The ODC (Offshore Development Center) is a business model that is customized and secure to solve IT-related challenges in a hassle-free manner.

Companies of every size whether small or large can take advantage of this budget-friendly solution. And the success of the offshore development center is backed by stats. As per Statista, the global outsourcing market amounted to $92.5 billion.

Erupting as the new and tending business strategy, setting up an offshore development center has become a new gold rush that companies attempt to utilize so that they can extend beyond the national periphery.

Using this effective approach, you can hire top-notch dedicated offshore developers, without going through the tedious process of traditional hiring.

Though, a lot of businesses still think that setting up an ODC is a complicated process. But in reality, it is quite easy to set up an ODC (offshore development center). While working with an offshore team is beneficial, this strategy also has some issues.

However, if you are aware of the pitfalls of the offshore development center, it is easy to mitigate them as well. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

Offshore Development Center (Pitfalls and Solutions)

1. High Initial Investment

At first, setting up an offshore development center may seem like a costly affair. The cost is likely to increase depending upon the professionals you are going to add withing your offshore team. Usually, an offshore development team consists of the following:

• Designers
• Developers
• Software testers
• Project Manager

With the addition of new members, the overhead cost will keep increasing. Another cost may add up, as a few companies also charge the infrastructure fee.

Solution

Collaboration with a reliable Indian outsourcing company like Your Team in India means, that you can actually set up an offshore development center at zero-setup investment. Plus, you can hire developers across various technologies using any of the following hiring models, depending upon your will & budget:

• Hourly Based
• Monthly Based
• Fixed Cost Project

To fulfill any short term business objective, staff augmentation can be the right choice. But for long-term commitments, the offshore development center would be more favorable and offer you strategic benefits that will maximize your ROI.

2. Cultural Barrier Impacts the Overall Productivity

As per the research of Geert Hofstede, cultural differences are based on six major factors:

• Distance
• Long-term orientation
• Individualism
• Masculinity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Indulgence

Every company has different cultural values in terms of accountability, load balancing, and way of interaction, time management, and business etiquette. Culture is usually one of the major pitfalls of setting up an ODC (offshore development center).

The cultural difference impacts interactions, communication, interpretation, understanding, productivity, comfort, and commitment.

Solution

In order to address the cultural gap, mutual understanding is a must. If you want to make your outsourcing experience successful, it is important to be aware of the remote work culture.

To effectively work with a team of dedicated offshore developers, you need to personally interact with them & share your vision.

You can conduct multiple online sessions to get everything clear with your remote team. Both parties must be willing to put in their efforts towards mutual understanding. Doing team-building exercises can be beneficial as well.

All of this will help you decrease the cultural difference, leading to the bond strengthening between the in-house and offshore teams.

3. Scaling is Impossible without Dedicated Developers

No entrepreneur wants to hear that the roadblock of their company’s growth is the lower staff. The demand for every business changes quickly. Even with the help of the best tools, it is not easy to stay on your toes.

Because you are not physically present with your team, it is not easy to keep them intact. Another company will be managing them or providing them perks, so you might face an issue where a developer that started the project can leave you in the middle. And you might have to start working with another developer. So, that’s a kind of risk or pitfall that you may want to avoid.

Solution

Well, the case we have discussed above is also possible with the local team. In fact, with an offshore development center, you will have the advantage; it will be their responsibility to arrange another good developer with similar experience (in case he/she leaves the project in between).

Moreover, you can disengage or add more remote developers depending upon your requirements (with prior notice). So, no more hassle. Your offshore development partner not only helps improves your speed but also enables you to quickly expand or retract your team size.

4. Tracking The Work, Productivity, And Performance

One significant challenge of having an offshore development team to track their performance and ensure that everything is moving ahead in the right direction.

For some remote developers, delivering quality work is a top priority. While for others, just engaging for the specified number of hours is the priority. So, it is a challenge to ensure that every single professional working within your offshore development center is using their time efficiently.

Solution

You should know about the quantitative ways to evaluate a remote worker’s contribution to the task or project. ODC (offshore development center) has talented developers who are proficient in the most current tools and platforms.

Take the help of employee productivity software like Hubstaff, to know about what the ODC team is up to during the workday. Depending on what software you use, you can also get intermittent screenshots to know what the exact status is.

The productivity of an employee gives you quantitative data on how much time is spent on which task.

Conclusion

Advancement in technology, as well as globalization, has made offshore development centers an increasingly popular option for companies. Having the potential to save cost, efforts, and money, it has become a viable option for many companies.

No challenges will come across your way if you fully understand the concept of ODC and choose the right partner. There is no reason to doubt that this model will continue to become popular over time as technology advances further.

Want To Grow Your Business With ODC Model? We Can Help You

Have you already defined your goals? Is setting up an offshore development center is a part of it? We can help you put together the right resources and oversee your software development operations to ensure smooth functioning.

Offshore Development Center Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them? was originally published in Geek Culture on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.