Offshore vs Onshore Software Development: Which One Is Better?

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Dev Admin January 29, 2024 0 Comments

Updating your Project Management Software, or upgrading your website? No matter how big or small a task may seem, hiring the right team for it is crucial. With the help of the right team, you can ensure that your requirements are accomplished and that you get the best results for your project.

How can you select the right candidate?

Whether you are planning a new project, or want to make improvements to your website, you will need to hire a software development team for the task. But it is not as easy as it sounds. When you have the task of selecting the right candidate, making the decision can seem daunting. Immediate after you start researching, you face a common dilemma, should you hire an onshore or an offshore team? The answer depends on your requirements.

Understanding onshore and offshore software development

Onshore teams or candidates for software development refers to any unit located close to your business location. While, this doesn’t mean that the team needs to be the next building over, but it does imply that they are in the same time zone and speak the same language as you do. The team may be in the same pin code, city, state, or country. Also, they can communicate with you effortlessly. In simpler terms, onshore software development refers to hiring local professionals or even teams from within your local geographical area.

Offshore software development team refers to any team that is located abroad.  It may even be from a different continent. India and China are popular countries for outsourcing software development. While most, if not all, teams from these countries can communicate in English, time differences pose a significant challenge. Communication can be challenging, especially if there are vast time differences. Even so, it seems that offshore software development was rightly depicted as the trend for 2020.

 

What to expect when hiring an Onshore team for Software Development?

Onshore teams for Software Development projects are exceptionally beneficial for projects where every detail needs to be clarified before the project can move further. Hiring an onshore team for software development offers numerous benefits; hence, many businesses opt for them.

Ease of Communication

Ease of communication is the key reason why companies opt for an onshore team for software development. To communicate your ideas and your requirements is a necessity to ensure that you are happy with the final results. With clear and instant communication, it is easier to ensure that projects are completed faster and require little revisions. When you opt for an onshore team for software development, you can meet face-to-face, or at the very least, ensure seamless communication because there is no barrier to language and/or time difference.

Interviewing Directly

Hiring an Onshore team means you can interview candidates directly. Hence, you can vet every candidate before you assign them to any projects, which ensures efficiency and faster results.

Familiar Process

Hiring an onshore team, or even better, from within your company ensures that candidates are already familiar with the different processes. While every business is not the same, in many cases, procedures are similar.

Provide Training

Sometimes, you may not find a candidate that meets your needs with precision. In such cases, you can prefer an onshore development team since you can provide them with training with ease. Not only does this help improve their skill, but it also helps them understand what you expect from their work.

Better Management

To ensure complete control over every aspect of the work, you would prefer an onshore team for software projects. Hiring an onshore team allows you to receive quick updates and communicate with them immediately in case of an emergency.

However, choosing an onshore team comes with its limitations. When selecting onshore teams, your talent pool is limited. You may only have a few options, and in some cases, none of these options may be able to meet your needs adequately. Additionally, onshore software development teams can be quite expensive. Although they may be closer to home, you also have to pay more to ensure a faster turnaround.

What to expect when outsourcing software development?

Offshore software development refers to outsourcing your software development projects. In many ways, this can be quite beneficial, and in Deloitte’s Global Outsourcing survey, 78% of respondents reported a positive attitude towards their outsourcing partners.

Lower Cost

Differences in currency values, living costs, and minimum wages mean that it is usually cheaper for companies to outsource their software development. Reduced cost is a significant factor in driving the popularity of outsourcing software development. When companies outsource software development, they can recruit candidates who deliver an equal level of performance at much lower rates than local professionals. Businesses love profits, and reducing costs can ensure them. When outsourcing software development, finding a budget that is affordable for you and profitable for the offshore team is easy. Hence, it is a win-win situation when companies outsource software development.

Increases the Available Talent Pool

Outsourcing software development enables you to look for candidates beyond your region, and even outside of your continent. Hence, it opens up a world of opportunities for you-literally! You can select from a wide range of freelance candidates or even agencies to find one that suits your needs perfectly. When companies opt to outsource software development, it is easy to avoid compromises.

Complete Multiple Projects

Hiring offshore software development candidates also enable you to complete different projects simultaneously. When companies outsource software development, your only duty is to pay for the completion of the project. Hence, you do not have to worry about the burden of employing several new employees. Rather, you can hire various teams at once to ensure faster results and finish multiple projects simultaneously.

Hence, companies may be inclined to outsource software development. However, there are cons that one needs to keep in mind. Firstly, language barriers and time differences result in poor communication. It is not as easy to receive quick updates or relay information from offshore teams compared to onshore teams. The communication gap is a notable disadvantage, and in some instances, may result in unsatisfactory work.  Hiring an offshore team or candidate means that you are not easily able to test or verify their talents. Coupled with the communication barrier, this can mean that you spend most of your time trying to receive updates from the team to ensure that you can rely on them.

What’s the verdict?

Before you decide on which team to hire, it is crucial to list out your requirement. Research about the team that you intend to hire. Check the portfolio to ensure that it can meet your expectations. While it may be easier to communicate with onshore teams, the costs can be steep. However, when hiring offshore candidates or teams to reduce costs, you have to grapple with communication barriers that may be a significant hindrance.

Offshore teams, as well as onshore teams for software projects, have advantages and disadvantages. The decision to opt for an onshore team or an offshore team may rely on your work, the deadline, the budget.