In the present-day reality of global changes due to pandemics and digital transformation, people and businesses become more and more dependent on creative applications and software solutions. IT has become a major competitive edge for lots of companies. At the same time, outsourcing development teams, and dedicated software development teams, in particular, is already not only a cost reduction technique but often a way of life for many businesses.
No wonder, in 2021 the global IT outsourcing market was valued at 526.6 billion USD and is predicted to reach 682.3 billion in 5 years, progressing at a CAGR of 4.13%.
About 70% of US businesses outsource and over 70% of British companies want to hand off their key IT services, while about 50% do it.
Multiple studies have revealed that app development and maintenance are the most frequently outsourced services. Outsourcing to tech talents in Eastern Europe allows for keeping operating costs low and leaving the in-house staff focused on operations and customer support.
The growing adoption of cloud services because of the COVID-19 outbreak creates a favorable market scenario for further IT outsourcing market growth. However, the article is going to deal with dedicated development and its specifics. Let’s now dive deeper into the question.
What is a Dedicated Software Development Team?
A dedicated development team is an outsourced team of software designers, developers, engineers, and project and product managers that work on a long-term basis for an external company exclusively to implement the software development project.
By hiring dedicated software developers, clients get the precise expertise they need for their project, and access to the tech talents able to overcome the challenges of the project as well as help attain the business goals set. Unlike simple outsourcing, cooperation with dedicated developers allows one to fully control the workload and team composition. Project management is often realized on the part of the client.
The dedicated team becomes a part of the company staff, creating software solutions of superior quality.
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Nevertheless, to gain such a result, one should hire dev teams with the perfect combination of talents, skills, and roles. Along with proper management and a comfortable working environment, it will help execute the project successfully within a set time frame and budget.
When do you need to hire a Dedicated Development Team?
You need to hire a Dedicated Software Development Team if you want to have these 3 main benefits: reduced expenses, qualified specialists, and reduced hiring time.
The best time for startups and small companies to hire a dedicated software development team is for creating an MVP and when they have an MVP and are ready to scale the product. The best time for a middle-sized business to hire a team is for developing a product, changing something in the product, or adding completely new functionality. The best time for a large company to hire a team is for updating and conducting a digital transformation or moving from one tech stack to another.
Why Consider a Dedicated Development Team Services?
Nowadays, lots of large and medium-sized businesses are eager to outsource their development tasks for multifaceted reasons. Let’s name a few.
New product launch
Hiring a reliable professional development team is always an effective way for startups and existing businesses to create an innovative product and launch it without vesting much time and money.
Long-term projects that require to be updated
In case a company has an outdated current tech stack, a dedicated talent group will be most effective in a time-saving approach. Nowadays, to maintain high product quality, one should continuously update requirements and the product itself in terms of developing new features and characteristics to meet modern trends.
Business scaling
No business can be effectively scaled without software modifications and scaling as well! So, it’s the right time to consider a dedicated software team to outsource all the development aspects and focus on management and marketing aspects, no matter if you open a new office or develop a new business stream.
No clear vision of the result
There are projects, especially those related to Machine Learning, that do not have a clear scope, budget, and timeline as well as the vision of the final result. The requirements may then become clear after some time, while the scope, expenses, and time frame, can be figured out after a certain time and effort spent on the discovery.
Limited budget
Outsourcing offers sensitive savings to small businesses and startups. In-house groups of development are often expensive, especially for companies in the USA, Germany, or France, for instance, where developer rates are high. But a dedicated software team from another country with lower rates can offer an extensive talent pool as well as a competitive environment.
The types of Dedicated Software Development teams
There are 4 different types of dedicated teams that enterprises avail: UI/UX designers, Front-end developers, Back-end developers, and QA managers. Apart from this, there are several roles that can come under a dedicated team model. Data scientists, Project Managers, Business Analysts, and DevOps Engineers are a couple more additional positions that enterprises often hire.
What Are the Pros & Cons of a Dedicated Software Development Team?
Every business and management solution has its gains, drawbacks, and consequences. Let’s find out what are the advantages and weaknesses of dedicated development team services.
Focus on the specific task
A dedicated team is fully committed to the project, thus the 100% involvement helps to speed up the response to any project changes. It results in the best development outcomes.
Cost-effectiveness
As we have already mentioned above, in-house rates are often at least twice more expensive as the outsourced ones, 70 USD against 35 USD on average.
Access to expertise
By outsourcing some projects, the client company gets immediate access to the world’s leading developers and engineers. Thus, a dedicated software development team can provide the client with an efficiency an in-house team can never offer because some experts are simply impossible to be locally found.
Transparent communication and management
Since a dedicated team becomes a remote part of the company, it presupposes lots of daily communication, constant feedback, and direct management on the part of the hiring company project managers and even the owner. The client can constantly stay up-to-date with the project’s progress up to the moment.
No-fuss hiring
A dedicated development company usually has a pool of experts and professionals to form a team. So a client can hand-pick those candidates from the shortlist who match the company principles, project objectives, and budget restrictions best.
Great flexibility
The project requirements, current tasks, and challenges that set in can sometimes require new solutions and new experts. The vendor can always offer the client to quickly alter the composition of the team under the current situation, business goals, and circumstances, which is often a problem for the in-house teams. The dedicated team model is also good for adjusting the working plan according to the project changes in current requirements, budget constraints, or industry performance.
Faster development cycle
Dedicated IT specialists are full-time engaged with only one project. It results in running the development cycle faster. Being deep in the process, developers can produce more results by the cycle’s end.
Corporate culture adoption
As well as new employees should understand and share the corporate culture and principles, and a dedicated team is better to adopt the hiring company’s culture as well. Understanding the mission and values can achieve the joint goal faster and more efficiently. Some words about a weak point of outsourcing.
Risks of low quality
The risk of lower quality, security issues, and misunderstandings always exist, but it’s easily fixed with careful choice of a vendor, proper communication, and reasonable control over the process of development. So, when a reliable software development partner is chosen and the process is organized properly from the very beginning, the benefits of hiring dedicated software developers outweigh the disadvantages.
Top 3 Mistakes that lead to the hiring of unsuitable candidates
Relevant experience
A candidate with a few years of experience but limited knowledge in your field is not the best fit for the team. Also If the candidate has the necessary experience but uses outdated and irrelevant technology, this also will not play in favor of the product.
The financial issue
Frequently, companies for saving money hire specialists whose services are the cheapest. Whatever the project, choose the experts whose skills are the most optimal for it and meet their salary expectations.
Team isolation
Give your employees the opportunity to communicate freely. Teamwork makes it possible to highlight and develop the qualities of each worker and compensate for any weaknesses. The teammate will be efficacious in their field and will be able to help others progress.
Dedicated Software Development Vs. In-House Team
Let’s now compare in-house and dedicated development teams in more detail.
In-house developers
With a team in-house, one gets better control over the development process, deadlines, quality, and results, intermediate as well as final. All the developers work together and inside the company, which allows them to be better involved in the project. So they have a deeper understanding of its business goals and all the alterations and project adjustments can be made faster.
Additionally, all the team members would likely speak the same language and have similar cultural backgrounds and values. Thus, the newcomers can quickly integrate into the process, while any misunderstanding can be swiftly solved or even prevented at a place.
Still, an in-house team requires much more expenses, because as a company you should provide not only salaries and taxes but also an office, hard and software for development, and multifaceted operational costs.
Dedicated developer team
With a minimal initial investment, a company can quickly hire a fully professional development team that would solely work on their project. While the team works on the project from the vendor’s offices, all the client needs to do is to pay hourly rates for all members as agreed by the contract. As a result, the budget can be precisely planned for the entire project duration. To have more accurate planning, it’s essential to know the requirements of the team and the project, at least some vision of the desired result, then the search for an appropriate dedicated development team would be much easier.
Thus, the customer can get more delivery with the same budget. On the one hand, there are no office and equipment expenses as well as operational costs, on the other – one can always find proficient software developers from the countries, where the rates are much lower than in the local market.
Industries where we can help with a dedicated team
Founded in 2009, we’ve been providing full-cycle mobile and web development services to clients. We have strong technical expertise across 6 industries as Logistics, Travel, Healthcare, E-commerce, Fintech, and VR/AR.
Dedicated Software Development Team Set-up Process
Smooth and fruitful cooperation starts from the right team setup. Let’s go along the process a bit for a better understanding of what should you do.
Define the requirements
The first step in any project is to gather all the requirements for it. The list should include your business idea and the expected outcome as well as project and job descriptions, the desired workflow, team size, time, and budget frames. A sound idea is to explore the type of mobile platform used by the target audience to hire the right developers.
The client should make the market research and competitor analysis as well as figure out the target audience to put the requirements correctly.
Interview the experts
The project requirements and peculiarities determine the team composition. As soon as the vision of the project is formed, the client can contact a dedicated development company and explain the details. It will help to get the shortlist of potential candidates to form the team. The customer can choose to what extent he wants to be involved in the hiring process and either carry out the technical interviews in person or let a project manager form the team.
Anyway, the candidates are chosen according to their background, technical skills and expertise, and soft skills to figure out the best-fit candidates. The process of hiring and interviewing is an excellent marker to make sure that the vendor company is chosen correctly, providing a customer with the opportunity to evaluate what style and culture they have, whether they meet the initial expectations, or some factors can be a wake-up call.
Sign the detailed and transparent contract
The contract must have a clear description of:
- The development rates (Detailed breakdowns by the required expertise are a must).
- Payment conditions and invoicing details.
- Credit periods and limits, if any.
- Possible discounts.
- The conditions and periods of warranty.
One should keep in mind to check the intellectual property policies and sign the NDAs before the kick-off of the development process. It’s reasonable to sign a personal NDA with each team member.
When having all these conditions properly formulated, proceed to sign the contract.
Launch the dedicated team
After the successful interviews, team formation, and contract signing, the launch of the project goes fast and easy.
Arrange proper team management and receive updates
It’s up to the customer to choose the style of management and interaction with the team. The same works for updates, one can choose daily updates and strict control, while the other will provide more freedom and wants to just see certain results.
Release and renew the contract
After a certain part of the project is completed the results can be reviewed, the model of interaction evaluated and certain conclusions are drawn. With Stafalcon as a rule, we get the next contract and more freedom, since our clients are always satisfied with the results they see.
Some words about dedicated development for our clients follow.
Stfalcon’s Experience
Our company tops the list of Global Service Providers in Software and Mobile development for many years. Not once did we get the award as the Best Developers in Ukraine. So, we carried out many projects as a dedicated developer team.
Airfarm is just the first that comes into mind. Our team was formed exclusively from Stfalcon experts to develop a specialized application for the agro-industry. It operates as a network for publishing and viewing articles. Sorted by direct interest, users gain access to a repository of valuable information on how to plant, fertilize, and grow crops.
Read the full case study
In the course of the development, we interviewed our customer to get a profound understanding of the project’s specifics, potential user segments, the profit each segment would gain, and much more. We also initially discussed the project plan and the expectations the client had from us as a dedicated development team. Then we prepared a clickable design mockup of the interface and further provided development support in:
- UX design services;
- UI design services;
- Backend, Frontend, iOS, and Android development services;
- Manual testing.
As a result, the app allowed Airfarm to win the first investors in a seed financing round and raised $2.8 million from donors in the USA.
Stfalcon carried out several projects for Nova Posta, and our dedicated development team fully realized their backend development. More details can be found here.
Read the full case study
What are the best countries for hiring a Dedicated software development team?
The modern infrastructure allows us to hire a software development team from all over the world. But as we have already stated, the key benefit of outsourcing is cost reduction, and the best quality-price ratio is offered in Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland and Ukraine.
Why Choose Ukraine as a Dedicated Software Development Team Country?
Being home to more than 200,000 specialists in the IT field, Ukraine offers a wide choice of experts to outsource software development tasks.
The country also stands out due to the long and successful history of outsourcing, proactive attitude in product management, and fair pricing. Even the top international companies outsource to Ukrainian IT companies.
The cost of IT services here can be 2 to 4 times lower than in the USA or Europe, however, the tech expertise offered instead is of high level.
The pricing depends on the type of dedicated team a company needs to hire, whether it’s a design or developer team, the team’s composition, and the technology required. It’s also needless to mention the developer level wanted – senior, middle, or junior.
What Are the Benefits of Hiring a Dedicated Software Development Team from Stfalcon?
If speaking about Stfalcon’s dedicated development, we offer our clients:
- 12+ years of expertise, 4.8 ranking on Clutch, and 270+ successful projects performed by the best developers we could ever reach.
- IT Academy by Stfalcon is our educational center for dedicated team members.
- Specialists are under the client’s complete control, just like the in-house developer department.
- Transparent services and fast performance from A to Z.
- Dedicated development team members onboarding, providing them also with an office and workplace solution.
- Attractive pricing for long-term cooperation.
To know the up-to-date rates and possibilities and evaluate your unique case, schedule a call with our manager and find out the details.
Final Thoughts
If you have a development project to carry out, now you know all the benefits and prospects open if you hire a team of developers. This cooperation model works great if you want to create an outstanding software product with minimum investment, giving you at the same time access to the best developers all over the globe.
If you have an idea, but can not list the technical requirements, you can still start. Stfalcon is always eager to take on a new challenge. More than 12 years of expertise allow us to understand specific development processes, see the right technical and business solutions, and guide our clients through their projects.
So, contact us to share the details, and we are sure to form a dedicated development team that will craft you a cutting-edge software solution.
