LTS QA

With the increasingly high demand for software testing on the global market, Vietnam, as one of the top countries to provide software outsourcing services, has seen a rise in the companies offering software testing services. Software testing companies in Vietnam have many years of experience in quality assurance. These companies are the representatives of what Vietnam can offer for the testing market: affordable budget, domain experts and dedicated supports.

Top 10 software testing outsourcing companies in Vietnam

Lotus Quality Assurance

Lotus Quality Assurance (LQA) is ranking as top 3 Software testing companies in Vietnam, recognized by the Clutch B2B rating platform in 2021. Founded in 2016, Lotus QA is a young yet promising company working in the software testing industry. With a competitive price of no more than $25/hour, Lotus QA has successfully proven its competency and dedication to clients’ experience, gaining us the honorable Sao Khue awards and the reputation of top-notch services in the demanding market of America, Japan, Korea, etc.

Software testing services at LQA include QA consultation, testing implementation, and testing talents for hire. LQA’s expertise is mobile app testing, web app testing and automation testing, proven through successful projects with many renowned businesses in the world such as Toshiba, LG’s Electronics, AVN, Panasonic, etc.

Throughout 5 years of development, Lotus QA has witnessed the biggest growth rate in company size with 248 employees, 30% of which are manual testers and automation testers. With the experience working mainly in medium-sized and small projects, Lotus QA can well provide you with top-notch software testing services with midmarket and small businesses.

Lotus Quality Assurance (LQA) – Top Software testing companies in Vietnam

KMS Solutions, Inc.

With 12 years working in the IT sector, KMS Solutions have served 130+ clients, helping them save $139M in different IT services, notably software testing services.

To achieve these impressive numbers, KMS Solutions provide industry-leading solutions for sustainable, profitable growth. Through comprehensive software QA and testing services, KMS Solutions offer high-quality engineers with comprehensive domain experience, with a competitive price.

Especially, KMS Solutions apply an automation-first mindset to everything they build. This mindset allows their testers to deliver quality software at faster speeds expediting your time-to-market.

FPT Software

FPT Software is a giant in Vietnam’s IT outsourcing market with an international-acclaimed reputation. In FPT Software, clients work with a Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE), which is a command center that makes use of standardized tools and processes to enhance the alignment between enterprise environment and IT, and increase QA efficiency.

FPT Software can provide you with multiple quality assurance and software testing services, but the most recent success of FPT Software lies in the implementation of automation testing. With the use of certified and standardized testing tools, FPT Software gains the trust of many clients. To meet the requirements of testers, FPT Software has developed a team of 1,700 testers worldwide, offering their expertise to 200+ clients of all industries.

Logi Gear

Established in 1994, LogiGear is always rank in Top Software testing companies in Vietnam with wide experience, especially in automated testing. They spent more than 27 years optimizing their testing services. The most stand-out testing services in Logi Gear are:

– Automation testing: With well-versed experts in a variety of Test Automation tools, Logi Gear can boost up the testing process and save time.

– Functional testing: LogiGear provides a QA functional testing service that utilizes decades of knowledge of Software Testing and specialized Test Automation tools.

– Offshore teams: LogiGear can solve the problems of lack of Subject Matter Expertise, lack of Infrastructure/Resources, scalability of QA and time-to-market.

CO-WELL Asia

CO-WELL Asia is currently an emerging destination for software testing services. With 400 IT engineers working in Hanoi and Da Nang that graduated from the top universities of Vietnam and many others all over the world, CO-WELL Asia can offer a higher ratio of QA testers to programmers in comparison to other Vietnamese companies.

Especially in CO-WELL Asia, various training courses have been organized in Vietnam as well as abroad to enhance staff’s technical level and soft skills. With these skills, CO-WELL Asia can bring optimum value to our customers.

In terms of skill composition, 40% of the staff are PHP, 12% of .Net, 12% of Java, 36% of HTML, iOS, Perl and other languages. Moreover, CO-WELL Asia achieved ISO/IEC 27001:2013 Certificate of Information Security Standard and multiple Sao Khue awards, including the best ten software outsourcing services in Vietnam.

MeU Solutions INC

For MeU Solutions, their main testing services are Manual Testing, Automation Testing and Security Testing. Through their 13 years of experience, they have done 100+ projects with 30+ pools of real devices. Their current testing staff is 30+ QA engineers, working with a low hourly rate of under $25/ hr.

With profound expertise in testing an extensive range of iOS, Android and web applications, MeU Solutions INC has successfully delivered quality apps to global clientele.

TMA Solutions

TMA Solutions was established in 1997 to provide quality software outsourcing services to leading companies worldwide TMA Solutions is one of the largest software outsourcing companies in Vietnam with 3,000 engineers. Their engineering team was selected from a large pool of Vietnam IT engineers; they are well-trained and have successfully completed many large and complex projects.

TMS Solutions is quite a big name in the Software Testing market in Vietnam. Their main service offerings include full product verification, test planning & execution and test automation. With just under the fee of $20/ hr, you can hire their best teams to carry out software testing services for you.

SHIFT ASIA

SHIFT ASIA opened its office in HCM Vietnam in 2016, as a strategic SEA hub to scale operations and better serve the greater APAC region. Started off with 25 QA professionals for the manual testing division, SHIFT ASIA has since grown into a full-functioning office handling international clients.

Through their years of development, SHIFT ASIA now has 200 passionate employees with diverse backgrounds and expertise. The things that facilitate our wide service offerings are security assessment, test automation, international inspection, offshore development and many more.

Waverley Software

Waverley Software is another big name in the list of software testing companies in Vietnam. This brand was started in 1992 in the US, and then reached out to the world through the expansion in many countries, namely Vietnam.

In Vietnam’s market, Waverly Software stands out as a top-quality QA company, providing all kinds of testing services. Waverley’s quality assurance and software testing services help companies around the world build

uality products. They conduct QA audits, provide standalone software QA, manual testing, and test automation services using agile testing methodology. At Waverley, they design their own testing tools; provide various types of software testing; write test documentation including test plans, checklists and test cases; monitor quality metrics and conduct data analytics. Their office in Ho Chi Minh City hosts some of South East Asia’s top software testers. Waverley Software conducts training programs for technology graduates on a regular basis, which allows them to rapidly scale their clients’ teams with trained talents for a smooth testing process.

Axon Active

Axon Active is the last name in the top 10 software testing companies in Vietnam. Axon Active’s offshore testing center not only provides regular offshore software testing services but also works towards becoming a trusted consulting partner. They aims to help design a strategic software testing process for the clients’ business and advice suitable software testing solutions that improve your business efficiency and performance, helping you achieve long-term objectives.

A quick comparison among the top 10 software testing companies in Vietnam

Company	Hourly rate	Employees	Founded Year	Main testing services
Lotus Quality Assurance	< $25 / hr	248	2016	– Web & Moblie App Testing testing – Embbeded Software Testing – Automation Testing – Integration Testing – API Testing
KMS Solutions, Inc.	Undisclosed	50 – 249	2009	– Test Automation – API Testing – Mobile Testing
FPT Software	< $25 / hr	10,000+	1988	– Web & Moblie App Testing testing – Embedded product testing – Cloud testing – Inter-operability (IoP) testing
CO-WELL ASIA	1,000 – 9,999	$50,000+	2011	– Web App Testing – Mobile App Testing – Data Migration Testing – Testing tools & Project management tools
Logi gear	Undisclosed	50 – 249	1994	– Web & Mobile Testing – Test Automation – API Testing – Localization Testing – Games & IoT Testing
MeU Solutions INC	< $25 / hr	50 – 249	2016	– Shift-Right Testing – Effectively Managed Testing – Automation Sign-On Package
TMA Solution	< $25 / hr	1,000 – 9,999	1997	– Full Product Verification – Web & Mobile App Testing – Test Automation
SHIFT ASIA	< $25 / hr	50 – 249	2016	– Web & Mobile App Testing​ – Vulnerability Test
Axon Active	Undisclosed	250 – 999	2008	– Web & Mobile App Testing
Waverley Software	$25 – $49 / hr	250 – 999	1992	– Web & Mobile App Testing

Conclusion

Vietnam has the potential to become a new software testing outsourcing hub of Asia. With the Introduction of top 10 Software Testing Company in Vietnam, we hope you can find the best service provider for your testing projects. If you are small or medium-sized company looking for top-notch software testing companies in Vietnam, you can contact Lotus Quality Assurance’s expert and let us know what we can help you with!

• Website: https://www.lotus-qa.com/
• Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474
• Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/LotusQualityAssurance

 

South-East Asia has recently gained the reputation of an emerging technology hub. This region is not only the home of many tech unicorns but also a destination for multiple outsourcing services. Among these services, Vietnam software outsourcing stands out as the must-try solution for any business looking for top-notch IT outsourcing services. With the competitive price tops off the list, Vietnam also offers a proficient talent pool, stronger economic potentials, and a more competitive market.

When talking about Vietnam, people often link the country to the picture of a dynamic market and growing industrial development or war-torn history. But with the recent success and new orientation towards the growth of information technology, software development in Vietnam has successfully gained the trust of international clients.

 

 

1. Vietnam software outsourcing holds great potentials and a strong foundation

Vietnam is located at the heart of Southeast Asia, in GMT+7, which is 12 hours ahead of the US, 7 hours ahead of the UK, 3 hours behind of Australia, 2 hours behind of Japan and Korea. Vietnam’s economy is forecast to grow by about 4.8 percent in 2021: WB. More specifically, as of June 20, 2021, foreign investment projects (FDI) were estimated to disburse US$9.24 billion, an increase of 6.8 percent compared to the same period in 2020.

Vietnam is developing steadily despite the recent outburst of the COVID – 19 Delta variant. And one of the booming industries is Vietnam software outsourcing.

 

Vietnam is thriving in the ICT industry, especially with software export

Since the rise of IT outsourcing services about 15 years ago, Vietnam software outsourcing has always been a hidden gem for businesses to apply technology. In fact, in recent years, Vietnam has proven its capabilities as Japan’s second-largest partner in terms of software development and service outsourcing from 2014 to present.

 

 

According to 2021’s Global Services Location Index, Vietnam emerged as a new digital hub as we ranked the 6th with 4 main categories: financial attractiveness, people skills & availability, business environment and digital resonance. Vietnam also ranked 9th in Tholon’s Top 50 Digital Nations. From an obsolete country with barely any technological advancements 20 years ago, Vietnam has spurred rapid digital transformation to the point that our ICT businesses not only provide services to the domestic market but also export a great deal of software and other solutions. This development is proven through the following number:

• The total ICT export is reported to be $91.5B, bringing $3.5B of software export turnover. This number is predicted to grow at least 5% in 2021.
• The software & IT services accounted for $11.0B (according to a report of Vietnam Software and IT Services Association).

Since 2016, Vietnam’s been describes as “South East Asia’s Silicon Valley”, predicting a booming digital economy in the years coming. This exponential development will be taken to another level as the government has stepped in to form legal frameworks and initiatives, and put focus on IT sector’s growth.

With these impressive achievements through the hardest time amidst the pandemic and experiences working with the most demanding clients in the world, Vietnam is becoming more and more favored in the world’s software outsourcing market.

 

Vietnam’s IT Market Growth Index

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications’ 2019 summary and 2020 orientation report, total ICT industry revenue in 2019 is estimated at $112,350B, including 81.5% for ICT export.

2020 marked the first year that Vietnam officially announced its focus on developing digital technology businesses, the “Make in Vietnam” strategy. The number of digital technology businesses has since increased by 28%, reaching nearly 60,000 companies.

Vietnam’s digital technology businesses will concentrate on 12 key areas such as E-commerce, Fintech, Ride/food order, Edtech, Healthcare, AI, Machine Learning, Blockchain, etc. With this concentration aligning with the world’s trends, Vietnam’s capabilities can meet the demands of the world, particularly of the businesses looking for IT outsourcing services.

 

You may interest:Top IT Outsourcing Company in Vietnam

 

2. Plentiful IT Human Resource

Vietnam has to face the talent shortage problem like many other nations in the world, but the current number of IT workers shows a prominent outlook for the development of the whole industry. The numbers can speak for themselves:

• Currently, Vietnam has approximately 400,000 IT engineers working in multiple fields.
• There are about 50,000 students who graduate from training institutions annually.
• About 53% of the IT workforce have from 1 – 3 years of experience. Interesting enough, although they have just a few years of experience, many Vietnamese tech engineers have the level of Senior / Lead expertise.

Through these numbers, Vietnam is proven to have a sufficient talent pool to meet the demand on IT engineers.

 

 

Resonating with the current trends of the world, Vietnamese IT engineers focus on some of the most popular technologies, including:

• For Frameworks/Library: Laravel (49.6%), NodeJS (36.4%), React (27.9%)
• For Database: MySQL (59.1%), SQL Server (40.0%), PostgreSQL (32.9%)
• For IDE & text editor: Visual Studio Code (35.2%) , Sublime Text (34.9%), IntelliJ (33.5%)

These technologies only represent a small percentage of what Vietnamese engineers are capable of. For many other technical services such as quality assurance, BPO, IT consulting, Vietnam’s technical landscape is even bigger, aligning with the world’s demands.

 

3. High-quality IT Worker

It came as a surprise for many business leaders when they evaluate the proficiency of IT workforce in Vietnam. No one could imagine a country once torn by the war can achieve so much in technology, especially in how IT institutions train and educate 50,000 IT engineers a year.

 

Early IT education and a large number of IT institutions

In Vietnam, education on technology is compulsory since an early age. You can see 15-year-old students taking classes in computer science and C++, and it’s just part of Vietnam’s high-school computer science education curriculum. Entering colleges, these students can have wider choices with 153 IT institutions, each specializes in one particular sector. For example, the University of Transport and Communications has its own IT major and the Hanoi University of Industry also has an IT major.

 

High level of professional competency 

Entering the workforce, IT graduates show great qualities in how we learn and adapt to the everchanging demands in technology sectors. For example, according to Global Skills Index 2020, Vietnam’s technology skill sets rank second in Asia Pacific and 22nd globally.

Also in Coursera’s 2021 Global Skills Report, in terms of Technology, Vietnam ranked 3rd in Asia Pacific. More specifically, Vietnam ranks 3rd in Computer Engineering and Software Programming, which is quite a benefit for clients looking for software development services.

 

 

As in a survey made by PwC, to respond to the digital demands, 84% of respondents say that they would learn new skills now or completely retrain in order to improve future employability. This number shows the readiness for Vietnamese tech engineers to adapt to the changes of the global technology landscape if it is to come.

Besides simple services such as software development, Vietnamese businesses also provide other technical services, from simple to high-tech, including BPO, software testing, programming to R&D consulting, system design, AI, Big Data, Blockchain, IoT, Robotics, VR, RPA, etc. Even some companies have been trusted in implementing digital transformation for corporations in the Global Fortune 500.

 

 

Language proficiency for Vietnam Software Development

For any college, it is compulsory for IT graduates to obtain Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) level B1. For advanced programs, the B2 level is a must. Thanks to the preparation for language proficiency, Vietnamese tech engineers have the foundation to join the IT workforce. With language skills in hand, they can both communicate with clients from other countries and learn new skills on international forums.

Leaving college, IT workers step into the market with adequate language proficiency, in which 90% of them can communicate in English, 67% of them have Intermediate and Advanced English Level and 23% of the IT workers now have Elementary English skills.

In Vietnam, English is the dominant language in the IT market, while other languages like Japanese is not as popular among IT workers. However, many businesses targeting the non-English market have shown that they are capable of dealing with the language barriers by providing extra language classes and setting up Comtor/BrSE (in the case of Japan’s market).

 

 

4. Cost Optimize By IT Outsourcing Vietnam

Asia-Pacific is one of the ideal destinations for businesses looking for software outsourcing services as it offers cost optimization by 40% when comparing with other regions such as Eastern Europe and North Africa. However, even in the same region, we can also see the IT pricing gaps between Vietnam and the rest.

The price to hire an offshore software developer in Vietnam ranges from $10-$25/ hour, while in China it is $18-$50/ hour (for junior level). Other countries in Southeast Asia have a higher salary base, with Thailand’s average salary ranges from $13-$40/ hour, Philippines’ is $17.5-$42.5/ hour.

Regarding the infrastructure cost, Vietnam ranks 12th in the world, 6th in Asia, and 1st in Southeast Asia in terms of low internet service rates. Average users in Vietnam spend US$11.27 (equivalent to VND260,000) for a month on the Internet connection. The average monthly cost of broadband Internet in Vietnam was US$12.4, much cheaper than in Thailand (US$25.9), Indonesia (US$32.5), Malaysia (US$34.9), and the Philippines (US$51.1).

Office leasing cost in Vietnam holds a relatively low price, as the average price is $15/m2/month, 20% lower than that of other Asia-Pacific countries.

 

You may interest: South East Asia Software Testing Engineer Salary

 

5. Great Government Policies for IT Company In Vietnam

Prior to 2018, technology did not receive much of the government’s focus, but since 2018, many laws, initiatives and policies have been imposed to form the legal frameworks for technology development in Vietnam.

– On 24 December 2020, the Prime Minister signed Decision No. 2205/QD-TTg approving the Intellectual Property Development Program led by the Ministry of Science and Technology. The general objective of the Program is to utilize intellectual property as an important tool to improve the national competitiveness, create an environment inducive to innovation, and promote economic, cultural and social development.

– Vietnam’s Law on Cybersecurity includes data localization, government control over online content, and setting up local offices in Vietnam. This helps clients from all over the world stay protected under the law of Vietnam.

In light of the recent policies, Vietnam has shown its efforts in protecting technology businesses and their clients, hence leveraging the country’s capability to become a global software outsourcing leader.

In conclusion, Vietnam software outsourcing services offer great values thanks to the strong IT workforce, competitive labor price, and supportive government policies, making this country the go-to destination for foreign businesses.

 

 

About Lotus QA

Lotus QA is passionate about bringing young, talented, and skillful Vietnamese to the global market by helping clients in their digital transformation process.

We commit to being an effective quality partner for Vietnam software outsourcing. Working with us, you can focus on your business and leave it to us. We will always focus on what are our client’s business goals and all of their quality aspects. By understanding these, we commit to bringing value by helping our client meet their quality needs at the lowest cost.

Contact Lotus QA at to know more about how we can help you in software development in Vietnam:

• Website: https://www.lotus-qa.com/
• Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474
• Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/LotusQualityAssurance

As the talent shortage is becoming increasingly alarming, IT workers are now given a huge opportunity in the technology space. In stark contrast, businesses now have to constantly improve their IT recruitment strategy to stand out in the employer market. One vital IT recruitment strategy for talented workers to choose a business is employer branding.

Employer branding is a big concept that includes marketing, business development and HR departments. But when it comes to IT recruitment, we have to take a new and further approach to successfully build an employer brand.

 

What is employer branding?

Employer branding is the process of promoting a company, and in this case, is to attract and retain IT talents.

In a way, your employer brand is the embodiment of what you want your current and potential employees to have about your business. To accomplish employer branding, businesses are to build company’s values, work culture and personality that align with the aspirations of their candidates.

Another term that you should also know about employer branding is the employee value proposition. This term refers to the benefits that one candidate might receive from their employer in return for their skills and dedication.

 

 

Employer branding is a long-term investment that requires a lot of work, but it can be paid off with great results for the recruitment process which will eventually enhance the business’ staff proficiency and work productivity.

For the IT workforce specifically, employer brand is the foremost factor that might impact which company to apply to. For example, a modern workplace with young and dynamic activities to boost up team morale is always the prioritized work destination. Or an authentic and positive employer brand will always stand out among the choices of IT candidates.

For some HR professionals, the term “employment branding” and “recruitment marketing” is used interchangeably, but there is a slight difference that you should know. While “employment branding” is the image of how you want your candidate to perceive your business, “recruitment marketing” is how you can deliver that image to your current and potential IT candidate/staff.

 

The role of employer branding in recruitment

IT recruitment is not as easy as you might think it be. In fact, it takes the efforts of multiple departments to accomplish a successful recruitment campaign. As long-term and tedious as it is, employer branding is still the most effective and easy way to boost up your recruitment process.

 

 

The IT recruitment market 10 years ago was much easier than today’s as the demand and the supply of IT talent are equal. In contrast, job openings in the IT industry are unfortunately forecasted to outgrow the number of IT workers in 2025. Hence, the competition for businesses to impress the available candidates is tenser than ever.

With a strong employer brand, businesses have the chance to “showcase” the best features they have to attract candidates. For example, instead of running ads campaigns to raise the forced impressions of the job openings, what HR specialists have to do is to wait on the candidates to apply for the job (consider that the job is suitable for them).

 

Strategic guide of employer branding for IT recruitment

The real question for businesses to answer when it comes to employer branding is “How does your employer brand stand out?”. Recruitment strategists should also know which channel and the schedule to promote their employer brand.

You should follow the following guide for a strategic approach for your IT recruitment process.

• Know your organization strategy/identity
• Know your strengths and what makes you stand out
• Build employee value propositions
• Plans for recruitment marketing for potential candidates

Know your organization strategy/identity

Organization identity is a conceptual definition of what your business embodies and represents. In today’s world, as IT workers have more chances to choose their employer, they are more likely to seek in the workplace that matches their personality and aspirations.

 

 

If your business hasn’t decided what its identity is, business leaders should sit down and clear out the features that best describe your organization and more importantly, what would make you stand out in the very competitive IT recruitment market.

To further streamline employer brand and candidates’ aspirations, you should answer these questions:

• What are the most common values among your colleagues?
• What makes your company’s culture special?
• What are the values your company stands for? Another important aspect of your organizational identity is your story.

 

Know your strengths and what makes you stand out

Normally, for a company to analyze its strengths and stand-out point, the board of directors has to go through a SWOT analysis, including a thorough look into the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. For a recruitment scenario, we should also apply this analysis, but only on how to improve the employer branding in hiring.

To know your strengths, employers have to rethink the internal and positive attributes of your company. What has been the image that your company follows since day one? What assets does your business provide to the employees that might attract them? What competitive advantages do you have over your competitors?

 

 

The employers have to ask the equivalent questions to find out in the eyes of your employees and potential candidates, what are the things that they might find uninviting about your business.

About Threats and Opportunities, you have to know all of the external factors that can affect your business operations. Is it about your location? Is it about the gaps between members of your teams.

All of the 4 factors cannot be deducted from meetings or internal review. What you need to dig deep into is the actual responses from your employees, your candidates or even your lost candidates. Try to acquire a survey from these, and you can know the candidate’s perspective to pivot if necessary.

 

Build employee value propositions

An Employee Value Proposition is a set of benefits that the employees receive during their work at your business. Besides the obvious advantage of giving the best benefits for the employees, the EVP also embodies the motivation for them to work there.

EVP varies among businesses, but to make your business stand out in the hiring market, you have to build a unique, relevant and compelling set of values. For some job seekers, EVP is the most important feature as it shows the culture and work visions.

After building an EVP, you need to promote its on multiple social platforms, including websites, social media channels to let people know what you are pursuing in the long run.

 

Plans for recruitment marketing for potential candidates

Some might mistake that IT candidates only look for jobs online, but actually, you can have some effective offline approach for a better recruitment campaign. Let’s take a look at how we can do it both online and offline.

For online marketing

Online marketing is all about the first impression. To achieve good reach to potential candidates, you might wanna try these:

• Build a trendy and modern recruitment website. Once a potential candidate lands on your website, they will want to find the information about your company and job openings fast, as well as submit their application effortlessly. That is why your website needs to be perfectly optimized and user-friendly. Don’t bombard your visitors with ads or popups, the website needs to be as “clean” and professional as possible. Pages like “About us”, “Vision and mission” should be available.
• Build strategic content by leveraging AI tools (including content writing, images, and AI edit video, etc). You should attract visitors through high-quality video content, social networks, and SEO. Additionally, place forms in reasonable positions to acquire candidate information without bombarding them with ads and pop-ups.
• Make good use of Brand Advocates. With brand avocates, you can ask your current employees to speak about the company on social platforms. Make sure that these employees need to be passionate about their job at your company.

 

For offline marketing

One viable approach for offline marketing in IT recruitment is through events. You can be the organizer or the benefactor.

 

Employer branding can’t be done in one day. Many business leaders have to seek for other options to hire as quick as possible, and one of them is the IT recruitment services. If you’re in need, don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.

• Website: https://www.lotus-qa.com/
• Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474
• Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/LotusQualityAssurance

Perhaps your company has long utilized training for a hybrid work environment, in which there is a mix of remote and in-office workers, or maybe you find yourself having to support a full remote workplace. Whatever the case may be, here are the 5 best remote working tools for communication and management.

 

Prepare yourself for these 5 common remote work communication challenges

 

Why do we need remote working tools?

Remote working tools are more important than ever as it cal help people work remotely effectively, regardless of the location. These tools may refer to the communication and networking systems, including video chat applications or messaging tools, cloud storage, task and project management systems, remote team management apps, etc. There are plenty of remote working tools for you to choose with hundreds of applications.

The outstanding feature of every remote working tool is that it has a wide range of integrations with other tools, making it very easy to use and facilitate remote cooperation. The onboarding of new employees should be seamless with good remote working software too.

 

What are the most used and effective remote working tools?

In this article, we will provide you with the top 5 most used and effective remote working tools. Each of these tools has its pros and cons, and before rushing in anything, you can always try out the trial version to understand it from your own perspective.

 

Trello – Web-based, Kanban-style, List-making application

Trello is a very popular and familiar application for task management and list-making. This tool is built with Kanban Style which categorizes your tasks into different groups, hence team members can keep track of what has been done, what is being done and what to be done.

 

 

Imagine your dashboard as an old-school whiteboard for management with Trello. This is considered the perfect choice for all of your project management needs. With Kanban principles, it is easier for you to visualize teamwork from every angle and more importantly, it is easier to move projects forward and make room for priorities.

This remote working tool is used by thousands of businesses every day, and it continues to prove its help when remote working is on the rise.

When using Trello, you don’t have to worry about potential miscommunication as it builds a robust and seamless workflow.

 

Slack – Proprietary business communication platform

Slack is another popular remote working tool trusted by many businesses, especially those in the IT sector.

What makes Slack special is the way it can provide an easy-to-use chat/channel communication tool that can keep everyone connected with a user-friendly interface.

 

 

For example, it’s easy to create “channels” (equivalent to a group chat room). However, if you don’t set clear team communication boundaries, it can lead to the overwhelming number of conversations for team members to keep up with.

Slack allows users to integrate the operations with other products such as G-Suite, Dropbox, Adobe Creative Cloud, and so on.

Slack bots are very work-supportive as it can boost morale by giving birthday reminders and team reports.

With all of these features, it is hard to imagine a remote team that is communicating without using Slack. You can install Slack on your PC or your mobile to work on it wherever and whenever.

In late 2020, Slack was acquired by Salesforce, giving them a larger foundation to compete with Microsoft Teams, which is another chat app and video conferencing tool. Slack is expected to add more features to support virtual workspaces for better remote work communication.

 

 

 

Asana – Workplace management tool for better communication

Asana is a customizable workplace content management system (CMS) that is designed to help a wide range of companies achieve their organizational needs. More plainly, it’s an advanced organizational tool to help streamline projects.

Asana is made so that workplaces of any size can analyze their progress and address issues all in one place, eliminating the need for constant meetings, email updates, and memos.

 

 

Asana has a wide range of features available to help companies and the teams find a system to get things done as efficiently as possible.

Asana’s main feature is its project and task management tools. You can create lists or boards to host certain projects as a whole — these will detail all the initiatives, meetings, and programs involved in said projects.

From there, you can break these projects into tasks and subtasks to make them more manageable, and list the steps to complete them.

 

Confluence – Remote-Friendly Team Workspace

Confluence is a team workspace that supports knowledge/documentation sharing and collaboration. With dynamic pages, team members can give idea to create, capture and collaborate on any project or idea. With Confluence, it is easier and more effective for you to structure, organize and share work.

Team members also have visibility to institutional knowledge and access to the information they need for their work.

 

 

Some of the outstanding features of Confluence includes:

• Powerful collaborative editor that allows you to create meeting notes, project plans, product requirements in real-time.
• Accelerated feedback loop with inline comments on pages and files attached.
• Templates for daily reports and documentations.
• Edit attached files with the apps on your desktop (Cloud only): It lets you open files stored in Confluence with your desktop apps and edit them, then automatically re-uploads the updated version to Confluence. Now you can get feedback on that preso, edit it in Powerpoint, and have it back on Confluence in no time.
• Can provide feedback directly on your files (images, PDFs, spreadsheets, and presentations) and it keeps track of versions automatically, so you’re always working on the right one.
• Collaborate from anywhere: You can sync your confluence with your iOS or Android device and work from anywhere. You can track team activity, give feedback, and stay in sync between mobile and desktop.
• Organized workspaces: In Confluence, you can create a space for every team, department, or major project to share information and keep work organized.
• Page and file versioning: You can track every version and change that you make to a page. Files are automatically versioned.

 

Zoom – Video conferencing for smooth communication

Zoom is a video conferencing tool that is exceptionally lightweight and integrates directly into Google Calendar.

Even though it does have options for messaging, Zoom is mostly known for its high-quality video calling.

With a free plan, you can get 40 minutes’ worth of conference time. And with a pro plan, you are entitled to much more, including webinar hosting features, which can be great for your online marketing efforts.

 

 

One of the features that users find most useful is video recordings. You can use these recordings to create educational videos or document common procedures.

The 5 remote working tools mentioned above are the most popular ones that have been developed long ago for IT project management. With the pandemic forcing businesses to implement remote work, these tools have become more useful than ever.

If you’re still wondering how to achieve the most effective way for remote work communication, you can contact us to talk to one of our experts in this matter.

• Website: https://www.lotus-qa.com/
• Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474
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The New Normal amid the Covid pandemic makes remote work on the rise, asking businesses and employers to implement remote communication best practices to master the new virtual workplace. More than half of the asked IT leaders indicated that communication is the most pressing challenge in remote worker management.

So, a question for every business manager, CIO, or even CEO is how to implement remote communication methods in their operations and have creative ways to collaborate with remote employees.

In this article, we will discuss the remote communication best practices in 5 different aspects:

• Remote work management
• How to communicate when working remotely
• Device management for effective communication
• Remote work environment
• Training when working remote

Also read: 5 common remote work communication challenges

 

1. Remote work management

The first and foremost aspect that every manager wants to ask about remote work communication best practices is management. Management used to be task allocation, monitoring and administration, etc. With a co-located team, managers can easily track cues to indicate the communication issues and fix them. In contrast, a remote team works off the screen, prompting challenges for the managers.

From a place of having physical and emotional contact, managers now have little to no direct interaction with their employees. From a place of easy-to-manage work platforms such as Skype or Excel spreadsheets, managers are required to implement some of the tools and approaches to achieve remote work communication best practices.

Cloud project management tools

With remote communication, managers want to increase their involvement in how the task is done by the team members. With the fear of the employees abandoning their posts and losing focus on the job, some managers implement extreme measures of hourly reports and micro-managing.

Well, this is not a very “healthy” approach for management. Rather than impose unreasonable rules on the staff, many managers have come to the cloud project management tools such as Trello or Asana.

These tools have proven their productivity in managing tasks within projects as it can split the work into smaller tasks. For every task, staff can add details, deadlines, to-do lists, etc.

Some of these also support calendar sharing and file sharing, creating a very convenient and straightforward work environment.

Another great thing about these managing tools is to push notifications. When the task dues, when the sub-tasks should be completed to keep up with the overall plan, etc. are all integrated upon customization.

 

 

 

No more micro-managing

It is challenging to control remote teams when the managers can’t go and see what their staff are doing. Many of them try to contact team members numerous times a day to manage and assess their work. Still, successful remote work is not limited to the result of one project. It is also about how you encourage members and not bombard them with calls and emails.

Micro-managing was never an effective approach for management in the long run. And the overuse of this can lead to team members feeling like they’re not trusted. To omit micro-managing from your system, try to come to management platforms to get what your staff is doing.

KPI Clarification

For any projects, especially IT ones, the schedule, progress, requirement, and KPIs must be clarified.

Agreement in schedule and progress should be built based on:

• Your project release plan or business plan
• The estimation of team leaders of how much work their staff can do

For requirements and KPI, they should be based on the projects’ goals and objectives. KPIs can vary greatly with different projects. They include but are not limited to:

• Response time measures the time for the tech team to respond to bugs and defects
• Product backlog indicates the number of tasks expected to be done
• Schedule compliance measures the ability to follow the predesigned plans.

2. How to communicate when working remotely

The methods which businesses use to communicate with their teammates should also be changed to successfully communicate with a remote team.

Use video conferencing

Perhaps the most fundamental way to improve remote work communication is to switch to video calls. It can also help improve the performance of your remote team.

As there are 3 types of distances in a remote team, including Physical (physical and time distance), Operational (skill level differences), and Affinity (shared value and trust differences).

With any of these types, face-to-face contact can help connect the team member through emotional bonds. With pictures of emotions and attitudes transferred through, a sense of familiarity and bonding is formed. Instead of dull screens, team members have the tendency to involve more in the conversation, hence a more effective way of communicating.

In a normal workplace, employees can face-to-face discuss with the managers his/her problems. However, in a remote work situation, this is impossible. For an employee, texting his employers is something very difficult, as they might think that texting is something more intimate that should come from friends and family.

In this case, the managers should be the one who encourages the one-on-one setting. With a familiar messaging tool such as Skype or Slack, this one-on-one chatting session can be very easy and effective.

Virtual “water cooler”

The term water cooler is used to refer to the time/place in which the team has a small hangout for them to talk about their personal lives. Of course, with a remote work setting, a “water cooler” time means video chatting for team members to keep up with each other’s lives.

It can be either a 30-minute session or it can be or more, and it should be conducted weekly.

3. Device management for best practices

For remote team communication best practices, managers should also contemplate device management to have effective communication.

For example, if you want your employees to stay connected through video calls, you have to make sure the mic and the webcam on their computer work. If they don’t work, what is your next action as the manager? What kind of allocation needed to provide the comprehensive tools for your staff to communicate? If you don’t have enough devices to allocate, what is your next action?

Get the answer to these questions, and you should keep in mind that to provide sufficient infrastructure for your staff is to provide a supportive remote work communication and environment.

Also read: 5 remote working tools for communication and management

4. Remote work environment

The emerging trends of remote work require managers to take serious measures to cope with the unprecedented change amid the pandemic. To take matters into your hands and operate a well-oiled machine, managers have to build a professional yet supporting remote work environment.

To achieve such an environment, the first thing to be done is the formation of remote work policy outlines. With a well-designed and robust workflow created by reasonable work policies, employers can further streamline and manage IT projects.

There’s one thing you should know about creating a remote work policy. This set of rules should go into detail about every aspect of remote work, including working hours, legal rights, and cybersecurity requirements. Other than that, the means of communication and how employees should communicate throughout the work-from-home process should be indicated clearly.

With a remote work policy on your hands, employers are still prone to many problems when implementing it. Whenever this happens, it is highly recommended that they should look back into what has been done and what could have been done to revamp the situation. Sitting down with your employees to figure out the right remote work environment is also a must.

Besides setting a remote work policy, employers should also be open more to flexibility. Your employees have the right to work in the hours that work best for them. Flexible working hours, objective-oriented management, and virtual team-building activities are the factors that can contribute to supportive remote work communication.

5. Training when working remotely

To provide sufficient and comprehensive knowledge for employees, even when working from home, employers have to contemplate training in their preparation.
Training, in this case, not only means technical training but also system-scale training. By that, we meant the training of procedures, working process, and how to communicate effectively in a remote team.

To transfer knowledge from one staff to another, the employers should conduct regular training on both technical, mindset and work process aspects. There should be also a checkpoint test to ensure team members can understand the knowledge.

Communication in a remote team doesn’t have to be as overwhelming or all-consuming as it used to be. To achieve remote work communication best practices, you should focus on the management, method of communication, device for communication, training for communication and remote work environment.

If you want to talk to an expert for advice and tips for communicating successfully with remote teams, you can contact us via:

• Website: https://www.lotus-qa.com/
• Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474
• Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/LotusQualityAssurance

Remote work communication is happening everywhere, and this is also a must for businesses to stay connected when not working on the same ground. With many forms of remote work taking place, business owners have gradually seen the urgent situation of remote communication, as they stumble upon numerous challenges regarding this matter.

Let’s take a look at the 5 most common remote work communication challenges to find out why are so many people having trouble with this new yet familiar form of communication.

Related topics:

Remote Work Communication Best Practices

5 Remote working tools for effective communication and management

1. Missing direct and emotional communication

Along with loneliness and distractions at home, communication remains one of the biggest challenges of remote work. 16% of work-from-home employees say that they find it difficult to properly collaborate and communicate with other team members.

When working remotely, we often see ourselves looking dull in front of the screen with no human interaction or whatsoever around us. We’re alone in our rooms. Sometimes, we’re “woke up” for some online meetings. So excited to talk to your teammates, but we realize none of our teammates open their cameras, so we can’t see their faces. After all, the only “human” interaction you have is through glitched and distorted voices of our coworkers.

Does it sound familiar to you? If yes, you’ve come across the most common challenge of working remote – the missing of direct and emotional communication.

Co-located teammates have direct interaction so that they can understand the attitude and perspective. These can be acquired through speeches, facial expressions, tones, etc. However, these communication traits are pretty hard to catch, especially through the screen and, in most cases, with a bad internet connection.

The continuity of communication and the emotional interactions can sometimes be considered “minor” when it comes to remote work communication, but it doesn’t mean that they are unimportant. On the contrary, they are the features that decide the work environment.

2. Language Barriers

Cost reduction has always been the top priority for many enterprises, leading to increased demand of offshore development services. For example, Capgemini invested $330 million to expand its offshoring capacity last year. Moreover, CPM Braxis and Hewlett-Packard invested $1 billion in 6 offshoring centers in China, Costa Rica, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Bulgaria.

In this case, language differences become barriers to communication in remote working for companies having offshore development teams. This issue can lead to misunderstanding when working with an outsourcing team. Requirements may be very confusing for the tech staff (developers and testers) to understand.

Especially in IT projects, the number of documentation is huge, which can be very overwhelming and putting pressure on tech staff. Some service providers may recruit language-proficient staff, but even if they can use the language, understanding tech documentation and requirements is another thing.

Considering offshore software development yet still being afraid of these remote work hassles? No worries, we’ve got you covered. Here comes our Comprehensive Guide On Offshore Software Development and a Detailed Review of the top 10 Offshore Software Development Companies to help you get a smooth transition into IT outsourcing in 2023.

3. Poor working environment

When the need for remote work arises, the first thing ever for employers to work on is to prepare a professional environment, including both physical and mental environment. The act of maintaining good working environments is another challenge of working remotely.

For sufficient infrastructure

The first thing that comes to mind when working remotely is perhaps the infrastructure, or we can call it the physical environment. If you’re an employer, ask yourself the following questions:

• What requisite technology do your employees need to install or get access to?
• Who doesn’t have a laptop?
• Is it possible for your employees to work and communicate with you?
• For those who don’t have laptops, what is your next action to provide them with the needed devices?
• Have you noted the procedures for employees to sign up for devices?
• Besides laptops, what other devices do you have to provide to your employees? Are these devices limited to any department within the company?

All of these questions should be answered by the direct managers, and then compiled into different categories for the CEO to take a quick look. This process needs to be done quickly, so that everyone in your company has full access to the infrastructure, and no one is left behind.

For supportive environment

When remote teams are at scale, employees are put into a situation that they’ve never been through before. Instead of following work closely and having direct contact with your associates, you are limited to a small area with no one to talk to. And the worst thing that could happen is cabin fever, which refers to  the distressing claustrophobic irritability of restlessness experienced when a person is stuck at an isolated location for an extended time.

This cabin fever is becoming an issue of remote teams at scale, requiring employers and CIOs to invest more in a supportive environment. Especially in the IT industry, tech engineers are under great pressure, and venting it out is not only a way to soothe their minds but also a way to boost productivity.

No more direct contact for water-cooler conversation, employers have to create a “virtual playground” for their employees to engage with others. These “playgrounds” can be an out-of-work group chat, a video chat session every Thursday after work, etc. Employees talking about their experiences and sharing is a great way to boost team morale and connect teammates. This will eventually create liveliness in the virtual workplace and improve staff work experience.

4. Lack of training

For IT companies, training is imperative, especially for freshers and juniors tech engineers. At this stage of their career, they need intensive and comprehensive training to acquire domain-specific knowledge and hands-on experience. But technical training can be a challenge to a remote engineer team.

With remote working, training sessions also include a guide on how to communicate and respond according to procedures. With technical training, virtual learning is not always ideal to deliver instruction and practice exercises. The learning process is very likely to be interfered with by network errors, disruptions, etc., which is just cannot be fixed overnight.

With work process training, since working remotely is a whole new thing to the tech team, the team leaders or even the employers have to come up with training plans to guide the staff about the rules, mindsets, process, channel/platform of communication. If necessary, a handbook of do’s and dont’s, and a list of FAQs should also be included in the training process. With this being done, anyone who has extra questions can look into these documents before asking around the already-delivered information.

Having an effective knowledge transfer and accumulation plan is essential, especially on long-term projects. According to Deloitte’s Global Outsourcing Survey 2022, organizations are turning to outsource to fill human resources and technical gaps, drive value, and provide end-to-end solutions.

If you want to dig deeper into how to get the most valuable return on your investment, not just find the cheapest solution, check out our latest Guide for IT Project Outsourcing in 2023 with the best practices to follow!

5. Poor management

Either remote or hybrid work, IT outsourcing, or Offshore Development Center, management is still a major problem, according to a survey of JumCloud with 401 U.S. SME IT decision-makers.

Communication is the key to achieve comprehensive management. People might think of communication in a remote work environment just as conference calls or file sharing. But it is much more than that.

More than half (58.4%) of IT departments plan to spend more on remote management technologies as they navigate the hybrid environment.

Melanie Frank, managing VP, technology at Capital One, emphasized the importance of physical and digital workspaces, not just for their employees, but also for their associates.

One alarming feature for employers and HR managers to improve is the number of unexpected meetings and overwhelming meeting schedules. If this number is to rise in the future, the team’s morale and productivity can be seriously affected.

Moreover, sometimes, planned KPI cannot be met due to multiple reasons, requiring PMs to assess and adjust if possible.

The matter of poor management is a chronic problem that perhaps managers encounter in every IT project. Without systematic changes in how the team operates and communicates, one loose screw can easily derail the whole system. To handle this, managers, employers and HR specialists are obliged to produce a code of conduct for specifically remote work.

At the same time, your business can create software to manage remote work with ease. If you are new to software development, here comes the ultimate guide to software development for business owners.

Remote communication is an art. If you’re struggling to overcome remote work communication challenges, contact us to ask for expert advice to manage remote IT projects:

• Website: https://www.lotus-qa.com/
• Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474
• Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/LotusQualityAssurance

As the IT industry is evolving at a fast pace, there have been new trends in how the IT workplace operates, which requires changes in communication strategy. One of the most notable trends is remote work.

Remote work is a working model that we’ve been accustomed to for several years now. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses have been adapting to the New Normal, in which remote work is compulsory to stay safe. In addition to that, remote work is also very popular among businesses that use IT Outsourcing and Offshore Development Center services.

Either co-organizational remote work or IT Outsourcing remote work, it takes much effort to manage, to work, to collaborate, and more importantly, to communicate. In this article, we will discuss the current situation of remote work communication in IT projects and give you some insights into this matter.

 

Why do we need remote work?

Remote work has only been on a rise in recent years as IT Outsourcing is becoming more common. But in 2020, with the coronavirus pandemic’s sudden strike on the economy, many businesses have decided to change from co-located office to work-from-home model.

Although many companies have adopted this work model before, it was only on a small scale, with only 2-5% of the staff working from home. However, under the increasingly severe situation of the pandemic, approximately 95% of the staff have to do remote work. Needless to say, numerous businesses are reluctant to employ this, and they stumble upon many problems in terms of communication. Let’s take a closer look at why we need remote work now.

 

a. Hybrid and remote work is on the rise

As mentioned before, due to the pandemic, many companies have applied work-from-home model, leading to the deployment of remote or hybrid teams. Although remote work has been around for quite some time now, only a small number of employees actually work off-site. You can consider this as the hybrid team.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, only 14% of organizational leaders across all industries believed their company could support virtual work. Now, according to a Harvard Business Review study, that number is 42%.

 

 

Remote work or hybrid team is applicable with any business size, from small start-ups to international enterprises. In fact, there have been major corporations, including Salesforce, Twitter, Facebook and Dropbox, etc., which started paving the way for the remote work trend. With these businesses as the lead, more and more enterprises are applying work-from-home or hybrid work, first to reduce the risks and then to cut down costs.

By 2030, the demand for remote work will increase by 30% due to Generation Z fully entering the workforce. Plus, 64% of today’s professionals say they could work anywhere and remote work policies are common (in place at 71% of organizations)

This is quite similar to the case of IT outsourcing, or Offshore Development Center in particular, in which the client and the vendor have to work remotely. The demands for these services are also predicted to rise in 2022, despite the halt in the world’s economy.

 

b. IT Outsourcing for digital transformation

As many enterprises want to focus on their core tasks and reduce the operational costs, plus the need for digital transformation, data security and customer-centricity, IT Outsourcing is one solution to come to.

As in the IT Services Outsourcing Market Size, Industry Report, 2020-2027 of Grand View Research, the annual growth rate (CAGR) from the phase from 2020 to 2027 is expected to be 7.7%.

IT Outsourcing service varies with different levels of technical work. For some cases, IT Outsourcing means the simple tasks with little technology involvement such as help desk, customer service, etc. For example, Microsoft hires vendors on multiple sites to take care of customer service, a.k.a technical IT support. This can help the enterprise save on labor costs and operation costs. For another case, Slack built its core team in the US to handle essential business operations, while an Offshore Development Center was set up to be in charge of technical tasks.

With this widespread adoption of IT Outsourcing, its market revenue is expected to reach 937.67 billion

 

c. Emerging trends of Offshore Development Center

Despite the growth of the IT Outsourcing market, many IT leaders are navigating higher tech demands with equal or lower budgets. Hence, cost reduction has been the top priority for many enterprises.

By 2026, the US market will see a shortage of 1.2M talents, and it is becoming more and more difficult to fill any IT positions.

The debate of whether businesses should hire onshore/offshore teams was more relevant in the mid-2010s. However, software outsourcing providers had shifted to international operations and offer Offshore Development Center as a seamless service for their clients.

 

 

As the Agile and DevOps model are trending, businesses have gradually shifted from long-distance offshoring destinations to nearshoring or offshoring to a very nearby country. For example, businesses in the USA comes for Latin-American countries for Offshoring development center; and for our case, Japanese businesses come for Vietnam’s offshoring service providers.

Enterprises are willing to invest in their offshoring capacity. The two most notable deals so far are of Capgemini’s $330 million with CPM Braxis and Hewlett-Packard’s $1 billion with 6 offshoring centers in China, Costa Rica, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Bulgaria.

The market for Offshore Development Center is very prominent. China alone has accounted for $5.05 billion in the world’s offshore development center market.
Among remote work models, offshore development center and IT Outsourcing are developing at a fast pace, leading to a higher demand for efficient remote communication.

 

How do we prepare for remote work communication?

Remote work is our new reality, and we have to prepare carefully for corporate leaders, managers, and individual workers to adapt to this sudden shift.

Before the pandemic, no business is prepared for remote work on a large scale. However, for employees to stay safe and operate smoothly, many businesses have contemplated remote work. They get the infrastructure ready and allocate the resources for anyone who is in need. New rituals and disciplined ways of managing the day are set up. Group and one-on-one check-ins are made regular. An array of measures are to be taken to acquire the desired outcomes of remote work.

 

With remote work communication, communication and project managing tools hold an important role as the portal for requirements, tasks, reports are delivered among employees. It can be either a private managing tool or a commercial tool, as long as it can ensure efficient communication. By efficient communication, we mean a platform or a channel for employees to attach files, assign tasks, make reports, and so on.

 

What can we do to create a good remote culture?

A remote work culture can’t be built in a day. Virtuality and how to lead remotely are the issue that many want to crack but are not able to do so.

To build high team morale, the first thing to do is to make your team members feel like they are involved in the company’s operation. To do this, team managers are obliged to make announcements about their projects, their clients and their current situation in the market. By doing so, team members can know what’s been going on with the company. On an organizational level, the employees will feel more involved in the directives and objectives of the business.

Remote work communication is gaining more importance in work management in general. To accomplish efficiency in your remote work environment, you need to understand the urgent need for it and how to build and prepare good communication.

To have a more thorough understanding of this matter, we highly recommend you take part in the webinar of “Seamless Remote Communication in IT Projects:
Unlock the Hidden Issues within Your Team” on the 1st, September. Contact us for more information:

• Webinar information: Seamless Remote Communication in IT Projects: Unlock the Hidden Issues within Your Team
• Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474
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The increasing adoption of EdTech solutions in educational institutions has been very popular among educators. The implementation of information technology has been there for several years, with its first application among ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems for school management. However, as the technology evolves with innovations in artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, etc., the education sector has surprisingly implemented these technologies into their teaching methods. These technology-infused solutions are widely used for better class engagement and knowledge acquisition.
Thanks to this rapid innovation in EdTech development, students now have more access to education technologies, with the most notable ones as follow:

• eLearning​
• Video-Assisted Learning​
• Gamification​
• AI-ML​
• VR/AR​
• Learning Analytics​
• STEAM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math​
• Social Media In Learning​
• Blockchain Technology: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and e-Portfolios​

 

eLearning

E-Learning is short for electronic learning, which is referred to the delivery of learning and training through electronic devices. Any content of the teaching and training process through electronic devices can be called eLearning.

eLearning takes the essence of both formalized learning and technology advances to combine it into an effective and innovative learning method.

As we mentioned above, eLearning is booming with an unprecedented growth of roughly 10% a year due to the increased demands of online teaching. As the Covid pandemic is forcing the government to impose directives for virtual schooling, eLearning is highly prioritized with enormous capital funding and governmental support.

You can see this in the case of Vietnam. Since the pandemic took its toll on the country, every educational activity is put to a stop. The Ministry of Education and Training had imposed new directives to guide schools on how to implement eLearning in their systems. Thanks to this, eLearning start-ups in Vietnam have the opportunity to rise above and gain support from investors and Capital funding companies.

 

Video-Assisted Learning​

Video-Assisted Learning​ is a teaching method in which educational videos are used for the visual manifestation of the knowledge conveyed through the lessons.
The traditional way of teaching did use pictures and graphic designs in their lessons, but the number of lessons like this seems to be quite low. However, with the technological approach and the adventure of designing and video editing platforms, teachers now can easily turn their lessons into a vivid world of knowledge and information with visual illustration from video-assisted learning.

With the utility of VAL, students’ comprehension and cognitive ability are enhanced. More importantly, VAL is not only a means of knowledge transfer but also a vital part of both general education and student wellbeing.

The implementation of technology is most transparent in how the online platform can support quick video editing and video production.

 

Gamification​

Gamification​ is a new method used in classrooms to develop an approach for the increase in learner’s motivation and engagement. It used corporated game design elements in educational environments such as classrooms, slideshows, etc.

Through gamification, teachers can develop a sense of connection between class members and develop many qualities. For example, games designed for educational purposes often involve time pressure and teamwork. Under a short amount of time, learners are asked to complete a task or to compete with other teams. Plus, gamification often includes team activities, which in turn can offer collaborative capabilities.

By combining knowledge achievements and competitive activities, educators can evoke interest and form a sense of fun classrooms among their students.

Gamification used to be about slideshows and PowerPoint with limited modifications. But now, as the attention for this teaching method has risen, many companies are aiming at providing a platform for educational games and gamified tests. You take Kahoot! as an example. This platform allows teachers to customize tests under time pressure.

 

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

The collaboration of AI/ML with education seems unrealistic, especially with such a traditional and conservative sector. Nevertheless, the world has witnessed many use cases of AI and ML in teaching, especially in the part of virtual assistance and digital exams.

For virtual assistance, many professors and teachers have been using bots to communicate with students. For lecturers/teachers, the number of emails and questions sent to them is huge. Hence, they come up with the idea of AI assistants.

With the help of this assistant, students can get answers after a short amount of time, enabling more time for the teachers. Thanks to this, the teachers now have more time to focus on lesson planning and extra curriculum planning.

 

VR/AR​

Education is expected to be the 4th largest sector that will invest in VR investment.

Statistics from a National Survey are showing that 90% of educators agree that VR technology is quite an effective way of providing differentiated and personalized learning experiences for students. One of the main struggles teachers face is capturing and maintaining students’ attention, and VR and AR are not only enabling teachers to capture kid’s attention, but also to teach in a more exciting, productive way that at the same time eases the explanation process and is more fun for the kids.

The education sector becomes a great investor in VR technology. In classrooms that have implemented VR and AR as part of their education, there is increased interest. We already mentioned why teachers like using it, but studies also confirm that students—97% of them—actually voted that they would attend a class/course with VR. Considering the current situation with COVID-19 where kids need to learn from home, as well as the inevitable need of reforming the school system, many see AI, AR, and VR as the future of education.

 

Learning Analytics​

Learning analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs. The growth of online learning since the 1990s, particularly in higher education, has contributed to the advancement of Learning Analytics as student data can be captured and made available for analysis. When learners use an LMS, social media, or similar online tools, their clicks, navigation patterns, time on task, social networks, information flow, and concept development through discussions can be tracked.
The rapid development of massive open online courses (MOOCs) offers additional data for researchers to evaluate teaching and learning in online environments.

Learning Analytics provides educators with exciting new tools to study teaching and learning. Moreover, as data infrastructures improve — from data capture and analysis, to visualization and recommendation — we can close the feedback loop to learners, offering more timely, precise, actionable feedback. In addition, educators, instructional designers and institutional leaders gain new insights once the learning process is persistent and visible.

 

Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math​

STEAM fields are the areas of science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics, or applied mathematics. Various other definitions for the “A” exist, but no other definition formally defines the arts with research. STEAM is designed to integrate STEM subjects with arts subjects into various relevant education disciplines.

These programs aim to teach students innovation, to think critically and use engineering or technology in imaginative designs or creative approaches to real-world problems while building on students’ mathematics and science base. STEAM programs add art to the STEM curriculum by drawing on reasoning and design principles and encouraging creative solutions.

 

Social Media In Learning​

The rise of social media in the classroom isn’t about how many people “like” your posts. The collaborative environment and open forum that social media encourages, along with the rapid pace of information sharing that it facilitates, means that students can accelerate the development of their creative, critical thinking, and communication processes in certain ways when they use it.

Social media promotes self-directed learning, which prepares students to search for answers and make decisions independently. When reinforced in a classroom setting, these social media skills can be guided and refined to produce better learning outcomes and critical awareness. Social media also allows students more freedom to connect and collaborate beyond the physical classroom, which means students anywhere can start to experience the globally connected world long before they enter the workforce.

 

Blockchain Technology: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and e-Portfolios​

• Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are free online courses available for anyone to enroll. MOOCs provide an affordable and flexible way to learn new skills, advance your career and deliver quality educational experiences at scale. Millions of people around the world use MOOCs to learn for a variety of reasons, including career development, changing careers, college preparations, supplemental learning, lifelong learning, corporate eLearning & training, and more.
• e-Portfolios: An electronic portfolio (e-portfolio) is a purposeful collection of sample student work, demonstrations, and artifacts that showcase student’s learning progression, achievement, and evidence of what students can do. The collection can include essays and papers (text-based), blogs, multimedia (recordings of demonstrations, interviews, presentations, etc.), graphics.

Through blockchain, data (e.g., credentials, skills learned, etc.) associated with students’ identity is not owned by a central administrator such as a university, but by the student. Students have an opportunity to store their lifelong learning data (both from inside and outside of the classroom), fully own it and control who has access to it (e.g., employers). This way, learners can prove that the credentials in their resumes are accurate and have more control over what can be accessed by their employers. Security and efficiency enhancement for educational institutions, businesses, and learners, along with Trust and transparency integration will be ensured with the help of blockchain technology

 

Are you looking for technology solutions in education, contact us for more information:

• Website: https://www.lotus-qa.com/
• Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474
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Education Technology is a fairly new sector in recent years. As technology is applied in every aspect of our lives, educators started to recognize the importance of technology in their teaching and school management.

The surge of Education Technology dated back to 2015, with some start-ups such as DuoLingo, Udemy, etc. worked their way up as learning platforms. With this foundation, the market has witnessed growth in both ERP (Enterprise resource planning) and EdTech.

In this article, we will discuss the marketplace insights of Technology in Education and its potential to grow under current circumstances.

 

Exponential growth of Technology in Education

Amid the Covid pandemic, the global education technology market stood out as one of the few sectors that were able to increase their market value, while others struggle to halt degradation. To be more specific, the global education technology market sized was estimated to reach USD 89.49 billion. Other than that, this prominent sector is promised to witness a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20% from 2021 to 2028.

Thanks to the widespread adoption of digital transformation, education, which was once a tradition-oriented and conservative sector, can apply the latest technology in the process of teaching and learning.

With the help of electronic devices and digital knowledge storage, teachers and students now prefer eBooks and other kinds of digital content such as slideshows, pictures, audio, etc. High connectivity and accessibility are the advantageous features that are shifting users’ preferences in education.

Besides all that, education now is not limited to the knowledge that is acquired by the students. Educators have sowed more activities to increase student’s engagement in the classroom. Especially with the help of Education Technology solutions, teaching approaches are expected to grow in line with the evolution of the IT industry.

For example, as the IT industry is now dominated by Artificial Intelligence and virtual experience, the Education sector has been adopting more and more solutions which are integrated with these technologies. Virtual classrooms and AI assistance are gaining more and more popularity as they increase the interactive experiences for the learners.

Due to the Covid pandemic, online classrooms are inevitable. With the employment of cutting-edge technologies in this seemingly conservative sector, a new milestone has been set for the development of education in this digital world.

 

Regional Insights of technology implementation in education

The region with the dominant use of technology in education is North America with a 37% share of the global revenue (in 2020). In this region, the US stands out as the most prominent country with steady growth in EdTech-related investments from both venture capitalists and private equity investors. In 2020, education technology start-ups reportedly successfully raised funding worth $2.2 billion. The number is expected to rise in the foreseeable future.

Another emerging market for technology implementation in education is Asia Pacific with a steady CAGR of 22.6% from 2021 to 2028. India has the most visible growth in this specific sector. Although China has some breakthroughs with education technology start-ups, the market is not very promising for this country as the government is opposing some strict regulations.

 

2 divisions of how to apply technology in education

The implementation of technology in education can be divided into 2 main parts, which are (1) ERP and (2) Edtech

What is ERP and how can it help school administration?

To put it simply, ERP is short for Enterprise resource planning. For the education sector, ERP is specifically used for streamlining school administration, operations, and activities. The four subjects of the ERP system are:

• School management
• Teacher and Teaching management (homework, slideshows, examinations, class schedules, educational training, etc.)
• School-Parent administrative system (activity dashboards, extracurricular activities, school fees, etc., student’s performance reports, etc.)
• Employee management (HR management, wages, insurance information, etc.)

With digital solutions, schools can well manage the whole institution’s operations, including staff management, examinations, financial status, web portals, information systems, library and other resources.

A well-developed and fully functional ERP system can be the essential tool for the interconnection of different departments within a school. The school board can have total control over the institution’s activities under one united and integrated system.

What are EdTech solutions?

We can see EdTech as the educational method that provides learners with theoretical and practical knowledge, together with learning material. The core of EdTech is the use of software and online courses that can help increase teacher and students’ engagement during lessons.

For EdTech software, we can divide it into three categories:

• Learning management system (LMS)
• Education mangement information system (EMIS)
• Learning record store (LRS)

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