Long-Lasting projects and relationship
• No restrictions on the budget
• Requirements are evolving with time
• The project may get frequent changes

3. Time and Material Model

The time and Material model appeals to all the users who want a flexible pricing model. This pay-as-you-go method allows users to pay as per the tasks delivered. This is a perfect fit for businesses whose requirements keep changing and there is no long term goal. There are short-term goals that the business wants to achieve.

Which type of companies should go for this model? Companies with

• Dynamic business requirements
• Short term objectives
• Limited budget

7. Assessment Parameters to Evaluate Software Outsourcing Vendors

After the types of business models involved and the number of benefits businesses can leverage by partnering with a modern software outsourcing company, it’s time to partner with the right company. To select a specific business partner, businesses must have some evaluating parameters or checklist that would help them to sieve out the best fit for their business needs. When you collaborate with outsourcing partners, they may promise you to offer exceptional business benefits but may not fulfill your expectations when it comes to complex and challenging applications. So here there are certain essential parameters required for businesses to scrutinize the process of selection.

1. Evaluating Technical Proficiency

When you are investing an amount in an offshore company, it is of extreme importance to understand and know the level of technical proficiency and experience the custom software development company possesses. No project can be the same, every business has unique business requirements and that requirement needs special skills. Evaluate the skills and experience of the potential outsourcing company and understand what they are capable of offering.

2. Validation of Current Client Relationships

Client testimonials are another way to validate an organization based on their work. Understand the type of client, their business offering, their relationship with previous clients can also be an influential factor in assessing an IT outsourcing vendor. Also, to be precise in judging, there are independent sites showcasing client reviews, outsourcing company reviews, etc. The existing client can be contacted too via email to have a clearer vision.

3. Communication and Transparency

Working with any individual or an organization needs to be contracted with the foundations of trust. Whether you partner with a nearshore company or an offshore business, it is important to be bound by trust. Transparent communication brings trust to this outsourcing business. So in case, if you find everything on point but no transparency, think wisely before making a decision.

4. Team Scaling

Scaling of resources is an important aspect of the software business. In the case of meeting deadlines or recovering delays, team size has to be increased. A software outsourcing company should have enough bench strength of software developers to provide additional resources and speed up the projects.

8. Setting Up Your Software Outsourcing: About Outsourcing Destinations

Every business has its own unique business needs and to fulfill that they call for help from different companies located nearby or offshore. In such cases, people are reaching out to software outsourcing companies as per their needs or nearshore locations. But nearshore locations cannot always be advantageous. So to simplify this method of selection, we have filtered out a list of popular outsourcing destinations all over the globe.

1. India

The Indian outsourcing market has millions of companies and supremely talented professionals who work cost-effectively compared to other countries. In terms of market space and types of technology, they haven’t left any stone unturned. They have been offering all types of cutting-edge solutions to businesses around the globe. The amount of innovation in startups and big shot enterprises is proliferating in India, it is commendable with integrity and quality of service.

The typical hourly rates range from $15-$65, depending on the size of the company partnered.

Software Outsourcing city hubs: Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi

2. Northern America

Their expertise in the emerging technology stack is unbeatable. With the best in a lot of businesses in the Silicon Valley hub, it is one of the world’s largest technology development sectors. The skills and engineering expertise is excellent. These countries are extremely stable since they are developed countries and have all the technological availability which makes them charge high compared to others.

The typical hourly rates range from $75-$300, depending on the size of the company partnered.

Software Outsourcing city hubs: Seattle, San Francisco, San Jose, Dallas, Phoenix, Waterloo, Vancouver

3. Australia and Oceania

Though area-wise these countries are smaller but technology-wise they receive the highest technical attention. Their openness to startups and technology innovations makes them a leader in the software development genre. These countries focus on years of software outsourcing experience appreciating all types of technology methods whether standardized or non-standardized. Their major limitation is their isolated location that complicates business to travel.

The typical hourly rates range from $100-$150, depending on the size of the company partnered.

Software Outsourcing city hubs: Melbourne, Sydney, Wellington

4. Europe

This is the largest region with a higher number of software development companies and with higher economies. Their IT sector typically believes in onshore outsourcing as paying wages to local developers is a cost-effective method. They follow GDPR and thus the security level of data outsourced is high. They offer qualitative but very expensive services. Their offered services are mostly concerning the local needs of their businesses and not global. However, eastern European countries are comparatively cheaper than those in the West and countries like Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. They have a very large IT sector providing nearshore outsourcing services to many western European companies.

The typical hourly rates range from $35-$175, depending on the size of the company partnered.

IT hubs: London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam

Software Outsourcing city hubs: Warsaw, Kyiv, Minsk, Kishinev, Sofia, Prague

5. Latin America

Latin America is an ever-expanding region with software outsourcing destinations that are exponentially growing at a good rate. From a medium-sized market, now they have over a million software developers and a striking volume of projects and developers to choose from. They have a large outsourcing market supported by the government but their policies are varying and so there can be a devalue to the services they offer.

The typical hourly rates range from $40-$70, depending on the size of the company partnered.

Software Outsourcing city hubs: Monterrey, Mexico City, Tijuana, San Juan, Belo Horizonte

9. Importance of Software Agreement

Every business that seeks help from another business is bound to sign a legal contract. This contract is briefly called a Software Development Agreement. To prevent the event of future disputes, it is important to create roadmaps and mention each party’s legal duties and rights.

A Software / Project Development Agreement is an agreement between two parties, one (the company that pays) and the second (the supplier company). To elaborate, this agreement is ascertained to abide by rules that govern the provision of assistance, support, and maintenance facilities during the development of the entire project. Businesses may have multiple questions as they plan to outsource an offshore company. Their development process should be fixed with structured intellectual property rights for businesses. It should clearly state what should be made public and what should not be, ownership of source code, patents, terms and conditions, and similar vital issues before completing the outsourcing process.

To put more light on this, when businesses consider outsourcing, there are agreements bound by rules which should be abided by both parties. There are two types of agreement

• Project/software development agreement
• Non-disclosure agreement

As per the business needs, a company might need to work with cross-border companies. Because of the different rules followed in each country, these agreements are difficult to enforce. This makes companies hesitant to work with offshore businesses. That is why many companies prefer to work with offshore companies that have registered offices on-site. This makes the agreement easier to enforce even in case of disputes.

1. Scope of the project
   In general, everything from technical system designs, development tools, methodology, or any other systems required to complete the project is included in the scope of the work. Besides, everything required during development, and post-development support is also included. It also includes technical documentation agreements like all hardware support, source code repositories and hosting support repositories.
2. Payment Terms
   It also considers the convenience of payment when the scope of work is decided. The payment models can be fixed based on the requirements. Businesses can choose a monthly cycle for payment or can adopt a fix-price model or a pricing model based on the material used and time invested. The choice of the payment model should be done at the time of the software agreement and included in the agreement at that moment.
3. Intellectual property rights
   The intellectual properties of a business include the right to a patent, trade-marks, IP access, copyrights, topography rights, data extraction from database rights, the right to protect source code, and other forms of equal property rights. This impacts the business ecosystem when outsourced. These norms have the same effect and may persist to have similar rules anywhere in the world.
4. Penalty terms
   In any case, If the performance of the request is not met or there is an incident of a data breach then for any penalty payable, enterprises must be prepared for this damage. In such instances, if both parties agree on a penalty amount, companies can fix it. Businesses can have fair compensation if the business needs are not met.
5. Confidentiality
   Customers often have to disclose business secrets while providing company requirements to the custom software development company. Customers and suppliers must agree not to disclose any type of project information, business models, market strategies, trade secrets, know-how, patents, copyrights, financial information, sales distribution strategy, internet and e-commerce strategies or any such information which may be written. In the software agreement, electronic data can be collectively referred to as “Confidential Information”.
6. Data Protection
   Over time, a company may have gathered a lot of information such as personal information such as name, address, email ID, phone number, etc. Law has kept it mandatory to keep this information protected. There are heavy financial penalties in countries such as the US and UK in the event of violation or misuse. The European Union has GDPR rules of its own. While outsourcing providers of software development services may gain access to data for development or maintenance. To prevent future disputes the role and responsibility of suppliers related to data protection should be clearly defined in the development agreement.
7. Law and Arbitration
   Businesses have started including a clause of arbitration in every software development contract created nowadays. Arbitration is generally an out-of-court proceeding wherein a neutral third party element is called an arbitrator. He/She hears the allegations and evidence of both the parties and makes a binding decision. This is an alternative method to resolve disputes by adding a clause for arbitration in SLA.
8. Limitation of liability
   Here it is provisioned a clause in SLA (Service Level Agreement) that specifies the amount and type of damage caused by each party to other undertakings in different circumstances. It is essentially a duty to compensate for some failure to function when the service’s development needs are not met. However, a service provider can always put up a condition for maximum penalty applicable depending on the cost of the project.
9. Employee Solicitation
   If the recipient has significant access to the outsourced company’s developers, then companies may want to include a provision concerning the same in their Software Agreement. This could restrict clients from employing service providers employees and vice-versa for at least 12-24 months. Sometimes, the other party may not agree to do so. Having a policy in that reference can restrict the customers from hiring the employees of outsourcing companies. This can also apply to employees working on offshore projects based in different countries.
10. Authority in case of disputes
    In the event of any dispute between the parties, the undertakings should be aware of the fact that the case will operate at the place of jurisdiction referred to in the agreement. If the manufacturer is offshore and the court location is your location, then it is always helpful. However, if the supplier refuses to appear in court, in case of any dispute, then it is challenging to enforce the agreement. Hence, you should include this also in the clause.
    If the judicial location is the location of the supplier, then the local court can always enforce the agreement, but there will be a huge loss of time and money in traveling several times and hiring lawyers at the location of suppliers. So it is always advisable to deal with a software company that has a registered office in your country while outsourcing work to offshore companies. Also to maintain the judicial location as a single country for the supplier and your company. This will be beneficial for both parties, as they can easily enforce the agreement in the event of any dispute.

11. Commandment
By adding a clause that gives you the right to injunctive relief, you can protect the business from breaching the agreement. This clause simply says that the other party can obtain the permission of a court against the disclosing company and can prevent the violation act from them. In the case of money issues, injunctive relief is quite a late move.

10. NDA in Software Outsourcing

NDA- commonly known as Non Disclosure Agreement is another type of software agreement used in software development business to prevent businesses from any disputes related to confidential and proprietary information during the outsourcing business at the time of engagement.

Keeping in consensus all the business requirements, criteria and time in this agreement for two businesses. The agreement can include a list of information that the customer wants to keep confidential. This agreement is not limited to business plans or source codes or software products or any analytical details only. These facts can not be made public. But what they want to keep secretive under the NDA norm and what they want to keep public depends on the company.

Some of the fundamental factors of a Non-disclosure agreement include

• A preface to both the parties and their business backgrounds
• To determine the confidentiality clauses like what should be kept confidential and what not
• The term limit of the agreement
• The inclusions and exclusions in the agreement
• Penalties in case of not abiding by the clauses of the NDA

Types of NDA

1. Unilateral Non-disclosure Agreement

Unilateral NDA, as the name suggests, is a one-way NDA where there is a contract between the two parties. The sole owner of the information is the first party (the company that is partnering to outsource) and they release it to a second party (the recipient). The recipient signs the document and agrees to maintain the project’s confidentiality without manipulating it or leaking it to any third party.  Agreements should include these mandatory clauses wherein no confidential information will be used for their benefit. Most freelancers and consultants prefer to choose such agreements.

2. Mutual non-disclosure agreement

The mutual NDA is for situations where confidential information may be shared by each side and maybe agreed upon to keep it confidential. This kind of NDA is generally done as it is considered fair to both parties.

3. Terms and Conditions of Agreement

Just like other software agreements, an NDA also comes with terms and conditions and it is considered to be an essential part of an NDA. While creating an NDA, it is equally important to crisply maintain the terms and conditions to be ideated and included in the agreement. When reading an NDA, these are some of the fundamentals questions whose answers should be

• How long should the NDA last?
• What is the reasonable timeframe of the term?
• Which of the proprietary information will be included in it?
• What’s excluded from treatment for confidentiality?
• What are the obligations of the agreement and its confidentiality?

If you get answers to the above-mentioned questions then you will have a clear perspective of what is included in terms and conditions of the NDA and what not. These questions are vital because, after certain years the cost of obligations rises and depending on the industry the agreements keep on changing.

4. Deemed Confidential

The elucidated form of which information is to be transmitted through a Non-disclosure agreement is precisely documented to prevent a company from any violation. This NDA section clearly states which data is confidential and which is not confidential. This section will elaborate on a better understanding of data without any confusion or loopholes on the revealing party. In particular, oral information concerning the pact always leaves both parties in ambiguity. This oral information of the disclosing party has to be confirmed in a written format to notify the receiving party of what needs to be kept confidential. This is termed as deemed confidential.

11. Benefits of Software Outsourcing to India

As most of the industries are embracing the technology revolution, every business wants to come out as an emerging technology company. To do that, businesses may need help from other businesses to grow. Many countries consider India as one of the most favorable and renowned destinations for outsourcing but what does that business think is India capable of offering? Let’s dig deep to understand what lucrative benefits software outsourcing to India can offer to other businesses.

Pricing Benefits

The cost factor has always been one of the most influential factors for businesses to outsource. India offers significantly higher and qualitative services at a cheaper rate compared to western countries. Their flexible pricing structure suits every business need from a small size to a higher level.

Large IT Talent Pool

With the abundant amount of talented resources available in India, there is undoubtedly no work that software outsourcing companies cannot offer. The workforce in India possesses the requisite expertise to provide the best technology and infrastructure services with adequate knowledge of cutting-edge technologies that are changing business dynamics every single day.

Friendly Government Policies

Democracy in India is extremely supportive of cross-border businesses and their stable democracy always advocates friendly government policies. Subsequently, India has the maximum number of certified ISO companies which adds to their authenticity of work and offers superior quality and high-performing applications.

Time Zone Flexibility

In India the time-zone is an added benefit offered to businesses that outsource to India. The 12-hour time difference between India and countries like the USA and Canada enables us to tap on every opportunity and improve time-to-market, efficiency, and productivity. India is a flexible option available for all countries by offering 24*7 services.

Software Industry Size

There is a massive expansion of technology through major technology companies such as Accenture, Infosys, IBM, TCS and Wipro with their skilled employees all over the world. They developed their model of software outsourcing and emerged as a leader in the field of the software industry. This is a clear illustration of why India is the most popular option for outsourcing software. Also, India offers wide-ranging custom software outsourcing services that encompass the development of software applications, system integration, business process management, business intelligence, database management, and consulting services.

12. Important Steps for Software Development Outsourcing

Once you have decided that you want to outsource, now it’s time to select a company based on the competency and capability of the business offerings. Keep in mind that it is a process that takes time to become a fruitful partnership for both sides. Here, we have gathered some software outsourcing best practices that each customer should take while outsourcing software operations to minimize risks and find the best outsourcing company.

• Determine your needs
  Outsourcing has countless benefits that it offers to businesses so how should a business decide on which company to outsource. Once you determine your need, align it with the outsourcing companies’ business offering and you will find the answer to your question. To answer this, the most common concerns that customers bring to the outsourcing provider is:
  

• Lack of company reliability
• The cost of offshore labors
• Understand which projects require external software developers
• The need to hire developers that can work independently.

• Find the target outsourcing location
  We have simplified this section by portraying a crisp difference between multiple outsourcing regions, their pros and cons in the previous section. That will make you understand their hourly rates, which industries they serve and everything about the location. Find an ideal software development outsourcing company according to your needs.
• Get to know the vendors
  To fetch an outsourcing partner is a herculean task but the following few steps will make this process simpler and effective.
  

• Start with searching about the company, read reviews, ratings, domain and technology expertise, and portfolios.
• Drop an initial email to get in touch with the officials and propose your business requirements.
• Once there is an agreement, discuss NDA, project estimations, payment methods, delivery schedules, etc.
• Pay minute detail on communication and response time.
• Do not forget to do a vendor comparison for getting better options from the breed.
• Decide on the collaboration model and kickstart your project.
• Test the skills of employees
  Testing the skills of the software outsourcing company is imperative to understand whether they will be able to process your idea into a real-time working web and mobile app. Ask for a demo, or a pilot project from the employed resources and this will give a better picture of how the partnered company will provide software development services.
• Befriend your outsourcing team
• Being cordial with the outsourced teams will benefit the business in the long run. A friendly working environment and collaboration is a boost and motivates businesses for long term engagements.

13. Sum up

To conclude the whole discussion on why businesses should prefer to outsource drills down to multiple advantages that can be harnessed from software development outsourcing. From results like improved productivity, agility, and sustainable business outcomes, software outsourcing is a new norm for the majority of businesses to concurrently manage their mundane operations and other essential business functions. Every outsourcing business out there is ready to listen to your custom software outsourcing demands and fulfill them by their tailored business offerings. So why wait? Go ahead and exploit the opportunities.

The post A Complete Guide to Software Outsourcing appeared first on TatvaSoft Blog.

Understanding the sensitive nature of the medical industry, it holds a huge responsibility on the shoulders of healthcare providers to take ownership of data and keep it secured. Similar to all other industries, healthcare service providers are interested in building trust and maintaining transparency across all the processes. And the same should be reflected through the EHR systems being used by the health care providers. However, this does not seem an easy job if we look at the figures of data breaches that happened in 2019 which costs 41.11 million records disclosed. In some cases, disclosing and misuse of the data could be life-threatening. Then what could be the workaround?

From a healthcare software development point of view, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a compliance law that will help businesses build secured quality software for preserving and sharing Electronic Health Records (EHR).

There have been constant upgrades to this law since its first release in 1996 and accordingly, software development in the healthcare industry needs to be continuously monitored using the HIPAA compliance of software requirements. We have researched and developed this extensive blog to help you understand the vital parameters and structure contributing in developing HIPAA compliant healthcare software.

What is HIPAA Compliance?

HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, released in 1996, to protect patients’ health data in all forms by introducing important sets of rules and standards. This health data should not be disclosed without patients’ consent or prior permission. Healthcare organizations associated with Protected Health Information (PHI) must take necessary measures to ensure the security of patients’ medical information that meets HIPAA requirements. It is mandatory for any organization to be HIPAA compliant so as to secure the medical information of patients, their payments-related information or any other medical details that can be accessed by PHI of the patient.

HIPAA has the following Main Purposes:

Privacy of Patient’s Healthcare Data

The data privacy requirement includes a patient’s personal information as well as clinical history, lab reports, medication and other payment-related information that should not be disclosed. However, in some cases, a patient’s EHR access can be accessed or shared with a patient’s prior permission.

Safeguard Patient’s Electronic Data

PHI (Covering patient’s healthcare information) should be securely stored and various encryption methods to be used for data transport over a secure channel. Database encryption and file storage should also use encryption and sensitive information should not be stored in plain-text form.

Secure Administrative Structure

This requirement is to reduce paperwork and make information clear and easily accessible at a centralized repository securely. Some of the defined standards of HIPAA include.

• Transmission of Electronic data
  Exchange of data between two parties to carry out administrative or financial activities must include accurate information. For example, medical insurance providers can request information for the settlement of claims, it should include all the appropriate information to increase the efficiency of the communication between two parties.
• Structured Classification
  Medical records are structurally bifurcated into the following categories:
  • Diagnosis
  • Procedures
  • Lab reports
  • Medication
  • Equipment and suppliers
• Special Identifiers
  Every record has a unique key to identification. For example, an Employee identification number, a 10-digit unique National provider number.
• Rules & Regulations of Operations
  This section defines a specific set of rules to operate which information should be included for the electronic exchange of information and which not. These rules make the task easier and safer for administrative transactions.

Transferable Insurance

HIPAA offers employees exclusive coverage of existing health issues within their insurance and coverage which means the employer cannot exclude current health conditions in the insurance plans. With the same intent, it also offers employees an opportunity to register in a group health plan for case when coverage is lost or uncertain events have occurred. This Act does not discriminate against employees or their family members based on health factors. The access rights to PHI are limited to authorities only but any individual can renew the insurance policy whenever needed.

Preventing Health Care Fraud and Abuse

With the additional set of security rules, HIPAA gives an authority to prevent healthcare fraud, breach of information, and individual abuse.

Medical Saving Accounts

HIPAA has a standardized structure rule under the government Pre-tax policy for Medical savings accounts (MSA). Employees benefit under this rule that covers all the health provisions.

Does Your Medical Software Development Company Need HIPAA?

Any organization that collects or holds or shares the patient’s protected information which is going to be used for the course of treatment has to be HIPAA compliant. If your medical software/service does not include this then HIPAA compliance is not required for it.

Let us understand the main factors that determine if your application will be regulated by HIPAA or not:

User Entities

There are mainly two types of User entities:

• Covered Entities
  These are the people who directly work with patients like Physicians, hospitals or insurance providers.
• Business Associates
  Business Associates are the entities responsible for data collecting, storing, processing and sharing. For example, a custom healthcare software development company that builds software for the medical domain. This also includes the third-party services being used by the software/service i.e. Cloud services, hosting, etc. They also need to be HIPAA compliant.

Medical Data Type

Every medical data conveying information about a patient’s details would be defined as protected health information (PHI). And this PHI must be guarded against all the risks (data leak, data modification which may result in wrong treatment).

Different Software & Their Specification

Developed software must ensure that unauthorized people should not be able to modify electronic patient health information. A proper authorization will help ensure the data integrity part. Also, the medical software must have audit controls that help keep a track of all the modifications made to PHI that will help in the event of a data breach. Sensitive information like password and billing information should be stored in encrypted form to data stores so it cannot be purloined easily.

Requirements and Basic Features for HIPAA-Compliant Custom Healthcare Software Development

Manual based storage methods have specific limitations and since it is managed by humans, it comes with a higher tendency to make mistakes. Electronic Health Record is the solution to this problem. Computer databases allow users to increase usability, mobility, and efficiency when it comes to data processing and storage. However, electronic data storage methods reduce additional risks because healthcare providers implement modern tools and techniques for protecting their electronic data.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations are divided into the following standards or rules:

• HIPAA Privacy Rule
  Protected healthcare information includes which information is protected, and how protected health information can be used. The privacy of data represents guidelines from the PHI Protection Act where information regarding patient personal details, clinical history, diagnosis, medical records, payments for healthcare treatment, and any other information related to health care must be protected without making it unavailable to third parties.
• HIPAA Security Rule
  HIPAA Data Security rule has established national security standards concerning the protection of vital information of a patient’s health that is being stored or transferred in digital form. As per the standardized rules, the patient’s health information is made available to authorized users with definite access rights and rules. The basics of HIPPA security rules include necessary technical, physical, and administrative prevention to ensure the confidentiality and security of electronic information. According to this rule, all entities, that have access to PHI (covered entities), must conduct a regular data breach risk analysis activity to ensure reliable PHI protection.
  When developing and implementing Security Rule compliance safeguards, covered entities, and their business associates may consider the following things:
  • Size, complexity, and capabilities
  • Hardware and software infrastructure
  • Costs of security measures
  • Likely and possible impact of risks to protected health information
• Enforcement Rule
  The HIPAA Enforcement Rule covers investigation provisions and details specific financial penalties when a data breach occurs. There is a penalty amount issued in case of any data breach which is dependent on the number of medical records disclosed and the frequency of data breaches occurred within a specific organization.
• Breach Notification Rule
  This section of HIPAA creates an alert through a notification to all the entities and business associates including the affected individuals, if any tampering of data occurs or protected health information is transmitted to unknown sources. Most notifications to all affected individuals must be provided without unreasonable delay and no later than 60 calendar days following the date of discovery, if the breach involves more than 500 individuals, media must also be notified. If there is a data breach for, say, less than 500 individuals, then the healthcare organization needs to notify all affected individuals within 60 days immediately after the breach is discovered.
• Omnibus Rule
  The Omnibus rule mandates changes to privacy, security and modifies breach notification requirements, among other provisions. The rule promotes patient privacy protections, provides individuals with new rights of health information and supports the government’s enforcement with penalties under this law.

Maintain Accurate Documentation

Just like every other industry, the fundamentals of developing healthcare software starts with documentation. The software documentation facilitates overall documentation to help healthcare providers implement these developed applications in their organizations. In order to keep your documents up to date, you need to constantly revise and add necessary information to it.

HIPAA based Software Certification

Healthcare service providers must ensure that they are HIPAA compliant, so they can periodically do self-audits and assessments, without including any third-party.

Additionally, even with third-party certification, you and your company are still accountable for ensuring HIPAA compliance. There is no safety protection from violations by having a third-party certification.

Basic Features Included for HIPAA-Compliant Software Development

Every developed healthcare software needs to undergo HIPAA-compliance as per the standardized measures. An organization must take all the precautions needed to secure data of patients as per PHI guidelines. HIPAA-compliant software can be implemented using any technology solution but the basic requirements under HIPAA-compliant software guidelines include:

Technical Preventive Measures

The Technical Preventive measures focus on the important features included for technical safeguards. The PHI data needs to be transmitted beyond firewall security and must be secured as per NIST standards so that any unauthorized user cannot modify or tamper this data. Enlisted are a few of the important features:

• Authorized User Access
  Only authorized users are allowed to access the software and sensitive information. Also, a covered entity should not be able to access the information of other covered entities unless they are working with some health firm, payments or insurance.
• Specific User Identification
  Each user has a unique identification. Using that, we can connect the user’s PHI with their identity proof. For example, In the USA, PHI can be linked to a person’s Social Security card for specific user identification.
• Emergency Situations and Back-up
  The healthcare software algorithm should adhere to emergency conditions like server inaccessible, users should be able to access the data. A possible resolution to that is regular data backups. These backups can be used to make the system operational at times. Also, always-on availability features in cloud hosting could be used to provide continuous access.
• Security of data transmission
  Unauthorized users should not be able to track the network or interrupt the transmission of data.
• Integrity and Safeguarding
  The software must use a secure SSL/TLS channel for data transmission. Also, the environment should be secured with firewalls, multi-factor and passwords.
• Encryption requirements of Data
  Data like Emails, messages, attachments, etc. transmitted beyond the firewall security must be encrypted to add a higher security measure.

Preventive Features – Physical

Preventive features – Physical focus on physical access to PHI irrespective of its location. PHI could be stored in servers, external clouds or any other electronic information system. It also covers the security of mobile devices or any other hardware against unauthorized access.

• Individual Access Control
  Ensure only authorized employees get physical access to the servers, external cloud or any other electronic information system.
• Contingent Situations
  Accidental situation operations include data backups, disaster recovery and data accessibility in emergency mode.
• Data Safety Plan
  This includes the physical safety of PHI storage devices. The data safety plan for facility access control should be well-defined, structured & documented.
• Record Storage & Maintenance
  Every record must be registered and maintained properly for all hardware used containing records of user changes. Also, document repairs and modifications to the hardware should be recorded to their exact copy which can be retrieved later.

  Other key features in Hardware Security include

  • Automatic logoff after a specific time duration of inactivity.
  • Continuous use and timely update of antivirus software.
  • Web filtering includes the restriction on potentially malicious websites that can harm the hardware or software.
  • Periodic monitoring of user login logs.

Device and Media Controls (Authorized Devices Regulations)

The healthcare service provider must manage how secured electronic health information is transferred/removed/disposed from the devices if the user leaves the organization or the system is re-used, sold, etc.

• Regulation of Digital Data
  The data can be permanently disposed of when it is needed. Yet, you will have to consider all the places where data can be archived, and you will need to ensure that all of those backups will be deleted and disappear.
• Re-use of Digital Data
  It requires the removal of electronically protected health information from electronic media before the digital data are made available for reuse.
• Accountability to safeguard information
  Healthcare Service providers must maintain accurate records of employees accountable to manage any kind of movement of hardware or electronic media associated with PHI.
• Automation of Data Retention and Storage
  The data collected, stored and used needs to be backed up so as to recover anytime. The data backup and Recovery plans must have written procedures and must be documented. The reserved copy should be stored in a secure environment and followed by the best practices, it should have multiple backups that are stored in different locations. Also, the copy should be retrievable if the hardware or electronic data is damaged.
• Email Retention
  Email retention solutions generally upload emails to the servers in an encrypted format. For any legal purpose, authorized person upholds all the rights to retrieve emails as and when needed and can view the patient’s PHI.

Administrative Security Measures

Some guidelines are mandatory for any business that works with the management of health-related information. Thus such business requires mandatory guidelines to follow while working with health-related information management. Administrative security measures fall under the category where one should keep an eye on the HIPAA policies and guidelines that business is following.
There are several administrative tasks that need to be performed to maintain administrative security.

• Appoint security officers who will regularly perform the risk assessment. Officers will ensure that the privacy program is good enough to maintain the integrity of PHI. He/she will regularly perform a risk assessment to check disaster recoveries, unauthorized access to PHI, and the mechanism for storing and managing electronic protected health information (ePHI).
• Introduce risk management policies and procedures.
• Organization policies should be designed in a way that it should manage all the possibilities and criteria where there is a risk of a security breach or data leak.
• Train employees properly on identifying potential cyber-attacks and document all training periodically.
• Organizations should manage all the related documentation regarding the functionalities and services that are being provided and the data that are being stored.
• Employees should be aware of the area where there can be cyber-attack and how to prevent it.
• There should be a strict restriction regarding ePHI Accessibility. One cannot access ePHI from outside the organization.
• Develop a contingency plan to protect the integrity of ePHI, consider data backups and procedures to restore lost data in case of emergency.
• There should be regular or period data backup Plans and procedures to manage the data recovery in case of data deletion or data corruption. So that in an emergency Organization can recover and restore the lost data.

Standard Process Healthcare Organizations Should Follow to Keep a Check on HIPAA Compliance Software

Perform regular Self-Audit and Bridge the GAP with necessary Healthcare Software updation

HIPAA conducts regular surveys to ensure HIPAA compliance strictly followed by healthcare organizations and covered entities. Custom Healthcare software or mobile apps must pass through regular audits from HIPAA authorities to provide quality healthcare services with a complete view on their compliance level. Self-audits generate results which are helpful for in-depth machine analysis and risk forecasts.

Must be able to create and execute remediation plans based on self-audits result information.

Self-audits help you to find and understand vulnerabilities in your compliance. Once you find the vulnerable issues, based on shortlisted issues make an effective plan for the solution. And that’s exactly where a pre-made redemption plan will come in handy.

After creating suitable remediation plans for identified vulnerabilities, now it’s time to conduct measures which will help to avoid human error. Design custom policies and procedures especially for your organization, it will help bridge the gaps in your company. In this case, applying generic strategies will not have any impact on your business.

 Implement Secure Documentation procedure with Audits

One of the important functions of the software is documentation management in the healthcare sector. In-fact, HIPAA compliance in software are essential, as its main benefits include secure storage and structured documentation management. The application simplifies the documentation process and it makes anybody completely ready for an unexpected audit.

Secure Protected Healthcare Information (PHI) from Internal Data Breach

Blinders don’t address the specialties of your institution and don’t consider your current system into account; thus, your HIPAA compliance application should help you build appropriate procedures and policies in order to avoid PHI breaches.

Furthermore, Impactable employee training programs of application will help your staff to be aware of cyber threats, possible scenarios of data breaches, also they will learn how to maintain and ensure PHI security.

All healthcare providers and insured persons are always at risk of disclosing medical records and violating HIPAA principles. An open laptop can cause hefty fines for data breaches. Hence, HIPAA compliance software needs to record and analyse incidents for you. If the solution cannot prevent the violation from occurring, then this failure should be analysed to avoid such a situation from recurring. In addition, the software must automatically report cases of OCR (Office of Civil Rights) in case of violations.

Secure Protected Healthcare Information (PHI) from External Data Breach

Healthcare Organizations hire business associates (Healthcare Software Development Company) that handle ePHI. The HIPAA regulates relationships between Service providers and their business associates. The HIPAA Rule mandates Business Associate Contracts (BACs) made between business associates and healthcare organizations. Moreover, the arrangement must track the consenting of the arrangement by all business associates and monitor the manner in which they handle ePHI to make sure you work with a reliable partner.

Insight all the breach clauses clear with your medical software development vendor. In case of information breached by a vendor or any third party BAC always helps you stay protected as a Healthcare organization under such circumstances.

Why is HIPAA Compliance Important for Healthcare Service Providers?

As we know, HIPAA compliance is now a legalized requirement from 1996, also a key factor for patients and healthcare institutions. Take a look at the principle benefits of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Data Transparency for Patients

Any healthcare team wants to build up trust between patients, urging people to declare their clinical histories in the fullest detail. Sometimes, people keep away information like their mental health issues, or substance misuse, because they don’t know it will be stored securely.

Patient’s hidden details have the key effect at long last diagnosis, which wouldn’t lead to accurate estimates and indeed not good for their health. If their institution has implemented full HIPAA Compliance and treats their data responsibly, they will be much more likely to offer higher patient satisfaction.

Maintaining Organizations Positive Stature

Security breaches are very costly, and not just because of the direct expense of the breach. The reputation results of a data crisis far outweigh the economic ones. Your institution can lose patients’ trust; investors and patients disappoint and receive a lot of negative press. The general public outbreak can be difficult to control and avoid, once the institution has undergone the breach.

HIPAA compliance consists of a set of practices that allow a medical institution to avoid these risks. Getting a HIPAA certification for Software that proves the institution’s commitment to data security and patient’s privacy.

Improved Conversion Rates

Healthcare service providers can process improved healthcare services to their patients with minimum data error, proper diagnosis, and fewer chances of breach of privacy, proper coordination and accurate billing. This ultimately results in improved conversion rates for business.

Save Extra Expenses

Healthcare Organization saves unnecessary expenses due to less monotonous paperwork, improved data security, human error, reduced duplication of testing and improved health.

Reduce the Risk of Paying Heavy Non-Compliance Penalties

If a healthcare institution failed to meet HIPAA standards then a HIPAA violation can be worth up to $1.5 million for them. The U.S. Department of Health Services has a Security Risk Assessment tool any organization can use for their compliance check. Your organization follows HIPAA’s all regulations or not, it is decided by their platform. If you are not HIPAA compliant, building HIPAA compliant software should be your high priority.

What are the Fines Under Violation of HIPAA?

After all these things, you may think “Is passing between all these troubles worth it?”

You should build an application with an aim to achieve HIPAA compliance as this certification presents you as a brand in the healthcare market. It also creates a stronger and better image in public as well as medical professionals.

There is one more reason to go for HIPAA compliant healthcare software development. If you don’t follow HIPAA standards and if there is a security breach attack and data are leaked from your health application, then you will be responsible to pay fines as per court orders. Data security is your responsibility and hence you are responsible for the civil penalty ranges from $100 to $50,000 per violation per user.

So, if any time breach security of about 1000 user’s data and as per court orders you have to pay a $1000 fine per user then you will be paying $1,000,000 for this case. It doesn’t matter if data is very valuable or not.

General and Technical Checklist to Create & Audit HIPAA Compliant Healthcare Mobile Apps or Custom Software

After discussing all this, remember that HIPAA is not a body that will protect you in case of a data breach. This act has been made to protect the PHI of patients and so make sure your solution is robust enough to prevent such attacks in the first place. Consider going through the checklist below before you plan to partner with Healthcare App development company or any other healthcare software solution provider.

1. Does your Healthcare organization need to be HIPAA compliant? If your solution does not hold or share PHI then HIPAA compliance is not required for you.
2. Choose an experienced custom healthcare software development company for your custom software. It is always very critical to build secure healthcare software. Always work with a development company that has good experience in building HIPAA compliant software solutions. Their experience and expertise will save you from many possible threats.
3. Sign a BAC (Business Software Contract) with Healthcare Software Development company. Always sign a BAC for all third-party services including cloud services and hosting providers. BAC will protect you from the damage done by third parties.
4. Manage transparent Privacy policy with patients. Mention the privacy policy for the sign-up process which should cover all aspects. Get confirmation from the users that they have read and agreed to the privacy policy.
5. Collect and Store only required information. Only collects the minimal information that is required for your software. While exchanging or displaying data, display/exchange only the required information. Dispose of the data which is no longer required. For example, for file download, always use process memory rather than storing on the temporary physical location and memory can be flushed after the download.
6. Keep important data secure with proper encryption and cloud Storage. Keep the sensitive information stored in encrypted form. Avoid features that do not have encryption support. I.e. SMS, push notifications. Do not put any data on any Android or IOS device. Always use HIPAA-compliant data stores or cloud stores. Do not store information on Android or iPhone devices or unsecured client storage.
7. Regulate User Accessibility with Advanced Data Protection. You need to make a balance between user accessibility and data protection. Provide easy-to-use and safe interface with only required information being visually appeared on the UI. Use a strong password, multi-factor authentication, Authorization, additional authentication for the sensitive interface, short session timeouts, etc.
8. Hire a Professional Business Analyst. Do periodic audits of your healthcare software and Hire a professional business analyst to make sure all the HIPAA and PHI regulations are being followed by a solution and take advice for the improvements. As security features of HIPAA keep updating regularly, Periodic Audits always keep your healthcare software updated with the HIPAA set of rules.

9. Keep an eye on Internal and External breach. Your organization or healthcare software Development Company doesn’t need to be always guilty of breaching important information. So always keep an eye on internal and third-party security breaches of information to safeguard your business.
   Technical checklist:
   • Data transmitting outside the firewall security should be encrypted
   • Hardware storing the PHI data should be physically safe
   • Backup the data of hardware before changing its owner
   • Risk management to check data breach and cyber attack
   • Restrict third party access of ePHI
   • Data recovery and data backup procedures for emergency

The post HIPAA Compliance Software Solutions appeared first on TatvaSoft Blog.

Think back to some twenty years ago, the software development market back then had a completely different scenario compared to what it is now. The major difference that companies find now is the liberty to develop any type of application which in the IT industry is termed as developing custom software applications based on the desired technology stack, required skill-sets, expertise, and development methodologies.

To stay relevant, businesses nowadays are readily accepting changing trends of the digital market, and software development companies are an aid to it. A custom software development company can help businesses to exploit the maximum potential of custom software at their fingertips. For businesses looking for custom software development, this blog is a comprehensive guide to knowing the nitty-gritty of custom software development and will help you understand different phases of software development like requirements gathering, actual development, deployment, and maintenance. In addition, this blog will also provide information on how to identify the right custom software agency, how to communicate with the development team, and what aspects are to be taken care of while understanding the software development process. Also, we will take you through an insightful understanding of how vital NDA is, its needs, and a comprehensive take on how to safeguard your IP rights, why project agreements are important, and similar other information.

Businesses might have a different outlook towards developing a custom software application or would rather prefer to buy off-the-shelf applications for their day-to-day business processes. But if you are looking for a custom application for your business, this blog will enlighten your thoughts on custom software development services by showing some valid points of custom software development and a completely different perspective. Not all businesses find custom software development suitable for their processes and scenarios against ready-made products. So this comprehensive guide will help you to choose the best tailor-fit agency for your software applications and the deciding factors on whether you should go for it or not. Let’s start with the basics.

2. What is Custom Software Development?

Changing spheres of the consumer market have made businesses chase innovation like never before. Consumer needs are just getting complex and tougher every passing day and hence there is always a necessity to develop custom-made applications. It clearly implies that customized software solutions are best-suited for changing business needs. Do we really understand the term custom software development service or it is just an application development service that is used by many other businesses.

Definition: “Custom software development can be defined as the process of designing, creating, deploying and maintaining applications that meet the unique business requirements of a specific company.”

It is also widely known as bespoke software or tailor-made software. Software products available in the market are known as commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS). There is a lot of difference between commercial off-the-shelf applications and custom apps that need to be understood before deciding which one to use.

For more clarity let’s take the example of Microsoft office. It is a packaged application combined together with multiple features that meet the general requirements of millions of organizations or individuals. While on the other hand, if your business wishes to allocate work to contractors and manage specific workflows, an organization needs to build its own custom software applications. This need can only be served by custom software development companies. To more elaborately understand the difference between the two, we have researched both the topics from the grassroots level and created a table that shows the major differences between customized software development and off-the-shelf products.

Once the business decides on why custom software applications are beneficial, it’s time for them to know how these applications can make profitable changes to your business. The sole agenda of any business is to make a profit for its business stakeholders and this can only be achieved by increasing productivity and growth and thus accelerating profit rates. To improve accuracy and efficiency businesses build software that would do all the tasks automatically by reducing the manpower requirements while increasing the productivity of the organization on the other hand. Thus, custom software application businesses have an upper hand in competition and in no time can improve business performance by deviating their focus from ready-made apps to tailor-made application suites.

3. Bespoke Software Development: Benefits

Customized software development companies understand the change a tailor-made software can aid in the business yet there are multiple organizations reluctant about outsourcing because of a lack of knowledge and unaware of the advantages it offers.

Here are some non-negligible factors of custom software development that contribute to making custom applications robust, future-ready, and performing.

• Higher Efficiency
  Customized software apps are specifically designed to meet business needs that can smoothen the haywire business process. Since the applications are already programmed the way business functions, they know their jobs and hence the businesses can achieve better productivity, efficiency, and a competitive edge over their peers.
• Faster Adoption
  The developed custom application has tailored business solutions and features and so organization-wide adoption is faster and training time and cost is comparatively less. The organization implementing the custom-developed software solution doesn’t need to change the way of working according to the software but the software solution is developed according to the way they work.
• Unlimited Customization
  Businesses are free to develop whatever they want using the potency of custom software development. Custom apps provide unlimited customization facilities and various other benefits against limited customization options when compared to off-the-shelf products.
• Better Integration
  Application up-gradation or modernization with the development of custom apps strongly binds the existing IT infrastructure and integrates seamlessly with other applications and programs with minimal cost and time investments.
• Data Access
  Access to data through the developed application is complex, especially when the application is ready-made and doesn’t allow customization. While on the other hand, if we use custom applications, access rights can be easily managed from scratch at granular levels.
• Scalability
  Customized applications are considered the most stable and flexible applications. With the growth of the organization, custom apps grow equally by incorporating the latest features and enhancing the processes. In turn, if customized applications are developed suitably give longer life and offer software scalability.
• Cost-free Licensing
  There is no licensing fee involved when the application developed is customized and owned by the organization. Any new features or users can be easily incorporated without any additional expenses.
• Profitability
  It’s possible for businesses to earn from custom app development. Depending on the terms and conditions of the customized project, businesses can license or sell their customized apps to other organizations and get large margins of profit based on how demanding their application demand is and how much the market needs.
• Resale
  Custom apps have certain intellectual rights that need to be adhered to by businesses before the development process is initiated. An organization that pays custom software development firms for creating applications has full rights on IP, source code, patents, copyrights, or trademarks. So, if they wish to resale the application for profit or business demands they can.
• Vendor Independence
  An organization that pays for custom app development owns all the rights and at any time they can shift their development from one custom software development agency to another. So they are not locked to a particular vendor. Vendors can never take advantage of software development platforms that organizations pay hefty costs.

4. Why Outsource Software Development Project?

Your business goals are set free to achieve multiple successes stones as they could. To accomplish those objectives, businesses follow a growth path and achieve these goals by developing apps to streamline their processes. Extending the limits will offer businesses higher productivity, growth, and profitability but will also force them to take up some challenging tasks which can turn out to be a business barrier. Thus, to succeed businesses need to be quite clear with whatever they choose to create and should be flexible and adaptive to the latest cutting-edge technologies. Therefore, defining the applications developed are 100 % customized and scalable catering to tailored business needs.

It is not necessary to build an application in-house, there are multiple custom application development companies excelling to develop unique and high-performing software & mobile apps. These software outsourcing companies offer a variety of aids to businesses which turns out to be fruitful in the longer run. Here are some of the perks of what a custom software development team can offer.

• Access to the Latest Technology
  Expert software outsourcing companies are continuously striving with challenging projects by offering advanced technology solutions to their clients of all sizes and domains. Business no longer has to invest hefty infrastructural costs or pay for training and hiring new employees on the latest technology. Custom software development companies provide an exclusive set of resources with a knack for technology expertise to develop software that functions seamlessly.
• Talent Management
  Once the business has outsourced its project to a software development provider, they have access to special talents who are proficient and experienced in enterprise application development. This reduces the cost of recruitment and knowledge management of an enterprise. Enterprise can focus more on core business and leaves their digital transformation journey into expert hands.
• Domain Expertise
  Software development companies work with a multitude of customers across various industry vertices like healthcare, education, financial & banking, etc. Hence these skilled custom software developers have exposure to a myriad of technology stacks and processes to help them follow industry best practices for any technical work they do. If you are looking for mobile app development, user experience skills become critical. Because customer buying behavior is heavily dependent on product experience.
• Core Business Competencies
  Developing a custom software application with a great user experience is definitely the need of the hour but not all businesses are able to reap benefits from it. Instead, businesses face a massive loss while experimenting with the technology. So custom software development outsourcing can help businesses focus on core competencies without facing losses.
• Lower Cost
  Custom software development companies offer a flexible team of resources that can be increased or decreased as per the requirements of the projects. The payment to the dedicated development team can be offered based on the specified number of developers engaged during the payment period.
• Expert’s Perspective
  The holistic experience of catering to different industries, domains, regions, and technology has made them specialize in customized software development bringing global experience and standards in their footsteps.

5. The Who, Why, and When of Custom Software Outsourcing

“Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering.” -BILL GATES

Definitely, custom application development is a great combination of creative thoughts of businesses and the true talent of custom software development companies rigorously engineering to develop cutting-edge applications. Developing a mobile app or an enterprise application is not a complicated process if you know what you want and how you will achieve it. But if you haven’t understood the enterprise’s needs then it can create turmoil in existing business processes and a huge loss. The right app has the capability to transform your business by conveniently streamlining processes and making business technically ahead with cutting-edge new technology keeping you ahead in the league. The moment you realize the vision of the custom software you wish to develop the next step is to find an outsourcing firm that matches your business requirements and effectively caters to all your business needs. During the research, you might encounter a number of industry buzzwords, types of software applications that can be created, different architectural types & patterns, and a variety of technical skills required to develop a mobile app or distributed enterprise applications.

Touting for a business with the utmost knowledge of software development and can intellectually convert ideas into developed custom software. Businesses have an answer to when they should outsource software development but whom and how to evaluate which technology partner can bring radical changes to your business methods. Here we can go through some critical parameters necessary while deciding to outsource.

Here’s the quick checklist required for businesses in advance to choose a software development service provider

• Before selecting the best-fit vendor, clearly comprehend the technology and service offering that your business needs.
• Make a decision on what you want from the software development firm whether to enhance the existing system with new features, develop applications from scratch, or need an eCommerce website with multi-functionalities and features.
• Research and identify whether to work with onshore or offshore software development companies.
• Create a list of custom software requirements and provide them to software outsourcing companies for analysis and quotation purposes.
• Research and analyze the size of the software outsourcing venture, its location, domain expertise, and service offerings.
• Last but not the least, keeping a note of timezone is equally important when deciding to outsource to a software business so that the developers assigned to the projects will follow your time.

6. How to Choose the Right Vendor for Custom Software Services?

Enterprises are bound to meet essential parameters of software development when they plan to develop a bespoke application. From a gamut of software development companies, businesses can filter specific companies based on what type of software development service they offer and their focus. Here are some essential factors businesses should consider while deciding to outsource custom software development projects.

1. Geography/Location

The location of the custom software development firm is an essential factor for businesses to choose a provider. Onshore, Nearshore and Offshore are three options available for businesses. Onshore companies ensure faster turnaround time and better communication. Nearshore companies are located in almost similar time zones but in different countries. And offshore companies are located in different time zones in countries. Offshore software development companies offer global access to huge talent pools and cost advantages for businesses to get benefited from their services. Many offshore companies have their offices in western countries. Improved communication and requirement transfer are also possible with these offshore companies by dealing with their onsite office.

2. Freelancers vs Software Development Companies

A price difference is an essential factor that brings businesses to a freelancer rather than specialized software developers from renowned development companies. The reason freelancers are preferred is that they are less expensive and can be assigned to work at any given point in time. But with ever-increasing advances in technology, it is essential for businesses to have multiple skillsets for their projects like front-end developers, backend developers, database administrators, software testers, and DevOps engineers, and hiring all of these skilled resources would not be a cost-effective method. But a software development provider provides all these resources under a roof and manages all types of projects from complicated to cutting-edge technology solutions.

3. Size of the Software Firm

Most of the giants in the technology industry deal with large size companies doing multi-million dollar projects. While mid-size companies are happy doing isolated projects. Depending on your project size, you have to identify the right size software firm for you. For example, big banks tend to work with tech giants like IBM, TCS, and Accenture for their enterprise application development and support. While mid-size enterprises work with companies like TatvaSoft. In our opinion, you should not select an organization where your project will be generating more than 15% of their revenue. In that scenario, once your project moves from development to maintenance, team size decreases and will not affect the stability of that software development agency.

4. Performance History of the Software Firm

Three questions are mandatory to ask while you decide to outsource your software development project.

1. Does the custom software development agency have experience in executing projects of your size?
2. Have they successfully executed projects much bigger than yours?
3. What kind of custom software development experience do they carry

Once you have answers to these questions the filtration process will get easier. Analyze the experience of a software outsourcing firm in different areas like enterprise application development & maintenance, mobile app development, SalesForce integration, etc. This will help you understand the knowledge they carry and their diversified role in different projects. The next question will help you understand the size of projects they have worked on and how successfully they have implemented challenging projects customized to business needs.

5. Domain Expertise

Looking at the holistic experience of businesses and the domains they serve justifies the complexity of projects they have developed in the past and their specific knowledge. The authenticity of work can be judged through the demonstrated work portfolios and the domains they work for like Education, Energy and Utility, Healthcare, Oil and Gas, Banking and Finance, logistics and Manufacturing, and similar.

6. Technical Expertise

The level of proficiency should be validated based on the technical knowledge and skills of the bespoke software development company. The type of technology offerings, the developer’s competencies, the number of specialists in each technology, and their programming experience are some vital factors for consideration.

7. Development Process

Every custom software development organization doesn’t operate similarly as each one has a unique business process. Therefore, it is very important for businesses to outsource to companies that follow standard practices like Agile and DevOps.

8. References

Decisions can be taken based on references- either from past experience of some known firm or through references of other businesses who rated the business based on their work( of course from a trusted website). Also, if you happen to meet the referrals, ask intelligent questions like what was good about their service, what was bad, what things can be improved, how to manage the team efficiently, what were the issues they faced, and how they mitigate, etc.

9. Security and IP Policies

Data breaches, security, or IP issues are some of the common issues why businesses are reluctant to outsource software development. So before outsourcing, it is extremely important to understand the standard security practices abided by the business to secure data, apps, their details, information on intellectual properties of the developed application, IP related agreements signed between vendors and the agency.

10. Recruitment Policies

The next important factor is to consider the recruitment policies of custom software development companies. The quality of your product depends on the custom software developers they hire and thus recruitment policies of that organization directly impact the quality and code of the app developed. If the hiring policies are meticulous so the developers hired will be of top quality and deliver maximum productivity to enhance the overall process of software development. Hence, vetting out good resources during recruitment by software development companies will offer long-term benefits to your business.

11. Support and Maintenance

To keep the application up and running, it is essential for the business to avail of support and maintenance assistance from outsourcing companies. After the application is released, depending on the functioning of the application, the support services are decided. Some businesses might need continuous maintenance and support while others may need just ad hoc maintenance to remove bugs timely, resolve errors, optimize overall performance and add new features to the application.

12. Vendor finance Records

While considering hiring any custom software development agency, keep the finance aspect extremely clear. The past financial records of software development companies must be sound with zero to minimum debts portraying a strong and stable work profile. For any progressive business financial stability is an important aspect when deciding to outsource.

7. What is a Software Development Agreement?

Every business that seeks help from another business or organization is bound to sign a legal contract. This contract which is between two companies for software development is called a software development agreement. It is like a roadmap in case of future disputes and clearly mentions the legal duties of each party.

To elaborate, a Software/Project development agreement is a contract between two parties- One (the business which pays) and the Second (the supplier vendor). This agreement is bound by certain rules to provide assistance, support, and maintenance facilities during the whole project development. This business process can vary depending on the technology chosen and the team employed. Businesses may have multiple questions rising when they plan to outsource to a company located offshore. Before finalizing the outsourcing process, they should be certain about the development process, intellectual properties of both the companies, what should be made public and what shouldn’t, ownership of source code, patents, terms and conditions, and similar vital questions.

While considering outsourcing there are agreements that have rules and they should be abided by. Basically, there are two types of agreement

1. Project agreement
2. Non-disclosure agreement

We will elaborately discuss both these agreements but before that, it is important for us to know why businesses need to sign a project agreement when there can be a verbal pact between the two. So, when two parties are in a business sharing profits and losses, there has to be a legal pact which will be the virtue of trust. And thus there are agreements such as Project Agreements and Non-disclosure Agreements. Now project agreement is whenever a client initiates a project, or has added further enhancements to their existing project and would like to protect the idea and the intellectual properties of the project. Similarly, NDA ensures that none of the intellectual properties will be shared and must be kept confidential unless it needs to be made public.

Whenever a business works with cross-border companies, their agreements are difficult to enforce because of the different rules each country follows. This makes businesses reluctant to work with offshore companies. That’s why many businesses prefer to work with offshore companies having onsite registered offices. This makes it easier to enforce the agreement in case of a dispute.

Provisions that can be included in your Project Agreements as a precautionary move

If the customer wants to be defensive about their business operations and functions then there are a few precautionary steps that should be added to NDA to prevent the customer from any serious complications in the future. Let’s understand what are the additions and how does it impact the customer.

• Scope of the Project
  In general, the scope of work includes everything from technical system designs, development tools, methodology, or the systems required to complete the project. Apart from that, everything that is needed during development and post support is also included in the agreement which is inclusive of the user and technical documentation, all hardware support, source code repositories, and hosting support necessary during the development and deployment of the software application.
• Payment Terms
  Depending on the scope of the project and the payment feasibility of the client the terms and conditions are decided. Some clients would choose a fixed cost model wherein after each module the payment is been performed while other clients choose monthly payment for time and material-based models where once in a month, the payment for the work is been performed.
• Intellectual Property Rights
  Intellectual property rights of projects include the right to a patent, trade marks, copyrights, topography rights, data extraction from database rights, the right to protect source code, and other forms of equal property rights that have a similar effect and may subsist anywhere in the world.
• Penalty Terms
  For any case wherein the performance of the application is not met or there is a data breach occurrence, businesses must be prepared with a penalty payable amount for this damage. In such cases, businesses can fix a penalty amount that both parties agree upon and they can have fair compensation if the customer’s needs are not met.
• Confidentiality
  Many times customers have to disclose business secrets to the custom software development agency while providing business requirements. To maintain the confidentiality customer and supplier must agree not to disclose any type of information about their project, business models, market strategies, trade secrets, know-how, patents, copyrights, financial information, sales distribution strategies, and internet and e-commerce strategies, or any such information which may be written, electronic in nature are collectively referred in the software agreement as “Confidential Information”.
• Data Protection
  A business may have collected lots of data over time which may include personal information also like name, address, email ID, phone number, etc. By law, it is required to keep this data protected. In case of breach or misuse, there are heavy financial penalties in countries like the US and UK. European Union has its own GDPR rules. While outsourcing, software development service providers may get access to data for development or maintenance purposes. In the development agreement, the role and responsibility of suppliers related to data protection should be clearly defined to avoid any disaster.
• Law and Arbitration
  Customers have started including a clause of arbitration in every software development contract created nowadays. Arbitration is generally an out-of-court proceeding wherein a neutral third party element called an arbitrator hears the allegations and evidence of both parties and makes a binding decision. This is an alternative method to resolve disputes by adding a clause for arbitration in SLA.
• Limitation of Liability
  This clause is a provision in an SLA (service level agreement) that indicates the amount and type of damage that each party will be obliged to other businesses in different circumstances. It is basically a responsibility to compensate for some failure to perform when the development needs of the service are not met.
• Employee Solicitation
  If the recipient has significant access to the developers of your firm and you may want to include a clause regarding the same. This could restrain businesses to hire your employees for at least 12-24 months. Sometimes the other party might not agree to do so and hence having a policy regarding that reference can limit the clients to hiring your employee and this can also be an application for the employee working for offshore projects from clients located in different countries.
• Authority in Case of Disputes
  In case of any conflict between the parties then businesses should be aware of the fact that the case will be operated in the judiciary location mentioned in the agreement. If the supplier is offshore and the judicial location is your location then it is always beneficial. However, if in case of dispute, if the supplier refuses to appear in the court, then it is challenging to enforce the agreement. If the judicial location is the supplier’s location then the local court can always enforce the agreement but there will be a huge loss of time and money in traveling multiple times and hiring lawyers at the supplier’s location. While dealing with offshore companies, it is better to deal with a software agency that has a registered office in your country. So that the supplier and your business can keep the judicial location as the same country. This will be advantageous for both parties as in case of any dispute they can enforce the agreement easily.
• Commandment
  You can protect the business from breaching the agreement by adding a clause that gives you the right to injunctive relief. This clause simply says that the other party can get a court’s permission against the disclosing agency and can prevent them from doing the breaching act. For issues involving money, injunctive relief is quite a late move.

8. Non-Disclosure Agreement in the Software Service Business

The non-disclosure agreement is used to barricade the confidential and proprietary information of the business exchanged during the engagement from getting disclosed. This agreement is made when you share the requirements for the purpose of time and cost estimation. In any case, the agreement can include a list of information that the client wants to keep confidential. This agreement isn’t bound to just source codes or software products developed business plans or any analytical detail that cannot be made public. But it depends on the business what they want to keep secretive under the NDA norm and what they want to keep public.

Key aspects of the Non-disclosure agreement

• Introduction to both the parties and their business backgrounds
• Defining the needs of what is to be kept confidential and what is not
• The term limit of the agreement
• The inclusions and exclusions of the agreement
• Repercussions of not abiding by the NDA

Types of NDA

1. Unilateral Non-Disclosure Agreement
As the name suggests, unilateral NDA is a one-way NDA where there is an agreement between the two parties and the first party( the company) is the sole owner of the information and they are releasing it to a second party (the recipient). The recipient signs the document and agrees to keep the confidentialities of the project without tampering it or leaking it to any third party. They must also agree to not use confidential information for their own benefit. Usually, this type of agreement is preferred by freelancers or consultants.

2. Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement
The mutual NDA is for situations where each side may potentially share confidential information and may agree to keep it confidential. Generally, this kind of NDA is done as it is considered fair to both parties.

3. Terms and Conditions of Agreement

This is another essential part of why an NDA is important and what aspects should be taken care of while signing an NDA. The terms and agreements should be meticulously ideated and read before signing any NDA. Some of the basic questions that you should have while reading your NDA is

• How long should the NDA last?
• What is the reasonable term of lasting?
• Which proprietary information does it contain?
• What is excluded from confidentiality treatment?
• What are the obligations and confidentiality of the agreement?

Answers to the following question will give a clear perspective of the terms and conditions of the NDA. These questions are necessary because after certain years the cost of obligations rises, depending on the industry the agreements keep on changing.

4. Deemed Confidential
The elucidated form of which information is to be conveyed through a Non-disclosure agreement should be precisely mentioned to prevent a business from any breach. This section of NDA clearly states which information is confidential and which is not. This part will elaborate on the disclosing party a clearer vision of information without any confusion or loopholes. Specifically, if we talk about oral information, it always leaves both parties in ambiguity with respect to the pact. Deemed confidential also refers to this oral information that the disclosing party has to confirm in a written format that would notify the receiving party to keep it confidential.

9. The Cost Factor in Custom Software Development Projects

The unprecedented growth of technologies has led businesses to collaborate with global companies and do business across borders. In fact, there is just a handful of fortune 500 companies that aren’t harnessing the skills of globally proficient software developers to manage their operations. Building custom software is of equal importance to businesses in terms of time, technology, and cost investments. Hence every enterprise has to be efficient enough to take this decision on budget and other influential factors. We already know how enterprise application development adds a competitive advantage to development costs and higher price brackets. Before making a selection on the cost estimation there are certain aspects of custom software development that need to be considered.

1. Software Development Horizon

The extensibility and proficiency of the hired developers are the first deciding factor for businesses in paying for custom software development. The Major part of the cost estimation depends on the requirement of the project, its criticality, and technology. In addition, the number of developers and their time spent is equally important. Without a well-planned budget, the business would have to compromise on certain essential aspects or cannot afford skilled resources because of a lack of budget.

2. Planning

Another essential important criterion is the platform chosen to develop. Once the project initialization, requirements, and developers are fixed the next bifurcation of the cost depends on the platform. The technology stack needed, software licensing costs, and other cloud-related costs are vital contributors to cost estimations.

3. Delivery Time

Having rightly said “Time is money”, the time factor will decide the amount you will have to pay in case of quicker deadlines or demand to complete the project at a rapid speed than normal.

4. Infrastructure and Physical Resource Expense

Custom software may cost higher than expected in case of choosing an inappropriate outsourcing offshore partner. The location or geography to which the team decides to outsource will be an essential parameter to cost as well.

Just like the development cost in the Philippines will be different in compared to the cost provided by software development company in India. So if you don’t choose the right location for outsourcing then you might end up paying some extra amount than required. Choose a technology partner wisely.

5. Hiring Models

Each enterprise follows a different hiring method and depending on the hiring structure the cost is estimated. Depending on the experience of the team and their proven track record the hiring models can be finalized. The most common types of hiring models are the Dedicated development team and Fixed price models.

• Dedicated team
  In this model, businesses can hire a dedicated team of developers for a fixed project. The organization gives clients the freedom to choose the number of developers they want and to what time period. They can increase or decrease the team size as per the project demands. If your project requirements are variable then this model can be beneficial.
• Fixed price model
  Fixed cost models give the organizations an exact idea of the cost and time required to complete the project. Majorly, this will be applicable to pre-defined projects which come with a fixed timeline and price structure.

10. Custom Software Development Methodologies

Custom software services need are ever-changing as per the progress of businesses and their venture into newer avenues. As per the changing dynamics, businesses are trying to place themselves in the best possible way to maximize profitability. The standard methodologies are aimed to finalize features, agreeing on time, budget, technology stack, feature enhancements, code quality, and overall software development quality. And to achieve all of these businesses use some special tools and methodologies to manage the project and process of an existing business.

Some of the common development methodologies include:

1. Waterfall Model

One of the most common and conventional methods of software development is the waterfall method. As the name suggests waterfall methodology works flawlessly like a waterfall with its defined set of phases and the following sequence.

• Requirement specification
• Software designing
• Integration to an existing process or creation of a new process
• QA/Testing
• Deployment
• Maintenance

Beginners who are naive to software development can efficiently gain the benefits of waterfall methodology. It is simple to use, manage and maintain because of its simpler linear sequential method of implementation. Once you have implemented the changes, rectification or changes are not possible because of the approach it follows. But since it saves a significant amount of time and delivers qualitative codes at a faster turnaround time, therefore it is one of the popular custom software development methodologies.

2. Agile Development

The agile method of development uses a successive iterative approach to develop apps wherein the whole process is smartly bifurcated in multiple phases. The whole process of testing, validation, integration, and deployment is performed in each phase, and versions of the products are developed. The main benefit of this methodology is that you can always look back to the previous phase and rectify the errors. This is an adaptive approach used by most clients when their requirements are wavering. Direct communication with the client and continuous feedback makes the software robust and scalable.

3. Scrum

This development methodology enables businesses to Fastrack their Software Development Life Cycle and can be easily applied to any critical business process. The Scrum team initiates the project with brief planning, then a detailed analysis of the holistic project w.r.t other technology departments, and later the development process is implemented. The scrum team consists of cross-functional engineers who uphold expertise in analyzing requirements, designing, coding, testing, and installation. This is a flexible approach where if the user needs are changed they will be quickly developed and reflected in the next sprint.

4. DevOps

With a perfect amalgamation of Development and Operations – DevOps easily manages critical and mundane business processes with ease and simplicity. DevOps has a strong rapport with agile and lean approaches to maximize the effectiveness and reduce time to market. DevOps keeps an equilibrium between cross-functional departments and enhances effective communication that optimizes the overall development tasks. The fundamental aim of DevOps is to develop transparent communication between technology specialists and operational managers to create faster and high-performing applications.

11. Software Development Maintenance And Support

Businesses need to maximize their efficiency of software application development with minimal risks and errors. More than just development, every developed application needs continuous support and maintenance. Normally, software development teams are overloaded with tones of applications hindering their basic process of maintenance. End-to-end application development includes everything from development, design, QA/Testing, deployment, and maintenance. Software maintenance and real-time support enable businesses with high-performing sustainable apps and lower overhead costs. When we talk about maintenance, it is inclusive of up-gradation, maintenance, app migration, support, and future enhancement.

An application can be maintained in multiple ways and thus there are different types of software maintenance services

• Adaptive Maintenance and Support
  Adhering to the latest technology trends, the application demands maintenance, and support assistance for businesses to transform apps into next-gen applications. Changes such as regulation changes, configuration changes, modifications to current software, operating system upgrades, or data format changes are some of the adaptive and maintenance changes.
• Improvisation And Maintenance
  Running applications with functional issues such as logical errors, coding errors, or designing misfits might hamper the overall performance of the application. Correcting and fixing these errors enables the software application to be bug-free and perform better.
• Continuous Maintenance and Support
  Upkeep applications with the latest technology support, modifications, and future enhancements, businesses need to continuously examine software performance, keep track of each update and concurrently upgrade it as a part of continuous maintenance so that the application never breaks down and delivers consistent output.
• Preventative Maintenance
  As a proactive measurement from past experience of developing the same or similar type of software application probes businesses to take preventive measures for maintenance and support. This will alarm businesses of any type of futuristic problems that may degrade the quality performance of the application to be treated in advance. With continuous Maintenance and Support, businesses can achieve wider benefits from software development.
• Improved Performance
  With timely updates, support, and maintenance processes, all the software applications of the business have now become multi-functional, high-performing, and robust architecture.
• Updated Current Trends
  Real-time application support allows businesses to jump to the latest trends by staying abreast of evolving technologies and trends. Application maintenance can help you pave your own path with cutting-edge software solutions and get ahead in this digital market.
• Minimal Cost
  Thinking that a one-time investment is a cost-effective solution for businesses is an incorrect ideology. Getting up-to-date on technology changes for cloud-based software solutions is a lucrative option that covers most of the expenses including maintenance costs too.

12. Best Practices in Custom Software Development

Undoubtedly, developing custom software is an indispensable part of every business which might seem challenging at first instance. Not all organizations are able to afford to make mistakes with the risk of bearing monetary losses. Though the objective of custom software application development is extremely fruitful, it could only reap benefits if businesses know to choose the right outsourcing partner. In any case, if the business is unable to partner with an expert software application development firm then as per the standard norms followed worldwide, we have mentioned a few handfuls and efficient practices for software development that could be advantageous to the business in transforming their business with technology-enabled solutions.

• Understand the existing process and future demands
  A fundamental reason for outsourcing is the lack of skilled resources and the inability to understand the need. So before you decide to outsource, analyze whether a custom software will bring a game-changing effect to your organization, and if your answer is “Yes” then start evaluating your present process by looking at the system from the grassroots level. Also, a thorough understanding of the current process, what to be achieved using this custom software, and how could the current state of the agency be improved using technology understanding.
• Choose the right custom software development company to collaborate
  In case you think you know what you want, now the next step is to hire the right resources to work for you. Software development is a critical process and not everybody can match your needs. So, check with your internal IT team, software development vendors, and companies. Start the filtration process by exploring each custom software development firm’s website with the its location, company size, domain expertise, References, organization history, Security, and IP policy.
• Keep an eye on your budget
  The key important consideration here is to find a custom software product development agency that fits your needs and budget. So while you find a technology partner, make sure your business-critical needs are effortlessly met within your estimated budget and stringent delivery timelines.
• Choosing the appropriate technology for development
  Your first and foremost goal is to understand why you need this custom software and what benefits it will offer. Your needs can be anything from automating the process to accelerating productivity, improving inefficient processes, or making the customer experience incredible. Once this has been identified, it would be quite easy for businesses to approach experts and match preferred technology as per their business needs.
• Plan to achieve realistic milestones
  Your application needs consistent testing performed by experts. Since your software application needs can be unique, anything that is created should be tested and accomplished with qualitative benchmarks and then set a real milestone. Testing application is significantly important otherwise it has the potential to damage your customer base and brand image in the longer business run.
• Meticulous Testing and Documentation
  Once the software application is built, the most essential stage is to check the versatility of the software developed in all environments. Testing an application using all essential parameters will make the application run seamlessly on different devices and browsers before going live and will avoid unnecessary mistakes. In addition to testing, finely documenting the entire process is another essential factor in all stages of development and implementation.

13. Final Words

Running through the whole discussion, I think Custom software development is here to stay and grow. If there is anything that could bring change to the digital market is by developing custom software applications tailored to business needs. In the upcoming years, more and more businesses will be adopting this culture of offshore outsourcing to countries like India, and hence our extensive blog will be your guide. Our extensive blog will help you have fine-grained control over outsourcing, what terms are important, and the business gains in the future. Custom software will become the backbone of your business progression and the custom software developing companies will back you with their robust, responsive, and high-performing services.

The post Guide to Building Custom Software appeared first on TatvaSoft Blog.

Knowing just basics about Agile and DevOps would give a quick thought that both are unique terminologies and while deep diving into each of them the outcomes will be “Agile is about procedures like Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming, Dynamic Systems Development Method, Lean while CI(Continuous Integration) and CD(Continuous Delivery) along with automated infrastructure are incorporated in the DevOps methodology”.

With just an overview over mind, let’s attempt to comprehend what precisely Agile and DevOps are, also on whether they are supporters or rivals?

About Agile and DevOps in Software Development Process

Agile is a disciplined iterative project management process which favors continual analysis and advancement, an initiative viewpoint that nurtures cooperation, self-association and responsibility, a software development and it’s continuous delivery, and a business approach to meet client’s objectives and requirements.

An organization can’t do Agile, but it can be Agile. Organization can perform Agile processes like Scrum, XP, TDD, BDD, etc. Agility is about to accept the change and to triumph in an invariably changing environment. Even, DevOps is one of the key fixings to add agility in an organization.

DevOps widens the philosophy of Agile, still it depicts that cross-functional team and operation team should perform tasks concurrently. Infrastructure as Code, Monitoring Schemes, Configuration Management, a set of tool chain, Virtualization and Cloud computing are the essence blocks of DevOps.

Automation, Containerization and Continuous Testing – significant privileges of DevOps lead it to be the biggest winner of this year with good acceptance ratio for custom software development.

Avoiding the unnecessary confusions and overlooking the self-supposition, have a look at some of the practical connections (developers can easily connect to each phase) between them.

What is Agile?

Agile is an iterative approach for software development and project management. Agile focuses on customer feedback,  customer satisfaction, collaboration, and rapid releases. The agile development process concept arose from the software development industry in the early 2000s. It came into life to help the development team react and adapt to all the changing customer demands and market conditions.

When it comes to the agile approach, some of the planning and designing of the complex projects are done upfront, but the entire software development proceeds in small batches. The process also includes the involvement of stakeholders. The development and operations teams have to go through continuous changes and later a usable version of the software is often released. The process to deploy software is quicker in Agile compared to a waterfall methodology. And this offers many benefits but the most important one is that if the software created using Agile practices doesn’t meet the needs then it can easily be remediated in real-time. 

Agile principles are the collection of methodologies like eXtreme Programming (XP), Scrum, and other systems of practice. It also helps the agile teams unifying these approaches into one principle. The result of this unification Agile Manifesto. It consists of 12 principles and all of them are based on four core values of the agile approach. 

Four Core Values of Agile

The top four core values of Agile software development are –

Individuals and Interactions

The agile manifesto highlights the importance of each development team members’ value and fosters a stimulating and healthy work environment. And to maximize efficiency, agile also encourages constant communication between each of the team members as it allows them to be a part of the entire development process.

Working Software

Agile believes that documentation cannot hinder deploying software. Before agile, every project used to start with documentation of the requirements and expectations of the working software but now it focuses on embarrassing changes.Also Agile doesn’t spend too much time on documentation.

Comprehensive documentation Customer Collaboration

Continuous software development involves customer collaboration on a regular basis. The development and operations teams seek immediate feedback from the customers to take the project in the direction. And for this, one of the best practices is to contract negotiation with the customer before the software development process starts. It helps in avoiding any type of potential miscommunication.

Responding at Change

When working with agile technology, changes that are required to be made mid-project must be readily accepted as it can directly help in the success of the project. This means that when the new circumstances are adapted and new features embraced, software development methodologies become a success for the software.

After learning everything about Agile, let us go through DevOps and then see which is the best between – DevOps vs Agile competition.

What is DevOps?

DevOps is just like a covert military team. It is a technology that combines IT operations and software development. “dev” is taken from the term software development and “ops” is taken from the term IT operations. DevOps focuses on both the development and Operations for continuous development process. It changes the entire software development culture, collaborations between traditional software development teams, and doubles down the automation process for developing software.

Three Ways of DevOps

The top three DevOps ways are –

Systems Thinking

DevOps practice enables the developers to understand that software apps are complex systems.

Amplifying Feedback Loops

Integration of the DevOps environment in the company enables the team members to have improved bidirectional communication.

Cultural Change

DevOps culture enables the IT operations teams to have an open mind for continuous experimentations and learning.

Realistic Kinships

Agile is more than Scrum and Sprint, while DevOps also exceeds constant integration and delivery concept. Agile methodology purely focuses on productivity and reliability, whereas DevOps is concern about the quick work and continuous delivery with high quality.

(Mentioned below is not the difference, rather it is the response of each methodology in particular phase.)

Debate still doesn’t end up here. Question somewhere still arise.

Is DevOps Subset of Agile?

DevOps isn’t a distinct approach, nor a subset, but can be said as a slender expansion of Agile to incorporate operations, team-up as ONE team, achieve the target to conveyance solution completely to the client. DevOps just ruptured the barriers of  Agile teams and included automation and continuous processes in the existing procedure of Agile and encouraged the organization agility.

Just like, Waterfall was extended or upgraded to V-Model and iterative model which was further supplanted by Agile and was adopted widely for software development. But, now DevOps is going to be the prominent prospect, justify the continuous improvement in SDLC, justifying that it is merely an extension to the Agile features. All that is required is to grasp, comprehend and instil it.

DevOps and Agile are independent of each other but each of them is an enabler for the other.

In a nutshell, in each Agile Sprint, DevOps concept like CI(Continuous Integration), the CD(Continuous Delivery) can be executed, even in multiple Sprints. Coding and Architectural best practices of Agile and DevOps must be followed by developers to enhance quality, make deployment speedier and keep away from risk factors. Always core focus needs to be on Organizational Agility.

The post DevOps vs Agile, Are Ally or Foe? appeared first on TatvaSoft Blog.

Software Development methodologies play a vital part in developing software system. Custom software development companies use many software development methodologies for their day-to-day operations. There are certain advantages and disadvantages associated with each of them. The basic purpose of these methodologies is to provide smooth software development according to the project requirements.

The software development methodology is a framework that is used to structure, plan, and control the process development of an information system. In this kind of development methodology,  the only concern of software development process is that it does not involve any technical aspect but demands proper planning for the software development lifecycle by the development organization.

12 Different Software Development Methodologies

1. Agile Software Development Methodology

Agile Software Development methodology is one of the best software development approaches that is used to design a disciplined software management process which also allows some frequent alteration in the development project. This is a type of software development methodology that is one conceptual framework for undertaking various software engineering projects. Agile Development is used to minimize risk by developing software in short time boxes which are called iterations that generally last for one week to one month.

Advantages of Agile Development Methodology

• Customer satisfaction by rapid, continuous delivery of useful software.
• Human interaction is emphasized rather than process and development tools. Customers, developers and testers constantly interact with each other.
• Agile methodology has an adaptive approach that is able to respond to the changing requirements of the clients.
• Direct communication and constant feedback from customer representatives leave no space for any guesswork in the system.

Disadvantages of Agile Development Methodology

• In the case of some software deliverables, especially the large ones, it is difficult to assess the effort required at the beginning of the software development life cycle.
• Agile focuses on working software rather than documentation, hence it may result in a lack of documentation.
• The project can easily get taken off track if the customer representative is not clear what final outcome that they want.
• Only senior programmers are capable of taking the kind of decisions required during the development process. Hence it has no place for newbie programmers unless combined with experienced resources.

2. DevOps Methodology

DevOps is a popular term gaining a lot of attention among all the software development methodologies because of the unconditional benefits it offers to its customers. The siloed process of Development and Operations is not the same as the inception of DevOps. These two departments are functioning together as a single team for all processes in the entire life-cycle. This works concurrently for all businesses. The continuous integration and continuous delivery model allow development and operational teams to perform everything simultaneously in development, quality assurance, security, and other operations.

Now businesses are turning more towards DevOps as an agile and lean approach that enables a crisp collaboration between all the stages of the development life cycle.

Advantages of DevOps

• Faster Process Multiple ongoing processes work simultaneously which makes the process faster and easier for businesses to process on time. By adapting to changes in the market, DevOps enables businesses to grow efficiently and drive definite business results.
• Offers Rapid Deliveries Microservices and Continuous delivery are some elements of DevOps that offer business continuity and recent updates rapidly. DevOps allows businesses to continuously innovate and improve products for a better software product.
• Reliability With increasing changes in the product and infrastructure, the developed products are robust and secure with a competitive advantage against all the peers.
• Collaboration This is a collaborative platform pillared on strong parameters of accountability and ownership. Both the development teams and operations team are in sync with all activities of the development lifecycle to deliver faster and effective products.

Disadvantages of Devops

• DevOps demands Cultural change Yes, this is true if you adopt DevOps in your business, it demands cultural change and business needs to restart their processes in order to grow efficiently.
• Organizational Upgradation is another important factor for companies to upgrade their business from conventional methods to dividing into multidisciplinary tasks that will allow them to use multiple skills at the same time.
• Speed and security is not something that is achieved all the time using DevOps. For some critical software engineering projects, there are companies that may not assure both in a single stage and you may need to consider a separate plan for security at every stage of your DevOps workflow.

3. Scrum Development Methodology

You can apply the Scrum Development Methodology in nearly all types of projects. For companies where the requirements are highly emerging and rapid changes are easily adhered to, we use this type of development method. The Scrum software development model begins with brief planning, meeting, and concludes with a final review. Businesses can accelerate the development of software using this method that allows a series of iterations in a single go. It is one of the best software development methodologies because it easily brings slowest progressing projects on track.

Advantages of Scrum Development

• Use Scrum Development for fast-moving, cutting-edge developments, rapid codes, and testing mistakes that can be easily rectified.
• In this methodology, decision-making is entirely in the hands of the teams.
• This methodology enables projects with the business requirements documentation and other signs that contribute to success.
• Enterprises can control the Project development steps visible in this method with emphasis on frequent updating of the progress.
• A daily meeting easily helps the developer to make it possible to measure individual productivity. This leads to the improvement in the productivity of each of the team members.
• Due to short sprints and constant feedback, it becomes easier to cope with the changes.
• It is easier to deliver a quality product at a scheduled time.

Disadvantages of Scrum Development

• As one of the leading causes of scope creep is Agile Scrum thus there is no definite end date, the project management stakeholders will be tempted to keep demanding that new functionality be delivered.
• You should keep the estimation of project costs and time accurate if not then this kind of development model will suffer.
• It is good for small, fast-moving projects but not suitable for large complex projects.
• This methodology needs experienced team members only. If the team consists of people who are novices, the project cannot be completed within an exact time frame.
• Scrum works well for project management when the Scrum Master trusts the team they are managing. If they practice too strict control over the team members, it can be extremely frustrating for them, leading to demoralization and the failure of the project.
• Project quality manager is hard to implement and quantify unless the test team is able to conduct regression testing after each sprint.

4. Waterfall Model

The Waterfall Methodology is one of the most popular software development methodologies. Most businesses consider this life cycle model as a classic style of software development. This model clarifies the software development process in a linear sequential flow. In any phase of the development cycle, you should always cross-check that the earlier phase is completed. This traditional software development method is a rigid linear model. This development approach does not define the process to go back to the previous phase to handle changes in requirements.

Advantages of the Waterfall Model

• Waterfall model is very simple and easy to understand and uses methodology. That is why it is beneficial for the beginner or novice developer.
• It is easy to manage the projects because of the rigidity of the model. Moreover, each phase has specific deliverables and an individual review process.
• Waterfall development methodology saves a significant amount of time at all the phases processed and completed at a given time.
• The requirements are very well understood/defined in the waterfall method. Also, it works effectively for smaller projects.
• You can easily do the testing that refers to the defined scenarios in the earlier functional specification.

Disadvantages of Waterfall Model

• If the requirements are precise and are available up-front, then the waterfall development method can only be used.
• Waterfall method is not applicable to projects that demand continuous maintenance.
• The main drawback of this method is that once an application is in the testing stage, it is not advisable to go back and do any amendments changes for completed software, it may cause a lot of problems.
• There is no possibility that we can to develop any working software until it reaches the last stage of the cycle
• You cannot include the client’s valuable feedback within the ongoing development phase.
• In waterfall development method, there is no option to know the end result of the entire project
• Make your requirements well-defined and clear or else this model is not suitable. It is effective for long and ongoing projects.
• In waterfall methodology, Documentation occupies a lot of time for developers and testers.

5. Prototype Methodology

The Prototype Methodology is the software development process that allows developers to create only the prototype of the solution to demonstrate its functionality to the clients. Make all the necessary modifications before developing the actual application using this methodology. The best feature of this software development methodology is that it solves a plethora of issues that often occur in a traditional waterfall model.

Advantages of Prototype Model

• Show the prototype to the client to have a clear understanding and complete ‘feel’ of the functionality developed in the software. It ensures a greater level of customer satisfaction and comfort.
• Identify the scope of the refinement and accordingly accommodate new changes in the given requirements.
• Significantly reduce the risk of failure using this method and identify the potential risks at an early stage and moderation steps can be taken quickly.
• The communication between the software development team and the client makes a very good and conducive environment during a project.
• It helps in requirement gathering and requirement analysis when there is a lack of required documents.

Disadvantages of Prototype Model

• Prototyping is usually done at the cost of the developer, so it should be done using minimal resources otherwise the organization’s development cost stretches too much.
• Customers sometimes demand the actual product to be delivered soon after seeing an early prototype.
• The clients have too much involvement which is not always aligned with the software developer.
• It does not appreciate too many modifications in the project as it easily disturbs the existing workflow of the entire software development process.
• Customers may not be satisfied or interested in the product after seeing the initial prototype.

6. Feature Driven Development

Feature Driven Development is an iterative approach out of all the software methodologies, intended for use by large teams working on a project using object-oriented technology. This type of model is good for organizations that are transitioning from a phase-based approach to an iterative approach. Feature Driven methodology is also known as an FDD methodology.

Advantages of FDD Methodology

• With Feature Driven Development model, Progress tracking of the project happens by a feature that is a focused approach.
• It allow multiple teams to work simultaneously. Which, in turn, reduces the time.
• FDD Helps to move larger size projects and obtain repeatable success.
• The simple five processes help to bring work done in a short time and easiest manner.
• This type of model is built on set standards for the software development industry, so it helps easy development and industry-recognized best practices.

Disadvantages of FDD Methodology

• Not an ideal methodology for smaller projects, so it is not good for an individual software developer.
• High dependency on the main developer means the person should be fully equipped for an act as coordinator, lead designer, and mentor.
• No written documentation is provided to clients in this methodology, so they are not able to get proof for their software.

7. Rapid Application Development (RAD)

Rapid Application Development (RAD) is an effective methodology that provides much quicker development and higher-quality results than those achieved with the other software development methodologies. It is designed in such a way that it easily takes the maximum advantage of the software development. The main objective of rapid application development methodology is to accelerate the entire software development process. The goal is easily achievable because it allows active user participation in the development process.

Advantages of the RAD model

• Rapid Application development model helps to reduce the risk and required efforts on the part of the software developer.
• Additionally, this model also helps the clients to take quick reviews for the project.
• This methodology encourages customer feedback which always provides improvement scope for any software development project.
• As a result of prototyping in nature, there is a possibility of lesser defects.
• Each phase in RAD delivers the highest priority functionality to the client.

Disadvantages RAD model

• This model depends on the strong team and individual performances for clearly identifying the exact requirement of the business.
• It only works on systems that can be modularized can be built using this methodology.
• This approach demands highly skilled developers and a designer’s team which may not be possible for every organization.
• This method is not applicable for the developer to use in small budget projects as the cost of modeling and automated code generation is very high.
• Progress and problems accustomed are hard to track as such there is no documentation to demonstrate what has been done.

8. Spiral Model

The Spiral Model is a sophisticated model that focuses on the early identification and reduction of project risks. In this software development methodology, developers start on a small scale then explores the risks involved in the project, make a plan to handle the risks, and finally decides whether to take the next step of the project to do the next iteration of the spiral. The success of any Spiral Lifecycle Model depends on the reliable, attentive, and knowledgeable management of the project.

Advantages of Spiral Model

• The high amount of risk analysis being done hence, avoidance of possible risk is certainly reduced with this model.
• This model is good for large size and critical projects.
• In the spiral model, additional functionality can be added at a later date.
• Development is fast and features are added systematically in this model.
• It is more suited for high-risk projects, where business needs may differ from time to time basis.

Disadvantages of Spiral Model

• It is certainly a costly model to use in terms of development.
• The success of the entire project is dependent on the risk analysis phase thus, failure in this phase may damage the entire project.
• It is not appropriate for low-risk projects.
• The big risk of this methodology is that it may continue indefinitely and never finish.
• Documentation is more as it has intermediate phases.

9. Dynamic Systems Development Model Methodology

Dynamic Systems Development Model is a software development methodology originally based on the Rapid Application Development methodology. This is an iterative and incremental approach that emphasizes continuous user involvement. Its main aim is to deliver software systems on time and within budget. This model simply works on the philosophy that nothing is developed perfectly in the first attempt and considers it an ever-changing process.

Advantages of Dynamic Systems Development Model

• Users are highly involved in the development of the system so, they are more likely to get a grip on the software development project.
• In a dynamic systems model, the basic functionality is delivered quickly, with more functionality being delivered at frequent intervals.
• This method provides easy access by developers to end-users.
• In this kind of development, approach projects are delivered on time and within a specific budget.

Disadvantages of Dynamic Systems Development Model

• The first thing is that DSDM is costly to implement, as it requires users and developers both to be trained to employ it effectively. It may not be suitable for small organizations or one-time projects.
• It is a relatively new model, therefore, it is not very common and easy to understand.
• Dynamic systems model Requires significant user involvement.
• This model Involves the progressive development of project requirements.

10. Extreme Programming Methodology

Extreme Programming is an agile software engineering methodology. This methodology, which is shortly known as XP methodology, is mainly used for creating software within a very unstable environment. It allows greater flexibility within the modeling process. The main goal of this XP model is to lower the cost of software requirements. It is quite common in the XP model that the cost of changing the requirements at later stages in the project can be very high.

Advantages of Extreme Programming Methodology

• The main advantage of Extreme Programming is that this methodology allows software development companies to save costs and time required for project realization. Time savings are available because of the fact that XP focuses on the timely delivery of final products. Extreme Programming teams save lots of money because they don’t use too much documentation. They usually solve problems through discussions inside of the team.
• Extreme programming methodologies emphasize customer involvement.
• This model helps to establish rational plans and schedules and to get the developers personally committed to their schedules which are surely a big advantage in the XP model.
• This model is consistent with most modern development methods so, developers are able to produce quality software.

Disadvantages of Extreme Programming Methodology

• Some specialists say that Extreme Programming is focused on the code rather than on design. That may be a problem because good design is extremely important for software applications. It helps sell them in the software market. Additionally, in XP projects the defect documentation is not always good. Lack of defect documentation may lead to the occurrence of similar bugs in the future.
• This methodology is only as effective as the people involved, Agile does not solve this issue.
• This kind of software development model requires meetings at frequent intervals at enormous expense to customers.
• It requires too many development changes which are very difficult to adopt every time for the software developer.
• In this methodology, it tends to be impossible to know exact estimates of work effort needed to provide a quote, because at the starting of the project nobody is aware of the entire scope and requirements of the project.

11. Joint Application Development Methodology

Joint Application Development (JAD) is a requirements-definition and user-interface development methodology in which end-users, clients, and developers attend intense off-site meetings to work out and finalize software systems. This methodology aims to involve the client in the design and development of an application. JAD sessions easily accomplish targeted goals with a series of collaborative workshops. The main focus of this model is to resolve the business problem rather than technical details. Thus it is most suitable for developing business systems.

Advantages JAD Methodology

• This methodology allows for the simultaneous gathering and consolidating of large amounts of information. The collaboration between the company and the clients lowers all risks.
• This software development mode effectively produces large amounts of high-quality information in a short period of time. It reduces the costs and time needed for project development.
• With the proper assistance of the organizer, the differences are immediately resolved in this method.
• This model provides a forum to explore multiple points of view regarding a topic.
• Well-defined requirements improve system quality.

Disadvantages of JAD Methodology

• JAD methodology takes a large amount of time as it requires significant planning and scheduling effort on the part of the project development team.
• It requires significant investor commitment in terms of time and effort.
• This approach requires trained and experienced personnel for the effective implementation of the entire project.
• Different opinions within the team make it difficult to align goals and maintain focus.

12. Lean Development Methodology

Lean Development Methodology focuses on the creation of easily changeable software. This Software Development model is more strategically focused than any other type of agile methodology. The goal of this methodology is to develop software in one-third of the time, with a limited budget, and a very less amount of required workflow.

Advantages of Lean Development Methodology

• The early elimination of the overall efficiency of the development process certainly helps to speeds up the process of entire software development which surely reduces the cost of the project.
• Delivering the product early is a definite advantage. It means that the development team can deliver more functionality in a shorter period of time, hence enabling more software projects to be delivered.
• Empowerment of the development team helps in developing the decision-making ability of the team members which creates more motivation among team members.

Disadvantages of Lean Development Methodology

• Success in software development depends on how disciplined the team members are and how to advance their technical skills.
• The role of a business analyst is vital to ensure the business requirements documentation is understood properly. If any organization doesn’t have a person with the right business analyst then this method may not be useful for them.
• In this development model, great flexibility is given to the developer which is surely great, but too much of it will quickly lead to a development team that lost focus on its original objectives thus, it hearts the flow of the entire project development work.

Conclusion

The above software development methodologies are very important which are mostly used for various software development projects. Moreover, all these popular software development methodologies work well in certain projects depending upon the nature of the project. It often happens that one methodology that is suited for a particular project may not be suited for another project. Moreover, none of these software development methodologies are foolproof as each has its pros and cons. So, software developers must have information about all these methodologies before selecting any of these development methods for their software development projects. For better results, it is advisable to consult a professional software development company.

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