No other labor market segment boasts such an impressive statistical growth as outsourcing & outstaffing. And that’s not because most of us are working from home these days.
In 2022, 54% of all companies used third parties to provide support and customer care services. At the moment, there are over 59 million freelance workers in the US alone, and this number only continues to grow. At the same time, despite millions of US-based freelancers, 300k more jobs are outsourced annually, primarily for economic reasons. Almost 93% of all organizations around the world have tried or are currently outsourcing for at least one project.
Outsourcing is especially widespread in the IT industry: from development and QA to UI/UX, PPC, and SEO campaigns — everything gets outsourced. The reasons why companies choose to outsource software development vary. Reasons range from cost-saving and tax optimization to more intricate things like headhunting for unique talents in geographically distant localities.
Most of the reasons behind outsourcing and outstaffing in IT are efficiency-related though. These include saving time through parallel development of multiple projects, solving problems with an accumulated backlog, managing complex projects across several time zones, and so on.
Managing offshore development is very different from traditional modes of project management, and it’s not because of cultural differences, time zone gaps, or language misunderstandings. Hiring and supervising an offshore development team would have come with its own set of truly unique challenges.
Thus, methods for successfully raising efficiency in offshore team management are very different from what you would find in a standard business management textbook.
Coordination is the key to managing offshore teams. For this very reason, Agile methodology has become the worldwide standard among developers and project managers. Following Agile principles delivers flexibility while leaving the door open for continuous improvement.
more read How To Work With an Agile Offshore Software Development Team
