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A timeless quote from a famous literary work captures the essence of how firms try to cope in uncertain times. It speaks:
“…we’ve to run as fast as we are able to just to stay in place. And if you want to get anywhere, you have to run twice as fast.”
As firms downsize their IT departments and look for tactics to improve budget allocation, the scope of labor is shrinking along with the demand for software engineering expertise. This has made partnerships with third-party software firms so popular today, as they assist fill such gaps. These numbers speak for themselves:
In this text, I present the three only approaches to working with software vendors and explain the cases where each works best in optimizing your ROI.
Related: 5 things to consider when hiring a software outsourcing partner
Dedicated team of programmers
A dedicated team of developers works long-term with the intention of bearing in mind all customer requirements in software solutions and aligning them with the corporate’s strategic goals. It consists of experts needed to create a project from scratch. On this case, the client transfers responsibility for administrative, HR, tax and social issues to his technology partner.
Lets say that you are planning to modernize your organization’s IT infrastructure. Your goal is to streamline and minimize any problems or disruptions which will occur. Finding a talented IT infrastructure architect will take time and there isn’t any guarantee that the person you find shall be right for the project. Then again, partnering with a dedicated development team with such knowledge will ensure faster implementation of changes.
Develop the Experimental Platform and help drivers make smart parking and traffic decisions, Ford engaged experts from IBM. Leveraging IBM Analytics delivered via the IBM Cloud, this partnership facilitated a continuous flow of information. As a result, Ford introduced a groundbreaking technological solution that can also be utilized in other firms’ projects.
The areas where cooperation with a dedicated team of programmers brings the best business results are:
Strengthening the team
When a company decides to cooperate with a software company within the team enlargement model, it means strengthening the prevailing group of engineers with recent specialists. The terms of this cooperation agreement specify that the professionals involved are required to allocate their efforts to specific tasks, and that remuneration is predicated on the variety of hours worked.
Here’s how team extension works in a company: Suppose a growing e-commerce company wants to develop a mobile application with specific 3D functionality. An in-house team is already working on this project, but lacks experience in developing some 3D features. As a substitute of waiting for the team to acquire these skills, the corporate finds a software engineer from an external vendor.
Cases where tech team extension for businesses works best:
Related: 4 Mistakes You Shouldn’t Make When Selecting a Software Development Company
Managed Services
Managed services is the practice of delegating responsibility for specific functions inside the software development department to external service providers. Namely, they monitor, maintain and optimize systems, acting as a trusted advisor.
Imagine you are planning to back up or restore your data. This requires a group of cybersecurity specialists and back-end engineers who will usually maintain the corporate’s digital file storage and search for solutions to facilitate search and collaboration. By partnering with a managed service provider and accessing experts, firms minimize the chance of file corruption, loss, or unauthorized access.
Managed Services is a great option when your small business needs services similar to:
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Cloud hosting/operations
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Infrastructure support
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Cyber security services
Within the face of skills shortages and budgetary constraints, partnering with third-party software solution providers is a cost-effective way for firms. Dedicated development team, team expansion and managed services offer firms exclusive expertise and commercially viable terms of cooperation, but suit different business goals.
The outlined specifics and differences between these partnership models will help you select the best approach to fill competency gaps and optimize the efficiency of the complete operation.
Related: Why outsourcing software development services is gaining ground amongst non-technical leaders