Sri Lanka has been renowned for its tea, spices, and pristine beaches – but these aren’t the only exports that the country has to offer the world. IT exports by way of software and mobile application development now account for a significant portion of the country’s exports, thanks to a thriving ICT workforce and industry.
Skilled software designers, developers and testers abound, for delivering targeted solutions that are set to grow with the needs of their clientele. As customer demands keep shifting and marketplaces amp up the competition, businesses need a software development partner that they can rely on, to handle the highs and lows, as and when they come.
Cue software outsourcing; as a source of highly skilled teams that also deliver significant savings in overhead, infrastructure and operational costs, delegating your software and app development to a third-party agency is now commonplace, the world over. In this article, we elaborate on the software and IT outsourcing industry in Sri Lanka – and what is so special about it, in comparison to software outsourcing markets elsewhere across the globe. Read on to know more!
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Apart from the cost savings that are generally associated with software outsourcing, the determination seen from Sri Lankan IT workers has been the biggest contributing factor, towards the success of the industry as a whole. Sri Lankan software development teams are, as a result, renowned for being persevering towards achieving goals, even if it involves addressing multiple rounds of feedback. In other words, less fuss and more focus towards ensuring goals and standards are met is the general mindset; this gives businesses the assurance that they can rely on their teams during routine tasks and emergencies alike.
Outsourcing IT services to Sri Lanka can enable an ROI that ultimately makes it worthwhile to do so. With cost-efficiency being one of the key advantages of outsourcing, your Sri Lankan software outsourcing team won’t only be more affordable due to favourable exchange rates and the alleviation of physical office space, but also because teams will make sure your hosted resources are purchased and used with a pricing model that delivers the best savings.
Sri Lankan IT teams are also known for being at the forefront of the latest trends and technologies, so much so that seminars, conferences and workshops are common among developer communities in the country. This enthusiasm is also shared day in and day out, by delivering updates that feature newfound technologies, to clients’ projects. Together with expertise that is highly skilled as well as dynamic, such a combination can help result in solutions that are always in lockstep with what your customers truly need – while further cementing trust in the partnership.
Whether you are just starting out with a brand new software outsourcing partner or have an ongoing partnership, make sure teams on both sides (your software outsourcing team, and the team from your business’s side that coordinates with them) have a systematic process in place to assign, transfer and supervise tasks. Additionally, instilling the principle of accountability for each task is also vital, as every team member knows who is responsible for what, and when. This will, in turn, give every team member clarity for executing their own set of tasks, without having to grapple with miscommunications and/or misunderstandings at any point in time.
Encouraging team members to voice any doubts and/or questions as soon as they realise the same is another principle that needs to be inculcated. This also ties in closely with the above pointer, and can be addressed while systems are being set in place to establish a smooth cadence during daily operations.
Whether primary channels of communication are via chat apps, email or the daily standup, decide which is ideal for the unique needs and schedules of your team – and encourage everyone to raise concerns as soon as they appear. This is because a failure to do so can cause teams to deliver tasks based on misconceptions, or through working in a proverbial vacuum – both of which can cost money and delays, further along the pipeline.
In essence, there are two sets of KPIs that are relevant to your software development team:
Exactly what these KPIs are is best determined before design and development begins for your software. Next, establishing the right mechanisms to report on these KPIs can provide managerial and executive teams the quantifiable data they need to aid business decision-making, and direct growth.
For brand new software rollouts and implementations of new features, it is advisable to always start small, ideally with an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). Focus on the essentials, and allow customer feedback to guide your team on how to improve your product. This way, your team spends time and effort only on capabilities that users truly like and need, as opposed to building a plethora of features beforehand – with many hardly being put to use, if at all.
Sri Lanka has long since been a destination that most companies consider outsourcing their software development operations to – and for good reason. With a workforce that is highly conscientious towards client requirements and has been resilient enough to thrive even during periods of economic and political turmoil, you can rest assured that software development outsourcing in Sri Lanka is bound to be a sensible decision.
Add to this the capability of Sri Lankan software development teams to build high-quality software – while constantly having your budget in mind. This means that your team shall only select the best pricing models for your hosted infrastructure, which will further contribute to cost savings, in addition to a favourable exchange rate.
However, ensuring success with a software outsourcing team requires a few key steps that may otherwise not be an issue across conventional, in-person teams. With outsourcing teams typically located in different parts of the world, it is quite easy for team members to fall into a ‘vacuum’, as even micro-conversations that are characteristic of in-person collaboration are absent. To mitigate this, ensuring your team members know who they can reach as soon as they have any concerns to clarify is highly crucial – so misconceptions aren’t baked into final outcomes, at the expense of time, effort and money.
Other rules-of-thumb include the adoption of KPIs, as well as the achievement of goals that are smaller and bite-sized in nature. No matter the size of your business, these are principles that can be implemented across your software outsourcing team, so you can guarantee a long-term partnership that eventually contributes to bottom line growth.
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