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

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

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1. Missing direct and emotional communication

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

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

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

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

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

2. Language Barriers

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

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

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

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

3. Poor working environment

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

For sufficient infrastructure

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

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

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

For supportive environment

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

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

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

4. Lack of training

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

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

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

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

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

5. Poor management

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Why do we need remote work?

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

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

 

a. Hybrid and remote work is on the rise

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

 

b. IT Outsourcing for digital transformation

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

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

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

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

 

c. Emerging trends of Offshore Development Center

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

 

How do we prepare for remote work communication?

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

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

 

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

 

What can we do to create a good remote culture?

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

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

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

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

• Webinar information: Seamless Remote Communication in IT Projects: Unlock the Hidden Issues within Your Team
• Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474
• Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/LotusQualityAssurance

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

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

 

eLearning

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

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

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

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

 

Video-Assisted Learning​

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

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

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

 

Gamification​

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

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

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

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

 

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

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

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

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

 

VR/AR​

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

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

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

 

Learning Analytics​

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

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

 

Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math​

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

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

 

Social Media In Learning​

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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.

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