LTS QA

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)

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

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

Recruitment process can take months, but with this tip to speed up, your business can save a fortune and focus more on the candidates’ quality.

 

1, Be clear about the requirements

Some might have mistaken that the recruitment process starts when the job opening is posted on recruiting platforms. But in fact, it dated way back to when you had the first thought of hiring new personnel for one particular position.

Normally, for the employer part, the recruitment process involves the recruiter and the tech manager. The ideal procedure would be for the tech manager to provide the recruiter with crystal clear requirements of the job, and then let the recruiter handle the hiring.

 

That is just the case of the “ideal” procedure, but more often than not, these requirements have either an unrealistic description of what the job should entail or vague notes of what soft and technical skills are needed.

The answer to this can be the comprehensive checklist of what should be included in a job description. This should clearly note out the technical skillsets, programming language, soft skills required within the job, hence better equipping the recruiter with the information needed to find the candidates that can fulfill these expectations.

To speed up the recruitment process, the prioritized kill sets should be clearly indicated so that the recruiter can sort out the most suitable candidates for further interview rounds.

Salary is also a very important yet subtle matter that both the recruiter and the tech manager have to figure out. It is often the case that the tech manager wants more of the candidate than the salary budget can afford. Facing this problem, it is a must for you to choose whether you should hire for experience, which, of course, can raise the salary range, or you should hire for good learning and teamwork skills. After settling the priorities for one position, you can proceed with the recruitment process without stumbling on any inconsistencies of the tech team and recruitment team.

 

2, Use an application form with ‘knock-out’ questions

Prior to any direct interview with the HR manager/Technical manager, one can save a great deal of time sorting out suitable candidates with an array of application forms, especially those with “knock-out” questions.

By saying “knock-out” question, we want to refer to the vital questions that can generate answers which later on will act as the deciding factor whether you should hire these candidates or not.

These questions can be categorized into three types:

• Questions about legal, logistics and basic function matter: These should mention the candidates’ attitude towards working overtime, their willingness to relocate and other legal matters.
• Questions about qualifications & competency: Simple as it sounds, all you have to do is to check the authenticity of the qualifications provided. Sometimes, to broaden the range of candidates for one job opening, you may want to stay open to the qualifications of the candidates. It’s possible for a candidate to not have a university degree, but since it’s technology-related, the things that need to be carefully considered is the certificates and qualifications of technical courses.
• Questions about culture preference: Culture fit is one important factor. The work culture preference of the candidate should resonate with that of the company, hence boosting work morale and productivity.

 

3, Recruitment Process Optimization

The recruitment process is often deemed the trivial feature of the HR department, despite the fact that this process is crucial for one organization to find the right fit within a fixed time frame. In the case of IT industry, the role of the human resources department, especially the talent recruitment division, has gradually gained its credit, under the circumstance of talent shortage in recent years.

“With a comprehensive recruitment process in hand, qualified candidates, no matter they choose to go with the job offer or not, can help you form the enriched talent pool full of professionals and experts in this tight job market.

This well-crafted talent pool acts as a tool that can minimize time involved in the recruitment process.

The perspective of a comprehensive recruitment process varies within industries and even companies, but the most crucial features remain:

• Clarification of job requirements from tech managers
• Well-devised Job DescriptionsTalent Search on multiple channels
• Screening and shortlistingInterviewing
• Evaluation of Employment
• Job Offering

By creating an efficient recruiting process following these steps, you not only facilitate a consistent application of recruitment to ensure stability in staff proficiency but also streamline the staff culture in accordance with your visions.

No candidate would want to engage in a lengthy and dragging recruitment process. To make it as convenient for candidates as possible, you can consider shortening the recruitment process by following these tips:

• Keep the process short. Instead of dragging the candidates into a ten-day assessment, the recruiter can announce the interview results after two to three workdays. This requires a systematic operation among involved parties in the process.
• Devise a tight and optimal schedule for departments to follow. With a tight schedule, the time spent on recruiting is well-managed. Every department involved is a cog in the machine that can work effectively with no hiccups.
• Resort to the recruiting agency. With the help of an agency, all you have to prepare is the job descriptions with specific requirements on the job, no matter they are technical or soft-skill-related.

 

4, Invest In Your Interview Check List

Recruitment is a complicated process that requires the recruiter to know not only about the on-job knowledge but also the soft skills critical for the job.

To make sure your candidate can meet up all the requirements, prepare an interview checklist. For different jobs, there have to be different checklists. For example, checklist of a tester would be different from that of a developer. While an interview checklist for a developer must entail programming language, project portfolio, Github account, etc., the checklist for test engineers must include domain experiences, testing tools, test environments and so on.

Another aspect many recruiters and tech managers want to get to understand about their candidates is their work attitude. The best way to do this is to place some work scenarios in which conflicts arise. Through the way candidates would handle the situation, you can grasp the idea of their behaviors and work attitude.

Please be noted that the questions to determine work attitude should resonate with your business’ culture. This can help the candidates imagine the upcoming work environment that they might work with.

 

5, Build a comprehensive training program

Perhaps the IT training is the most effective option for upskilling IT staff.

Internal training for IT staff has always the win-win advantages for both the employees and employers. For business owners, by conducting training programs, the technical managers now can address the skill gap that their employees are missing, hence being able to find the solutions for a more well-rounded team.

The IT world is evolving with unprecedented speed, which in turn sets up high demands for the IT worker to catch up with the technologies. Any employer that can provide them with intensive training, as well as a learning-encouraging environment will have a higher employee retention rate. Under the form of tuition reimbursement, the nurturing and training programs go quite a long way, but it will eventually sow a sense of loyalty in your employees, which is a very good sign for retaining talents.

Conducting training programs may be cumbersome and costly for long-term operations, leading to business hesitance towards this approach. To reduce the cost burden over this, businesses can consider sharing the training cost with employees. In exchange for an inclusive and comprehensive training program, many tech engineers, no matter junior or senior, are willing to pay a small fee to gain more on their knowledge.

As software testing is a compulsory procedure in any software development life cycle to ensure product quality, any tech company would need a team of testers to devise and execute tests.

As opposed to the increasing number of software developers available on the market, that of software testers is not abundant. In fact, it has been reported that there would be an alarming shortage of software testers as growing demand outstrips the number of graduates entering a profession that many reject as unglamorous.

 

Although the seemingly attractive offer of high salary is put on the table, it is still very difficult to find an experienced software testers. Hence, many businesses have to resort to the junior testers, hoping them could learn their way to more skills and knowledge.

With this resourceful yet inexperienced talent pool, businesses are compelled to preparing a thorough and complete checklist of what they have to know about there candidates for the job of software testers. The technical aspects that should be put into consideration are:

• Basic knowledge for testing types and how to approach testing
• Test environment
• Test domains, domain-specific knowledge & candidates’ experiences
• Test tools (for both technologies and management)
• Test process and how to adapt to that process

What interviewer should clarify about your software tester interview process

– Clarify what kind of testing engineers you are looking for. When it comes to testing, the two most popular jobs are manual testing and automation testing. For each of these approaches, there are different criteria for you to consider when interviewing.

– What domain(s) you are aiming at. If your business is fixed within a particular industry/service, this clarification won’t be too complicated. Nevertheless, in the case of IT Outsourcing vendors recruiting for their talent pool, the recruiter should clear out what domain(s) for their next project to find the best-suited candidates.

– The career path for engineer testers when they’re onboard. Many test engineer want to build their way up in their career path, and this is what they expect to get from their employer. Make sure that the interviewer and the interviewee stay on the same page in regards to career path to avoid any conflict in the future.
Technical aspects to interview software testers

Talent gap is not incommon, but it doesn’t mean you would have to hire any testers there are on the market. With careful consideration over what you want in your testers, finding the suitable candidates is not entirely an tough challenge.

1. Basic knowledge for testing types and how to approach testing

For every tester, it is a must for the candidates to cover the basic and fundamentals of what test types they are going to work with. If they fail to tell the differences of, let’s say, GUI testing and API testing, it can be a big disadvantage. The lack of basic knowledge can result in numerous hiccups during your work, not to mention the time wasted on training for this elementaries.

Hence, for this part, the interview questions should be devised to sort out the ones that did their research and those didn’t bother to learn.

 

Please do remember that any of the questions concerning testing types and the differences among them can be easily found and answered online with details. The interviewer should not identify these as the deciding factor for the interview results. Instead, this should be the defining factor of how good they are with theoretical knowledge.

Between manual testing and automation testing, the interviewer should ask somes questions with regards to their differences.

For example, you can ask what test types are suitable for automation testing and what test types can’t be executed with automation testing. These question help indicate the overall knowledge of testing that the candidates have, helping interview forming the initial perspective about them.

2. Test environment

To put it simple, a test environment is a setup of network, software and hardware for test executions. Also known as test bed, test environment is configured based on the Application Under Test.

 

When interview want to dig deeper into how candidates work in their testing projects, there should be specific questions about the test environments. Through these questions, you can know:

• How does the candidate devise test environment? Is the process thorough enough or similar to that of your system?
• How does the candidate organize multiple environments for testing?
• What checklist of test environment elements that testers have to cover in their testing process?

3. Test domains, domain-specific knowledge & candidates’ experiences

As digital transformation is present in every aspect of out lives, so does software testing. However, among the applied domains, the most popular are finance & banking, healthcare, argriculture, entertainment, etc.

For each specific domain, there will be different software structures, hence the different approaches for software testing process.

 

For example, in the finance and banking system, the interviewer are likely to ask test candidates about the security testing process.

The reason for this is that for financial institution and organizations, data security tops of priority. Personal information and financial status stand as the most at-risk kind of information in the world. Working as a tester in this sector, the candidate is required to ensure each transaction be secure and accurate. For businesses working in finance and banking, the questions about how they carry our security testing are definitely on the list.

4. Which test tools (for both technologies and management)

When talking about test tools, we want to refer to both techical and managerial tools.

First, about management tools, it is recommended that the interviewer ask about the most frequently used tools and how the candidates can cooperate on that platform. The act of bug and work reporting should be also included in this part.

About technical testing tools, it should be divided into 7 main types of testing tools, including:

• Test detecting tool
• Mobile app testing tool
• Cross-browser testing tool
• Automated testing tool
• Load testing tool
• API testing tool
• Security testing tool

It is impossible for one for master all of the kinds of testing tool above. To know whether the candidate are suitable for your testing team, the interviewer should ask specifically about the testing tools that your team are gonna use the future.

5. Test process and how to adapt to that process

The testing process indicates how the whole testing team deal with one particular project. Normally, a testing process includes the following steps:

• Planning and Control
• Analysis and Design
• Implementation and Execution
• Evaluating exit criteria and Reporting
• Test Closure activities

 

These steps can be changed upon requests of clients with customization. ISTQB, which is a prestigious institution of testing and quality assurance has pressed the international standardized process for companies to follow. However, customization is also very common.

Walking through every step of the process, testing is executed with thorough analysis and close supervision. In these steps, it is vital to involve Business Analysis, Testers, Developers and QA staff to ensure a stringent and high-quality process.

With the 5 above aspects to get to know about your test candidates, through which you can devise a checklist of what you would want from them, we hope you can find your best-suited test engineers.

If you don’t know where to start with tester recruitment process, contact us for expert consulting at:

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

As the Pandemic struck hard on the workforce in many industries, basic functions of lives are put to a sudden halt, and the most notable field affected during these days is education.

Thousands of schools are shut down to secure social distancing. Teachers are under the pressure to finish the schoolyear within a short amount of time. According to statistics, there have been 1.2 billion children locked out of the classroom after a year of Covid-19, and this number is expected to grow more due to the outbreak of the Covid Delta variant in 2021.

These alarming numbers predicted quite a gloomy outlook on the world’s education. Even in the most developed countries, there are only approximately 30% of schools are fully open. This number even goes lower for the third-world countries and overpopulated nations.

Under this circumstance, educators and policymakers have resorted to information technology for a wide range of tech applications in education system to gradually keep it running.

Versatile application of IT in education

Some might think of education and information technology as two separate industries with no overlapping. In fact, the application of IT in education has been there for quite a few years, but it was not until the outbreak of Covid-19 that the term Ed-tech became more popular.

Before digging into the term Ed-tech itself, if you take a look at the usual IT application in education, you can see a pattern of managerial software to dominate the market.

 

With educational institutions, it is the platform connecting parents and school boards that keep the communication going. These platforms act as a dashboard for updated information of school events, examination results. For some platforms, it is even possible for teachers to send private messages to parents, forming a synchronized and systematic means of communication.

These platforms do not limit themselves to just two-party communication. In fact, homework and extra curriculum activities are also notified to the parents.
With these basic functions, the implementation of information technology goes a steady way yet unimpressive in the world’s market. However, since the pandemic took it tolls on the world, the global market demands more from IT application in education, especially for effective e-learning systems.

Edtech and how we improve our education

To put it simply, Edtech is deprived of the term education technology in which we can understand it as the act of technology implementation in education to create more engaging, inclusive and individualized learning experiences.

Edtech has taken its initial steps in recent years with minor achievements and a limited reputation. It was not until the outbreak of Covid-19 that the major public realized the importance of multi-functional and tech-infused platforms for online teaching.

 

 

Online teaching, or e-learning industry, benefited from a technology-driven marketplace in which everyone is familiar with tech presence and is willing to embrace it into their lives.

Since the pandemic, experts and researchers have posed a question of the most effective way of teaching online, the most satisfying answer lies in edtech platforms.

How edtech helps students

As students are more exposed to electronic appliances, especially smartphones, the idea of e-learning may sound more fascinating for the digital natives. Moreover, the influx of technology is of great help for the students to cope with the fast-paced learning on technology platforms.

The three major aspects that can benefit students when using edtech are:

– Around-the-clock access to learning: As lessons, worksheets, homework are stored on a server for permanent use, students can get access to the lessons’ database no matter when and where. With this feature, students become more proactive in their learning and do not limit themselves to the fixed class scheduled.
– Interactive lesson-related activities: With the help of edtech platforms, students acquire their knowledge not only from the original sources of teachers or books but also through the interactive lessons on the platforms.

– Overall student assessment: With the help of technology in assessment, students can prove their overall development through multiple metrics that are not particularly focused on the results of stress-inducing tests.

How edtech helps teachers

Another party that gains huge advantages of edtech application is the teacher. As edtech platforms are the bridge connecting students and teachers, they also are the tool for multiple class operations, including:

– Automated Grading: With the innovative adoption of technology in education, grading is no more a nuisance. With pre-programmed scripts for grading, teachers are free of the time-consuming and dragging process of grading. In fact, some recent edtech platforms started to involve machine learning and AI in grading, in which the machine will assess students’ involvement in class and their test results to give a comprehensive assessment of the overall performance.

– Paperless Classrooms: On edtech platforms, storage capacity is also a major feature that can help teachers and schools unburden themselves of the additional printing costs.

With books encrypted within the system, students can get access to this knowledge source at any time without having to buy the expensive course books (of course, the school will be responsible for buying the books online).

With classrooms going digital, paperless classrooms are the most favorable ones. This is because paperless classrooms not only help safeguard data, they also contribute to green policy in the classroom.

With the booming application of information technology in education, both students and teachers can benefit greatly from this innovation.

To understand more about edtech and related services in IT, contact us for more information:

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

Offshore Development Center is a common work model that is gaining more recognition from IT leaders and enterprises. This is considered an effective way of cost reduction and talent pool access.

Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia countries are the leading destinations for Offshore Development Center to thrive. Still, due to the technical preferences and regulations, this model no longer thrives in these regions. Besides, labor costs in these countries have exponentially increased in the past five years, leading to their clients having to look for ODC services somewhere else.

Among the emerging countries for Offshore Development Center service providers, Vietnam has stood out as a destination of competent tech workers and competitive costs.

In fact, Vietnam is a growing IT hub and has just crossed its nascent stage in recent years. In Vietnam, the regulations are very favorable for the development of the IT industry and foreign investors in this sector.

Hence, Vietnam still has much room for potential growth in the field of Information Technology in the future. Here, you can find world-renowned technology corporations who have worked with many big clients from around the world. Moreover, this development has paved the way for the founding of other mid-size or small-size service providers for a niche market with domain-specialized capabilities.

IT Labor cost in Vietnam

The first and foremost reason why Vietnam is suitable for Offshore Development Center setup is the competitive price. When compared to the labor cost in some major fields of IT of developed countries like the US, Singapore or Japan, the salary range in Vietnam is lower by 40-50%.

For example, the base salary for Software Developer in the US is approximately $9,528, while that of Vietnam’s market is around $3,811. This price gap repeats with many other IT positions such as Systems Architect, Cloud Engineer, Product Manager, Security Engineer, DevOps Engineer, Project Manager, etc.

 

 

Some might wonder whether these outsourced IT staff can perform as well as the in-house team, as for the fact that many believe high price comes with high quality.

When working with an Offshore Development Center, you can access a talent pool of competent IT staff. Especially with this work model, you interview them to hand-pick the most suitable talents for your work hub.

Thanks to geographical pricing, you can get equally good results with just half a price when implementing Offshore Development Center in your operation.

How do you communicate with non-native partners?

One of the major reasons why many businesses are hesitant with Offshore Development Center is the communication barriers, aka the language.

They fear that their employees won’t be able to communicate effectively with their clients that don’t speak the same language as they do. However, this is not the thing you should be worried about. In a technology-focused company, language has gained considerable attention. Many managerial roles have identified this as the focal point for more access to clients around the world. In Vietnam, English as a global language is somewhat a standard included in recruiting IT staff.

 

 

The communication and management platform is also applied for a more comprehensive way of keeping track of work and time.

Cloud project management tools such as Trello, or Asana is used. These tools can split your work into smaller tasks. For every task, staff can add details, deadlines, to-do lists, etc. Sharing files and calendars also can benefit employees working on the same project. This involves employees throughout the work process (better team morale) and ensures productivity (better work results).

BrSE and Comtor act as the connecting bridge between our client and us. These staff work with both parties for requirement and deadline clarifications to produce the best results.

-> Solve the problem of chaotic workspace.

Work with top-tier service provider in the field

Lotus QA stands amongst the best IT service providers in Vietnam. Lotus Quality Assurance, or Lotus QA started in October, 2016 as Vietnam’s first independent testing company, and then evolved our business into two other branches of Software Development and AI Data Processing services.

Since our establishment as a QA company, we expanded our business, officially step in Vietnam’s IT Outsourcing Market as Lotus TS in 2017, and in 2020, we opened our Japan office, marking the foundation of Lotus Japan in particular and Lotus TS’ development in general.

Our journey to provide high-quality products and the development of the QA market in Vietnam has been highlighted with our achievements.

Throughout our 162 projects, we worked with 56+ clients from 9 countries, gained customer satisfaction of 94%.

 

To strengthen our capabilities and our credibility, we got the certificates of ISTQB in Testing and in Management.

We also got the prestigious Sao Khue Awards for top AI Processing service, once again proving our top-tier position in IT Outsourcing in Vietnam.

If you’re looking for top-notch and client-centric IT services, Lotus QA is definitely the destination for you. We’re providing 3 main services of Quality Assurance (or you can call it Testing), Software Development and AI Data Processing.

For QA services, we cover the conventional services of Mobile App Testing, Web App Testing, Embedded Software Testing and Integration Testing, and the next-gen services of Automation Testing, Cloud Testing and Private Test Center.

Other major service we provide for the market is Software Development, covering Web App and Mobile App Development, plus the trending AI Development and Software Maintenance.

We offer professional services for Data Annotation, Data Collection and Data Validation for AI Data Processing.

We operate and partner up with clients from various countries in the world. We’ve got a strong presence in Japan, America, Europe and APEC countries, and Vietnam.

We’ve gained experience and knowledge in different domains, with Healthcare, Banking and Automotive are the highlighted ones.

What makes us stand out in this very competitive IT outsourcing market are our domain expertise, technical competencies, and people.

As we comprehensively apply cutting-edge technologies in different fields, we have imprinted the impression of professionalism on our clients. But it is not just about the technical knowledge. We also place a heavy emphasis on how we work, how we process. For a flawless and smooth operation, we follow a stringent process of international standards and strict security. Clients are well assured of quality when partnering up with us.

The core of our service has always been our clients, but when it comes to the inner operation and growth of Lotus QA, it is the people that matter.

Since I started this company 5 years ago, I’ve always known that our people are the most important factor in building a business from the ground up. In Lotus QA, we build the people, not just in numbers but personally.

To develop a talent pool of comprehensive staff with technical and communication skills, first, we start with a thorough recruitment process. Once the talent’s on-board, we go for intensive technical and process training.

Over the past few years, we’ve grown not only in numbers but also personally. In Lotus QA, we build a learning environment that can enhance the best out of our people.

As we commit to providing a young and dynamic talent pool for the global market, our people is the essence of our success.

In LQA, our motto is “Towards Perfection,” and perfection is what we strive to provide the best values for you.

Contact us at:

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

Given that the world’s market is now tailored to the development of the IT industry, technology implementation and visibility stay top of the priority in the decision-making of every business, even for companies with a non-tech core value proposition.

In fact, Information Technology and digital transformation act rather as a comprehensive tool for customer engagement, communication and management.

With the application of digital advances at scale, IT outsourcing services are developing at a quick pace, and Offshore Development Center as a branch of IT outsourcing has shown some outstanding advantages.

As many businesses considering Offshore Development Center for their IT implementation, they stumble upon the significant problem of choosing a destination of their ODC.

This article will provide you with insights into the global software marketplace regarding team composition, average pay, and the most popular destinations for IT outsourcing.

Team composition

When it comes to team composition, the two dominant regions are Eastern Europe and South Asia.

In these regions, the clients can get access to a large talent pool of highly experienced engineers. The number of years working in the industry or in any particular domain is a major metric used to assess the industry maturity.

 

For a vast and demanding industry that requires fast adaption and deep knowledge as IT industry, it is very hard and challenging to call someone an expert, let alone to gain managerial and leadership skills.
Despite the brain drain situation when most experienced engineers move onto more prominent and high-paid regions, Eastern Europe and South Asia can still provide software professionals and experts to the market.

Average Pay

Pricing is one of the significant features to be considered when clients assess their vendors. Although some clients are hesitant with the price-based decision-making, a majority of them deem cost savings the core factor that makes ODC worth investing.

Regarding the average hourly rate, South Asia and Central Asia offer the least of all, with approximately $20/hour and $23/hour, respectively. In contrast, Eastern Europe and North Africa are at a relative disadvantage with an hourly rate of $39/hour, which is about 18% higher than the average price.

 

In the case of South Asia, the main reason why the price is kept at a relatively low rate is the geographical pricing. Together with a substantial and robust labor force and the governments’ emphasis on the development of IT training, geographical pricing keeps it slow for the labor costs.

In Southern Asia countries, perhaps the most common issue reported by clients from the US and EU is the time zone gaps. In addition, nearly all clients expressed their concerns over the up-side-down working hours (both for them and the vendors). However, these concerns are not major obstacles, as many clients are willing to try and invest in the overhead required.

Remote team pricing can be divided into two groups of Asia and non-Asia. Even though the glaring gap between the price of Asia and the rest of the world has been narrowed down, there is still a fourteen-dollar difference in the average hourly rate.

Technology stack

With Eastern Europe and Asia put onto comparison, we can see distinctive traits of technical specializations.

For Eastern Europe, the talent market is bound to cutting-edge technology with a larger utility of JavaScript, Ruby, Rails and Python. In contrast, for Asia, the revenue-beneficial technologies such as Java or .Net continue to grow with a higher percentage.

With clients demanding the application of new technologies often go for service providers from Eastern European countries, those with long, protracted and complex projects go for Asia countries.

Emerging countries for Offshore Development setup

Asia and Eastern Europe are the two main competitors in the world’s market, with Asia being the more favored destination, in terms of both pricing and technical specializations.

Besides the world-renowned countries for IT outsourcing and offshore development center, there are emerging countries in this industry with a more competitive price range, including:

– Vietnam

As the top emerging destination for IT Outsourcing and Offshore Development Center setup, Vietnam has what it takes to build a fully functional and talented team of developers and tech engineers.

To make a favorable destination for software export. Vietnam is nurturing a large talent pool with 25000 eligible tech engineer graduates every year. These talents are well-trained of the technology stack and work with a competitive price range, making it the most profitable for clients when hiring their tech staff in Vietnam.

 

 

– India

Despite the lowest price on the market, India continues to suffer from the bad reputation of being underqualified and tacky work. However, Japan is projected to receive technical help from Japan in the transition into the new phase of development. With a well-built and complete IT ecosystem, Indian companies will revamp their services.

– China

China is not the country with the lowest price, but the technology fulfillment in this country can satisfy any client.

The technology enhancement in China continues to grow over the past few years, with artificial intelligence and virtual reality have gained substantial success. However, despite the sheer volume of tech engineers, government involvement and subsidiary, China is still a favorite destination for some specific fields and domains.

– The Philippines

The Philippines is becoming more and more popular in the IT outsourcing and Offshore Development Market. In addition to high talent competency, the IT workforce in The Philippines uses English as their native language, which eliminates the language barriers in communication.

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

As the global market witnesses the sudden halt sowed by the pandemic, many enterprises and businesses have contemplated digital transformation and started to implement it. With this switch bringing the incremental plan for IT spending in the future, many businesses and corporations seek a more viable and cost-effective solution – Offshore Development Center service.

Nevertheless, Offshore Development Center is not a one-size-fits-all work model for any business and enterprise. On the one hand, this model brings excellent benefits in cost-saving, but on the other hand, it also poses a large deal of challenges to be tackled.

These chronic problems have shown how they can negatively affect the outlook of one business’ digital transformation, even with large and resourceful enterprises. To avoid the pitfalls and further streamline your Offshore Development Center, here are the seven most common issues that you might stumble upon.

 

1. Less-than-desirable outcomes

Offshore Development Center stands among the most cost-effective work models for businesses that want to lower the cost barrier. Working with an ODC, the vendee expects to yield similar work results as they could with an in-house or domestic IT Outsourcing team. However, this is just the ideal scenario. In contrast, many ODC projects have failed or come short of expectations. These failed scenarios can come in two forms:

• Poor programming quality: The incompatibility in technical competencies is not uncommon when you partner up with an ODC service provider. In fact, within the talent pool provided, the diversity in experience and professional expertise is present, and team formation is quite a challenge. Additionally, the poor technical performance of one staff can lead to additional cost of maintenance, which is the last thing any vendee wants with their Offshore Development Center.

 

 

To advent an ODC with personnel who can work harmoniously in communicational and technical skills requires the vendee to virtually “paint the picture” of what they expect from the team member. As detailed as it can go, they need to vest out, for example, what programming language, what framework, or even what soft skills are required with this job.

The more you can save with additional tasks and maintenance, the more you can save your overall expenses.

Solution for this: – Build an accurate and well-designed plan for your businesses that is tailored to your future plans. Instead of a plan with details and a fixed budget, leave the gaps or alternative options in case of any changes in the future.

• Shortcomings in cost-saving: Although Offshore Development Center can assure you a large amount of cost can be reduced, there are still possibilities of unaccountable expenses to be added to the final expenses. These costs could be the additional infrastructure cost or managerial cost. For some software development processes, this could be the cost for a device lab enlargement.

Any changes at scale can result in shortcomings in cost-saving, which will eventually affect the hiring party’s value proposition and financial plans.

Solution for this:

– Recruit with the help of an expert in talent acquisition field. Please be noted that any detailed requirements of programming languages and other technical aspects are of great necessity. A team leader with managerial skills should be closely involved in the recruitment process to hand-pick the team for your Offshore Development team.

 

2. Time-zone difference

Working with a contractor in an offshore location where there is a significant difference in time zone may make email communication difficult and phone communication almost impossible. If you are in a development environment where regular, ongoing communication is essential between onshore and offshore team members, working with an offshore team located within a U.S. time zone may be advisable.

 

 

Solution for this:

Time management within your ODC is one of the most vital features for an efficient digital transformation. In order to deal with time-zone-related issues, enterprises should have a fixed schedule agreed with the vendors. This schedule should include periodical checkpoint and meetings of what have been accomplished and what to be accomplished.

 

3. Poor communication

The issue of poor communication is one top-of-the-mind factor that should be included in the assessment of ODC service provider’s competencies. This problem can be accounted to:

• Language barriers: Language barriers are a common challenge at any ODC, as this work model deals with many international clients. Due to heavy language barriers, many tech engineers struggle to interpret and understand the project’s requirements, leading to a higher chance of miscommunication. Under this circumstance, extra clarification sessions are bound to happen, hence the extra time and cost for the overall operation. With a team of two out of five tech engineers in need of extra clarification like this, the whole project can be derailed with a surprisingly high amount of unwanted additional cost.

Solution for this: – The most effective solution for the language barrier in an IT environment is the utility of plain language. It is highly required for any tech engineer to have a solid foundation of industry-specialized glossary – for the IT, it would be in English. Besides these, tech engineers are expected to communicate using plain language, meaning the minimum usage of jargon and esoteric vocabulary. With this being, the whole situation of miscommunication will be reduced to its smallest.

 

 

• Another way to tackle the problem of language barriers is to clarify the requirement of language proficiency. For many enterprises implementing Offshore Development Center, they have set a “must-have” English proficiency certificate as the initial requirement of their ODC team. If too out-of-hand, an interview or quick test of candidates’ capabilities is conducted to ensure language proficiency.

– The “last resort” to eliminate any miscommunication due to language barriers can be the use of visual methods in daily information exchange. For example, pictures or diagrams speak more directly than normal conversation, saving time and effort in detailed explanation.

• Cultural differences: Cultural differences are not always the main topic in ODC-related miscommunication, but it has shown an increasingly negative effect on the communication between the vendors and the vendees. Given the distinctive traits in how people draw their expectations and communication methods, many businesses have been cognizant of the fact that these traits can derail the team’s project and affect work morale.

Solution for this: Research the market, living standard of the country you are aiming to have your ODC in Plan the facilities Register to the local government as a legal entity Find and rent an office Design and decorate the office Install furniture accordingly Prepare and connect workstations to the internet Set up the security system Set up workplace equipment such as a printer, scanner Plan for pantry area, water, coffee machine, medicine box Buy and install hardware and software tools Purchase other office supplies.

 

4.Unclear goals and unrealistic expectations

Missed deadlines, or a higher rate of burnout and turnover, etc., are the typical signs of unrealistic expectations. Especially with the IT industry in which workload is exponentially increasing, the stress burdened on employees is more severe than ever, with a higher frequency of overtime and work hours.

 

 

In the IT industry, unclear goals result from poor leadership and communication, leading to vague objectives and strategies.

Stress is the last thing that we ever want to happen to our employees. However, a stressed employee can lay a detrimental effect on the company, not only failing the project’s objectives but also decreasing morale.

Solutions for this:

• Set specific goals: Set goals that are specific and measurable. Measurable goals break down your achievement and checkpoint with numbers and metrics, making it easier for team managers to keep track of the operational work. If any problem occurs at any task, the person in charge can be identified immediately for a timely solution.
• Set deadlines for your goals

By setting specific goals for individual tasks, you have to simultaneously set a deadline to achieve with those goals. Both the vendors and vendors should be involved in this decision-making process to define the most suitable timeframe and schedule for every release.

 

5. Weak Security

The intangible fear over the security of an Offshore Development Center has always existed. Allocating your essential IT development to a third party is risky enough, let alone to a foreign party in the case of Offshore Development Center.

Many case studies of ODC in the past have pinpointed the poor or even lack of security with ODC, especially noted the legal features and physical protection of intellectual property.

 

 

However, as the service in this minor field develops with the universal recognition of big clients, poor security has been fixed at a surprisingly quick pace. Almost every vendor of ODC services, clients are promised to be provided with stringent physical security layers, along with legal confidentiality and intelligence property paper terms.

Solution for this: Weak security is still a significant threat for any of the vendees of Offshore Development Center. The best way to avoid this is to seek help from prominent and experienced vendors in the field. With this being done, your project is protected from not only intruders but also legal barriers. A legal consultant from the hosting country should be included in the negotiating process to be sure about this.

 

6. Process discipline

Work overload happens regularly, especially in a high-pressured and demanding industry of Information Technology. Sometimes, any cog in the machine is derailed, leading to desynchronization, and that is when process discipline comes in action.

A process discipline is of paramount importance for a well-oiled machine and is required on both a personal and organizational scale.

Solution for this: The need for a Project Manager or BrSE to be the “bridge” connecting the vendor and the vendee. This staff acts as the flagship that leads the way for people to follow, including the rules and disciplines.

• Website: https://www.lotus-qa.com/
• Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474
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Having an offshore development center to take care of your IT tasks at a reasonable cost is juicy. Still, every step, challenge, and viable solution of offshore development center setup must be considered carefully, no matter whether you have an ODC partner or set up an ODC business on your own.

There is no fixed way to successfully set up an offshore development center, but here come 8 typical and vital steps:

• Clarifying your visions & requirements
• Choosing an ODC model
• Deciding an ODC destination
• Selecting a service provider
• Forming an ODC team
• Establishing communication protocol
• Defining project management practices
• Clarifying security management standards

Let’s go into detail!

How To Set Up Offshore Development Center

 

8 Steps of Offshore Development Center Setup 

 

1. Clarify Vision & Requirement

For a business, clarifying vision and requirements before initiating dedicated offshore development center implementation is of great importance. This prerequisite helps ensure that the ODC setup is the best option to go with, clarifies what you need in your ODC, and sets out a path for you to follow.

For example, if you prefer cultural and time zone alignment, onshore development is a good option. But in case you prioritize cost saving and extended IT human resources, offshore software development can benefit your business both financially and technically.

Here come the major aspects to clarify upfront: 

• Business objectives. E.g., whether you want to complete a one-time project or set up an offshore operation. 
• Priority. E.g., control or cost reduction.
• Project scope. E.g., whether you need an end-to-end solution package or specific software development and software testing services.
• Your available resources, including budget and time frame.
• Security restrictions.
• Expected outcome.

When you’re done with clarification and grasp a big picture of the project, the next step should be choosing an ODC model.

 

2. Choose an ODC Model

So, what are the most common ODC models, and when to use them?

Managed ODC 

If you want to save money and focus on core business activities rather than IT operations, managed ODC will be a suitable option. 

In the managed ODC model, the client joins the ODC service provider during recruitment and team formation process. After that, during the project, the vendor handles the ODC facilities and HR administrative stuff while the client manages the team’s work directly.

The common pricing model for managed ODC is Time & Material (T&M), which uses a pay-as-you-go approach based on the actual time and effort of the development team.

Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT)

In case you want to establish a long-term offshore presence but lack the resources and understanding of the local market to set up the offshore team, the BOT model is for you. 

A typical BOT scheme consists of three phases:

• Build: The vendor conducts necessary research and discussion with stakeholders to finalize the plan, and subsequently set up the ODC resources and facilities.
• Operate: The vendor puts the team into operations and runs the operations for an agreed-upon period.
• Transfer: The vendor transfers ownership of the ODC team to the client.

The BOT model involves the expenditures of ODC resources and facilities and the service fees. 

Are you new to using external IT services? Check out our infographic on IT Outsourcing Strategy Checklist.

 

3. Decide on an Offshoring Destination 

With an offshore development center, you know for sure that it is located in a foreign country, but the real question is what country it is. 

When it comes to offshore destination decisions, typical deciding factors include price, HR competency, time zone, and business environment.

As of 2023, the most popular destinations for IT outsourcing are South and Southeast Asia, the U.S., Latin America, and Central & Eastern Europe. Among them, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow at the highest CAGR, at 8.3% in IT services revenue in the coming years. 

Top IT Outsourcing Countries 

Certainly, India has been the largest IT outsourcing vendor with a large IT HR pool, but the price has increased significantly as the country primarily serves US clients. On the other hand, emerging nations for ODC like Vietnam can offer satisfactory results with a competitive price, vibrant IT talents, and a favorable business environment. 

For instance, LTS Group as a Vietnamese ODC vendor offers dedicated offshore developers of all seniority levels for less than $25/hour. Since 2016, we have supported big brands from South Korea, the US, Japan and other developed countries to establish dedicated development centers in Vietnam.

Are you curious to explore the landscape of Vietnam’s thriving IT sector? Check out our latest ebook: Vietnam’s IT Service Industry: Landscape, Challenges, Opportunities.

4. Select a Reliable ODC Vendor

IT outsourcing is developing at an unsurprisingly high rate, and software development offshoring is not an exception in this case. Businesses now are spoilt for choices with plenty of service providers to evaluate and consider. 

So, here come the popular criteria to choose the most suitable offshore development center setup partner:

• Transparency
• Deep understanding of your project
• Strong and relevant portfolio
• Skillful software engineers
• Clear and frequent communication
• Cost-effectiveness
• Timeline guarantee
• Clear security standards 

Finding a suitable ODC partner to accompany you on your journey is not an easy task. You might have to go over dozens of vendor portfolios, reviews, pilots, case studies, etc.

 

5. Form The ODC Team

Offshore development center setup is different from IT outsourcing in the sense that ODC involves the vendees in the recruitment process. Since the vendees’ approval of the candidates is the top priority, it is a must to provide the vendors with a detailed job description for the positions needed in the projects.

With this clarified, both client and service provider parties can come clear of the must-have technical competencies and other soft skill requirements. 

• For the technical aspect: A list of tech engineer interviewing questions can determine the candidates’ capabilities and programming proficiency. 
• For the non-tech aspect: “Knock-out” questions putting the candidates in actual scenarios and situations should show their personalities and work attitudes. 

Also, remember not to underestimate the language and cultural behaviors aspects to steer clear of potential misleading, inefficiency, or poor final work results.

 

6. Establish Communication Protocol

Communication is the key to effective offshore businesses. The initial communication process in which you clarify your goals, product concepts, project ideas, and expected results plays the foundation stones of what to be included in meetings and reports later on. 

With this being clarified, your offshore development team can get a better grip on your business goals. Any adaptation and redirection will be of need for the overall resonation of both parties. 

Clear and daily communication via emails, messages, and online meetings can help you build and develop active and long-lasting relationships. It also creates a habit of frequently updating information from your ODC team, which is of great advantage for better management.

At LQA, we employ the most popular channels and platforms for task and communication management such as Jira, Slack, Zoom, Google Meet, Trello, etc. Depending on your preference and business needs, we will propose the best suitable tools.

 

7. Define Project Management Practices

The determining factor of a project’s prominence and success lies in the capability of the vendee and the vendor in project management. To initially grasp the idea of how to accomplish project management and cover the fundamental features, stakeholders should pay attention to the following aspects.

The development team

Your offshore development team is your partner, not just an IT Outsourcing provider that follows each of your orders. Once you’ve hired an ODC, you work with them as equal parties, meaning that they would receive the same benefits as your other departments.

Since the ODC specializes in IT, decision-makers should consider the team’s technical opinions. It’s a brilliant idea that you involve them in the decision-making process, then evaluate, develop and further contribute to their ideas to come up with the most well-rounded approach and solutions for the company.

Despite the lack of the offshore development team’s presence, members of ODC are still a part of your organization. Thus, to maintain high engagement and connection across departments, you should introduce and engage them in the company’s activities. 

The project manager

For any offshore development project, the presence of an IT project manager can reflect on the professionalism and dedication of the service provider to your project. This manager is required to juggle between tasks and responsibilities with both managerial and technical skills. 

Resources management is an imperative task of a project manager. With a detailed schedule and tasks assigned according to each member’s capabilities, businesses can take full advantage of the team’s potential.

Progress reports

Frequent meetings with a checklist of what to be updated are essential for project management. The main reason why some are still hesitant towards offshore development centers is the unclear working process. 

Some enterprises prefer actual interaction and close-up supervision for comprehensive management, but when the cost reduction outweighs this problem, the optimized management solution is through meetings and reports. 

Both parties are expected to be transparent about the visions, working process, methods, approaches, and resources. Therefore, predetermining the schedule for weekly or even daily reports is a must.

You might wonder: How To Overcome Chronic Problems of Offshore Development Center

 

8. Clarify Security Management Standards

Offshore development center service providers sure all put down “High security” as the perk of partnering up with them. But these security features are still a hazard if you don’t get involved in the process of building them. 

A plan of ODC security measurements that covers physical security layers and confidentiality will protect you from any intruders and intelligence leaks.

At LQA, we implement the following steps for data confidentiality in offshore development center setup and operation:

Legal confidentiality

• Sign a Non-disclosure Agreement (NDA) on both ends before the knowledge exchange.
• Well-train staff about ISO 27001 standards.

Network security

• Use Virtual Private Network (VPN) for communication
• Continuous risk monitoring from the QA team

Physical security

• CCTV system is set up in every office area
• Biometric scanners at the office entrance

Above is a quick guide to set up a dedicated offshore development center. By following our recommendations and breaking down the ODC setup process into sequential steps, you will be able to have an offshore development center that meets your requirements and powers your business growth.

 

Frequently Asked Questions about Offshore Development Center Setup

 

1. What is an Offshore Development Centre?

An offshore development center (ODC) is a software development center of a business that’s located in an oversea country. An ODC’s typical components are facilities and a development team.

 

2. How do you manage an Offshore Development Team effectively?

Managing an offshore development team effectively can be achieved through these practices:

• Ensure that everyone is on the same page: Before starting, make sure your team knows the project’s goals and what they can do to achieve them.
• Set milestones and deliverables: Setting clear and achievable milestones for your remote developers, so they know what they need to do, and you can track their progress easily.
• Eliminate micromanagement: Once you’ve decided on your offshore team members, trust them to do their job and look at the big picture instead of constantly checking every little thing they do. 
• Treat them like your team: a dedicated offshore team is essentially an extended team of your business. Hence, avoid an “us vs them” mentality, show appreciation for their hard work, and treat them like they are a true part of your internal team. 

 

Conclusion

Setup offshore software development center is not that complicated. For foreign investment to thrive, many countries have developed favored policies for foreign countries to partner up with domestic businesses, making it easier to enter the market. However, for the firm legal foundation, you can have a legal consultant work on the rules and regulations regarding foreign investment and other legal matters for you. This can prevent any further possible legislative obstacles in the future. 

Having additional questions about the offshore development center setup? Contact LQA to consult our experts and get insights into Vietnam offshore software development center now!

 

 

Since the pandemic taking its toll on the world, we have witnessed the screeching halt of the world’s finance and economy. Even the most prominent players in the market are doing everything they can to cut down costs.  As in the IT industry, the most exploitable approach is perhaps Offshore Development Center, or we often call it ODC.

The term “Offshore Development Center” may not be that familiar to some businesses. However, this has been adopted in multiple fields of the IT industry and gaining its reputation as a cost-effective, approachable way of IT Outsourcing.

So, if you are taking the first steps toward offshore development, take a tour with us to gain an overview of ODC.

1. What is Offshore Development Center?

Offshore Development Center, short as ODC, is a form of IT Outsourcing that entails the creation of a dedicated off-site team located in another country to work on your software development project. Simply put, you are using software development services of an oversea country. The three main points of an ODC are:

• Scalability
• Dedication
• Integration

For an ODC, the resources included will be the human resources and infrastructure. Although the name says for itself the purpose of this off-site team, which is software development, the ODC can also include administrative and supporting staff, all depending on your requests.

Here is an invaluable guide to software development for business owners, check it out!

 

 

Since it is a “Center”, an ODC is often for large-scale and long-term operations. How you manage it lies upon your resources on a management team. It could be a single project manager working on-site covering all the monitoring, reports and assessment, or it could be a team of tech engineers from your side.

An Offshore Development Center may consist of some to tens of people. They can either work on the same project or on different projects. This varies on how much you want this ODC to cover the information technology aspect of your operation.

 

2. Offshore Development Center vs. IT Outsourcing: Aren’t they the same?

Some might mistake IT Outsourcing with Offshore Development Center. Actually, Offshore Development Center is just a form of IT Outsourcing. While IT Outsourcing pays no regard to location, Offshore Development Center refers explicitly to the offshore operation of the projects.

For an IT Outsourcing project, its core should be the output, while how the outsourcing team produces that output is just a minor factor. The client has no or little control over the project specifics. In contrast, since the ODC acts as a branch of the business, it should follow the company’s guidelines and code of conduct. An ODC can function as a branch or an IT department of one business, dealing with every technical matter of that business.

Thanks to geographical pricing, the gap between labor costs in some countries is higher than in some other countries. Exploiting this trait, many enterprises can now hire talents with the same capabilities at a much lower expense when applying ODC. One extra task for enterprises using this model is to have a project manager supervise the project.

 

 

For anyone who doesn’t know whether ODC or IT outsourcing is suitable for your business purpose, you can consider this:

• IT Outsourcing focuses on the output of the project. Therefore, the cost is a minor factor. As long as the requirements are met, you have no problems in the limited control of you in the team. The personnel of the IT Outsourcing team can change over time. For each IT Outsourcing team, they usually just work on one particular project. For another project, another team or contract is set up.
• Offshore Development Center’s core priority is cost reduction. Plus, the management within the project is stricter, with the client hiring extra personnel solely for management and supervision. ODC can work on multiple projects at the same time.

 

3. What can Offshore Development Center bring to your business?

Yes, IT Outsourcing and Offshore Development Center are two different models, and yes, IT Outsourcing is a more popular choice for businesses. However, Offshore Development does hold some beneficial traits that can contribute to your business:

• Cost reduction
• Close-up management and supervision
• Access to a large talent pool
• Market expansion
• Diverse team of technical engineers
• Continuous maintenance – Avoid knowledge releasing
• Alignment with client’s objectives

Cost reduction

The main reason why one business considers Offshore Development Center is the cost reduction it can offer. As mentioned before, the labor cost and other infrastructure costs vary from country to country. This is geographical pricing. With this glaring gap, many enterprises see the opportunity in which they can have a team with the same capabilities and proficiencies at a much lower cost.

Talking about ODC cost, it includes the initial cost to set up an ODC and the cost for operation. Let’s look at our calculation on running a domestic software team vs. an ODC software team.

 

 

Close-up management and supervision

The fear of loose management and inadequate supervision might be one daunting factor for businesses wanting to apply Offshore Development Center. However, the reality proved the other way round.

Over many years, the management method of Offshore Development Center now works in a functional way, including the stringent procedures and close step-by-step supervision within each project team.

And don’t forget about the increasing number of QA & QC staff working in an ODC. For example, each ODC project will be assigned with at least one QA and 2 QC employees to keep track of the work. In addition, Project Manager will be in charge of the whole operations through daily reports and constant updates.

 

Access to a large talent pool

Besides the leading factor of reduced costs, Offshore Development also holds another great benefit of a large talent resource, both in quantity and quality. When it comes to building the traditional in-house team, the recruitment cost goes through the roof with many trivial spending. Candidates don’t appear out of thin air. Corporations have to spend quite a fortune on ads, training efforts, orientations, etc.

aking advantage of this reality, companies providing ODC services always try to work through an effective recruitment process and training programs to sharpen IT staff’s skills, to to constantly adapt to the market’s demand and bring as much diversity to the project as possible.

 

Market expansion

With Offshore development services, companies now can expand their market in two manners:

• Form a new branch in an oversea market and get closer to their customers – a subsidiary for market expansion.
• Extend service capabilities, enhance customer experiences, reach more markets.

With ODC, as long as you find the right offshore development vendor and agree on the right way to engage with the process, raising business capabilities to expand the market is no longer a significant concern.

 

Continuous maintenance – Avoid knowledge releasing

With an offshore development team, you get a long-term dedicated team to take care of the entire cycle of the project and avoid knowledge releasing – the lack of people well-understanding your product/service for maintenance and upgrade.

The trend now is continuous maintenance performed on a weekly or even daily basis. First, each employees’ work is logged onto the management file, clearly stating what has been done. Then, the QC, QA and PM will take turns to check and verify their work. Finally, if anything goes wrong, the one held responsible will fix the problems. This is the process applied widely in the market and has proven its effectiveness.

During the entire cycle of the project, ODC uses every resource they have to complete their tasks. But, even in that case, there might be some time that the results don’t live up to your expectations. This is another reason for the continuous maintenance of your project. With instant maintenance after each step, the time-to-fix and time-to-market are reduced to their minimum.

 

 

Alignment with client’s objectives

For an ODC to function properly, you cannot leave out the position of Business Analysts. With this personnel, the mutual understanding between the ODC and client is more clearly clarified. Transparent requirements, along with advice from an expert in business development, can help you a great deal in finding the best work model to with.

With mutual understanding, ODC can now align with the client’s objectives and make any more adjustments if needed.

 

4. Domains for ODC: electronics, automotive & healthcare

Offshore Development Center is being applied throughout the world. Information Technology is the universal requirement for any business to adapt to the current preferences of society. We’re used to the pervading use of technology in entertainment and utilities, but the market is much bigger than that. Instead of the direct interaction with technology through apps and social media platforms, we now can see the increasing use of technology in multiple industrial and service sectors. The most obvious domains can be counted as:

• Electronics
• Automotive
• Healthcare

 

Electronics and Embedded Software

The “Smart” concept is more popular than ever, with embedded software implementation on every electronic device manufactured. For one electronic device, the modern world’s consumers not only care about the core functions of the device but also have a preference for the “high-tech” feature of the device. For example, an electronic fan is not enough. This fan has to obtain the “smart” feature and be a part of the manufacturer’s ecosystem. We have seen this in the case of Xiaomi. This new player in the technology marketplace of China has manifested the favor of consumers when it comes to electronic devices through its success with Mi home – a new ecosystem of home electronic devices.

 

 

Through this example, we can see the undeniable growth of IT in the electronics manufacturing field. With a large number of devices to put on the market every year, not to mention the updates and upgrades of the embedded software, the demand for electronics embedded software is higher than ever.

On the contrary, the supply of infrastructure and especially human resources within one country for this growth is still very limited. Hence, the electronics manufacturers have to come for IT Outsourcing, or even Offshore Development Center to seek help.

Instead of simple IT Outsourcing, manufacturers often go for Offshore Development Center for better security.

 

Automotive

It is almost like a tradition for the automotive industry to outsource its production (with an outsourcing rate of 80%), and the information technology aspect is no exception.

The widespread usage of digital sources and appliances has influenced how automakers wish to update current models. With customer-centricity, anything that benefits their consumers is designed to apply in the vehicles, such as automated automobiles, AI systems in customer service, and virtual assistants, the manufacturers, the adoption of an ODC can improve the security of the project, which is now bound the legal agreements.

 

Healthcare

From 2020 to 2027, IT Outsourcing in Healthcare and Medical is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11%. The rate for the rise of Offshore Development Center is approximately the same.

With the pandemic taking its toll on the world and the outburst of many other diseases, the medical and healthcare system needs more than what they have now to provide the best services.

Besides the clinical demands for each doctor and health worker, the world needs utilities and other technical advances to deliver conveniences to the health workers and the patients.

Since the technical system often requires highly competent staff, the demand for this is increasing. However, their core business development was never the technology. It is the overall experience of one customer and the treatment process that matter to them. The point is, for the best services, IT is indispensable.

For this reason, healthcare is another eminent domain for IT Outsourcing, especially Offshore Development to grow on.

 

5. ODC Checklist – Three keys to launching your ODC

Got Offshore Development Center in mind? This is just the first step. In fact, the world’s market has witnessed many failed cases, all of which lack the consideration of the following Offshore development center checklist:

• The right country for your offshore software development center
• The suitable team structure for your project and management style
• The right ODC pricing model for your project

The country in which you want to set up the ODC

The top destination for IT Outsourcing or Offshore Development Center used to be in Eastern Asia, with China, Japan and Korea reign as the most popular ones. However, in recent years, the labor cost in these countries has increased to the point that they’re no longer the favored destinations for Offshore Development Center.

Instead, Southern Asia and South-East Asia countries’ Offshore Development Center service is developing at a staggering speed. Standing out in these countries, Vietnam reigns top countries for ODC setup. According to the U.S. News, Vietnam scores 100/100 for Cheap manufacturing costs globally and is the 2nd-lowest operation cost country in Asia. Also, the legal infrastructure of Vietnam for the IT sector is also supportive, with tax reduction/exemption, land rental exemption, and other favored policies.

Apart from the Southern Asia and South-East Asia, companies can consider Australia, Newzealand, The Philippines, Poland, and Argentina for ODC.

 

 

The suitable team structure for your project and management style

Team structure in an Offshore Development team varies according to the client’s requirements. But the major roles include:

• Account Manager: This person is like the focal point of communication between two parties of the client and the ODC. They take in your requirements and deliver them to the project manager and the development team
• Project Manager: This person specializes in managerial skills and technical skills to carry out planning and executing, making sure the client’s requirements are met.
• Developers: They are like worker bees working on different tasks of one project. The installation, testing, and maintenance process may be involved in the work, depending on the client’s requirements.

 

The ODC model for your project

The pricing model of Offshore Development is quite diverse, especially with the ever-changing market of the IT industry. However, there are two most popular models of Offshore Development Center as below.

– Dedicated Offshore Development Center:

Taking from its name, a dedicated offshore development center gives the client the whole fully functioning team. This team can act up as the client’s other subsidiary/branch that specifically works on the development and their IT-related tasks. This model is for large projects with undefined requirements, meaning that the team will work their way out during the work process. The client will pay upon the onboard time of the team.

– Build – Operate – Transfer:

This BOT model can be considered a more advanced price model of Offshore Development Center in general. During the work process, the Offshore team will be responsible for Development (in “Build”) for Implementation (in “Operate). Once the client wants to take over everything, they will sign a contract for further purchase and other legal matters.

This BOT model is also for large projects, and especially for companies wanting to enter the market of hosting countries.

Whether you choose Dedicated Offshore Development Center or Build-Operate-Transfer, there will be a lot of things you have to take into consideration for the best interest of your company.

 

Final Notes

With all of the above information on Offshore Development Center, you can grasp the basic idea of how this works and how it can benefit your business. If you’re swamped with too much knowledge of this, you can learn about our Offshore development services or contact our expert for a free consultation.

 

Contact us at:

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

The riddle of how to nurture, recruit and retain IT talents is the universal problem that HR departments face every day. As in the IT industry, 80% of the candidates are passive candidates, meaning that they’re already occupied. The process of planting the seed of job switching to attracting those candidates to apply to your company is a long and demanding journey. In this journey, for every step of nurturing, recruiting and retaining poses different challenges; fortunately, these can be easily tackled, thanks to the following solutions:

1. Build a strong employer brand
2. Employee referral program
3. Competitive benefit and compensation program (what motives your staff?)
4. Broaden your recruitment sources (institution)
5. Proper investment in HR Campaign
6. Remote Staffing
7. IT Outsourcing

 

1. Build a strong employer brand

72% of recruiting leaders worldwide agreed that employer brand has a significant impact on hiring, and 75% of those who are looking for a job often take employer brand into consideration. Also, 49% of LinkedIn users following official social media accounts of tech firms to watch our for job openings.

Building a strong employer brand is not something that you can do overnight but a long-term investment, both for business development and recruitment attraction. Still, it is important for one to “imprint” a good impression of your brand. These impressions would range from modern workplace, young and dynamic work culture, transparent policies, etc. Especially in the IT industry, candidates have a wider range of choices, hence they always go for the company with outstanding features of flexibility, scalability, etc.

 

 

The real question here is that “How does your employer brand stand out?” The most popular and common channel is social media. By leveraging your image on platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, you’ve already highlighted the robust work culture and friendly environment. The choice of what image you want to put on to attract candidates lies in your hands. It could be young and dynamic, or friendly, or professional, it’s up to you.

To deliver the image of your employer brand as an IT recruitment solution, you can go with media sharing, company events, job development opportunities, etc. Through these, potential candidates will first capture the essence of the workplace and then engage more in the activities of your company.

In terms of career development, it’s best that you set up and organize technical events such as host meetups, workshops, and hackathons to revamp competition within the business.

Also read: Top 7 challenges in IT recruitment

 

2. Employee Referral Program

Employee Referral Program has long been an effective IT recruitment strategy exploited by many businesses. In this program, employers encourage their employees to refer qualified candidates with rewards.

 

 

This strategy has proven its effectiveness through multiple analyses indicating that employee-referred staff tends to outperform the nonemployee-referred ones. Alongside these performance-related metrics, an employee referral program also helps businesses hire talents with suitable backgrounds and avoid any unwanted characteristics. Plus, as the information about the job openings is shared through the employees’ network, more candidates can get access to the information at a quicker pace, hence boosting the recruitment process.

With a reasonable reward, an employee referral program is considered a cost-effective way to tap into a large and qualified talent pool of passive job seekers.

 

3. Competitive benefit and compensation program

Each job position in different companies offers different pros and cons, and there is no one-size-fits-all vacancy that can meet all the requirements of the candidates. As a result, you should research the factors that motivate them, in which benefit and compensation are two factors contributing to a successful IT hiring process.

The most common priority recently is the remote working conditions. The candidates also put an emphasis on how they can balance out their work life and personal interests. You can also understand this as they are willing to move out of the suburban areas if they can work remotely.

 

 

Another fraction is the reference for internal development, meaning more training, technical courses and on-job guide, etc.

Concerning the finance factors, although the salary and other financial compensation policies might sound very compelling, the social and mental benefits top at the priority of what tech engineers look for in their jobs.

Due to the shortage of IT talents, tech engineers are spoilt for choices of the company they can work for. To make your business stand out in this very competitive environment, businesses are compelled to produce an impressive benefit and compensation program.

 

4. Use different platforms and sources for acquiring talents

Recruiting is not just about posting to job and waiting for candidates to flock to you. This is never an effective way for you to find the best candidates. Indeed, it requires one to employ multi-platform recruitment to search for as many applications as possible.

As it is shown with the following statistics, although job listing and social business platform is quite popular within recruitment community, more than 71% of the talents come from employee referrals and internal hiring, 65% are from LinkedIn and 56% are from Indeed.

These sources of applications and candidates have proven its success with quite prominent numbers, but the outlook for the IT recruitment process can be even better if you employ some of the following methods:

• Hackathons/coding competitions: By organizing these “playgrounds” for developers/testers, you expose your employer brand to a small society of IT worker community, hence raising the chance of being considered when they have a plan for changing jobs. Through these competitions, you also get access to the personal contact address of the candidates, which can be used for later candidate nurturing.
• IT training institutions: Partnership with universities and colleges with IT majoring can give you early access to a large and dynamic talent pool. This can ensure high-quality candidates thanks to the systematic and intensive training during their tertiary education.
• Certificate providing institutions: organizers for IT certificate provision have contact points of the qualified IT candidates in different fields that can assist the mass recruitment process.

Talent acquisition does not always mean the recruitment from direct sources of candidates who will later on work as in-house staff. Instead, many international tech giants have switched their approach to staff augmentation or third-party recruitment services. With this rather new approach, your company would benefit from a bigger talent pool with candidates specialized and expertise in one particular domain or technology.

5. Proper investment in HR Campaign

As talent shortage becoming an alarming problem in the IT industry with 69% of companies globally report talent shortages, tech enterprises now place heavy emphasis on Human Resources and IT Recruitment. HR department now holds greater responsibilities and priorities amid the pandemic, requiring decision-makers to take more measures to improve recruitment campaigns. As the competition among tech companies gets more and more serious, it is urgent to employ a proper investment in HR campaigns to stand out in the market.

 

Here are some critical channels to improve HR campaign’s performance:

– Signing Bonus. This can be the leveraging factor that can boost the recruitment process. One-month salary bonus or even more is exactly what one might expect to receive from their employers. This is not only a welcoming gift for the staff but also a promoting point for the company’s image.

– Advertising on multiple recruitment platforms. With a reasonable budget allocation, HR leaders can arrange ads to attract more candidates. Each recruitment platform has its pros and cons, which requires decision makers to do their research and try them out before sticking to any particular platform.

– Linkedin Talent Premium. With this all-encompassing hiring platform for talent professionals, a recruiter can find, connect with, and manage the people you want to be on your team. With a small cost, you can work efficiently and get access to a large talent pool with tech engineers from all over the world.

– Recruitment landing page. A well-designed recruitment landing page is crucial in creating a good impression towards IT talents. With subsequent information about opening jobs, plus nice content and picture layouts, the candidate can sense the professionalism of your business.

6. Remote Staffing

Remote staffing is an trending solution for IT recruitment. For some enterprises, the burden for IT recruitment takes up too much of their resources, not to mention the following additional cost of onboard employees. One way to approach these issues is to implement remote staffing and hybrid work.

With remote staffing, every operation and activity is executed on online platforms, which can eventually save up operational and infrastructure costs.

For the recruitment process, remote staffing can refer to the online operation of the recruitment team. Every step of the process is done virtually with a variety of platforms, including LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

7. IT Outsourcing

IT Outsourcing is a service that has long been on the market with a relatively steady growth rate. As in the IT Services Outsourcing Market Size, Industry Report, 2020-2027 of Grand View Research, the global IT services outsourcing market is projected to grow at USD 520.74 billion in 2019. The annual growth rate (CAGR) from the phase from 2020 to 2027 is expected to be 7.7%.

IT Outsourcing is not a new approach in IT recruitment. In fact, its development over the years has proven its capability to thrive as an independent sector.
With IT Outsourcing, you can:

• Cut back costs by approximately 50%
• Halt employee turnover
• Hire experienced experts from BPO
• Have a low rate of burnout

The burden of IT recruitment can’t be solved overnight. Instead, it requires careful observation to decide on the optimal solution for a business to adopt. These 7 above strategies are popular Solutions for IT Recruitment but they are not the one-size-fits-all solution for all companies. One should consider their situations to find the best way out for them.

 

About Lotus QA

Lotus QA, as part of Lotus Group, is an emerging global IT firm specializing in providing the best technology services to the world. We have a comprehensive talent pool of top-notch IT engineers to offer you the most cost-effective HR solutions. We can ramp up a team for you in just 2 to 3 weeks and conduct interviews for you to choose your own team members. We provide a flexible approach for any of your requests.

If you’re looking for the Solutions for IT Recruitment, contact LQA for the 24/7 consultation of the HR market. We can help with this problem in no time.

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