LTS QA

The matter of how to ensure quality in software development outsourcing is one of the most important features that project managers need to address. As you work with an external party in software development outsourcing, you lose complete control over your project. In this case, several measures need to be taken into consideration to ensure the quality of the said project.

From a service provider’s perspective, Lotus Group has its own way of ensuring quality, which you might find useful in your project.

1. Have control over our human resources

Software development outsourcing, or IT outsourcing in general, is an emerging service as the world is shifting towards digital transformation. In this new field, the most famous service providers are those from the less-developed countries which have lower labor costs. 

However, soon their sources of IT workers become limited, as it is getting harder and harder to hire competent tech staff. To deal with this universal problem, Lotus Group plans to change our stance in the hiring markets. Instead of recruitment only, we want to be more proactive in providing IT talents to our clients. To do this, we have founded Lotus Academy – a training institution specializing in backend and frontend technologies for freshers/newbies in the IT industry. 

With the foundation of Lotus Academy, Lotus now can take advantage of the resourceful talent pool, hence providing the most competent and reasonably-priced tech staff. 

Technology training is in high demand, and the number of students in Lotus Academy will only rise in the future. And with the high number of students rolling in, Lotus can train them and let them take part in our projects. With careful observation and guidance from our experienced trainers, your project will be well-tended with care.

Besides the source from Lotus Academy, Lotus Group also has our connection with many other universities and colleges in Vietnam. These training institutions have a thorough training course with actual projects for the students to practice, which can be of great benefit for you.

2. Implement manual and automation test early

Technically speaking, the quality of one product/project relies on how you implement the testing process. If you follow the method of waterfall or even V-model, you leave the testing till the last minute, making the time-to-market longer than ever.

Instead of developing and testing at different times, you should combine regular testing and structured QA strategy in your software development life cycle to make sure that everything will be tested and fixed quickly.

In your testing process, manual testing and automation testing should be combined to catch the bugs that thinner testing strategies may have missed.

According to a study by Capers Jones, 85% of the bugs are made during the design and build stages of an SDLC, and some are even there before the first line of code is written.

By implementing manual and automation test early, you can work on how to fix these bugs before they can make their way to your releases, which will in turn ensure software quality and save you a lot of time.

3. Have clear communication methods and channels 

The first and most important question that every manager has about remote work communication best practices is about management. Management used to entail task allocation, monitoring, and administration, among other things. Managers can easily track cues to indicate communication issues and get involved in fixing them with a co-located team. A remote team, on the other hand, works off the screen, posing difficulties for managers.

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

For seamless communication, you have to set out clear communication methods and channels. How should reports be handled, how often should you call in for a meeting? These are the kinds of questions that you need to answer when you want to tackle the communication aspects of a software outsourcing project.

4. Use agile methodology (incremental and iterative)

Agile methodology has always been praised as one of the most effective software development methods there are in the field. Indeed, in agile project management, everything moves at a high speed, and testing is an integrated part of the project execution phase. 

This means that instead of processing the quality of different features separately, agile works with the overall quality of the final product. 

In Agile methodology, you will always be involved in the development process and can easily make changes if you wish to. To put in other words, Agile allows a greater level of flexibility which many businesses now want for their projects.

In addition, agile is an iterative process, and the team will inevitably have to learn to grow and improve their work overtime. And this can be of great advantage for you to ensure the highest quality on your project.

All of the above is what Lotus Group is applying to ensure a high-quality project for our clients. Besides all these, we also have other methods for different kinds of service. If you want to hear more about this, contact us:

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

According to Statista, the IT outsourcing industry is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.93% and will be worth a market volume of $551,956.3 million by 2026.

The IT Outsourcing market in 2022 faces new challenges including competition for talent, tech layoffs, and the global economic recession. With that context, the needs of businesses when using IT outsourcing have also changed, they are looking for more than just a cost-reduction solution.

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. This article will analyze and update the latest forms and trends of IT Outsourcing, and how businesses can get the most benefits when deciding to outsource their IT projects/ departments.

Let’s take a look at how the IT Outsourcing industry will be in the phase of 2022 – 2025 in this article.

Overview and Forecast for IT Outsourcing industry 2022 – 2025

1. Growth of the IT Outsourcing industry

As technology becomes more vital for an enterprise to obtain a competitive edge among many other companies, more and more businesses are implementing digital transformation, resulting in the fast growth of IT Outsourcing industry in general.

In 2021, the revenue in the segment IT Outsourcing is reported to reach $359,832 million, which is a huge number for such an economically challenging year. In general, the IT Outsourcing market is expected to register a CAGR of 4.5% during the forecast period (2021 – 2026).

 

Despite, or perhaps because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the percentage of the budget IT departments spend on outsourcing will continue to rise by about 8 – 9%, based on the previous number of 2019 and 2020. Any threats and challenges of such hard time caused by the pandemic, IT Outsourcing shows great potential as it can harness the trends of digitalization and help businesses in terms of business growth, customer experience and competitive disruption.

If you want to join the fast-growing IT Outsourcing market but don’t know where to start, check out our IT Outsourcing Ultimate Guide: Definition, Types & Models, And Trends To Look Out for in 2023 to have a winning outsourcing strategy.

2. Frequently outsourced functions

According to a study from Mordor Intelligence, it is suggested that Application Development and Maintenance have become the most frequently outsourced functions amidst the partial IT outsourcing trends.

For application development, which is the most frequently outsourced function, 37% of organizations that outsource this function are planning to increase the amount of work they outsource. Application development continues to take larger parts of the IT budget, and many IT organizations are looking to optimize internal staffing through the selective use of outside development firms.

Maintenance ranks the second most frequently outsourced IT functions, as many businesses now need the most updated technology and flawless operations on their application. As a result, maintenance comes in and brings about many benefits such as Bug Fixation, Capability Enhancement, Performance Improvement, Scalability and security.

 

3. Sectors to outsource to most

BFSI (Banking, financial services and insurance) is the sector that accounts for the largest market share of the IT Outsourcing industry.

As modern customers are now more demanding in how the services are delivered to them, businesses in the BFSI sector have come to technological applications for a more personalized and streamlined customer experience.

Moreover, the implementation of technology in customer experience not only provides top-notch customer service but also gives the businesses the tool to harness and mine the data from their customers, bringing about the great potential for business growth.

Other sectors that make the list is Healthcare, Shipping & Transportation, Retail & Manufacturing.

 

4. What countries to outsource the most

As the pandemic accelerated global businesses, companies are making every effort to implement digitalization into their operations. Among the developed countries, the US, which has a mature economy, is leading in the number of outsourced services in the world, with 68% of companies delegating their services.

 

Ranks second in this is the UK, with 48% of companies are outsourcing offshore with talent shortage as the main factor.

Since the cost to hire a competent IT worker in these developed countries is very high, the need to come to cheaper countries is higher, hence the majority of countries that outsource the most lie in the developed countries. Another country to make to list is Japan, with 43% of companies outsourcing their services.

 

5. Global IT outsourcing destinations

India and China are leading the outsourcing bandwagon, followed by Indonesia, Malaysia, Belarus, the Philippines and Vietnam due to their cheap labor and operating costs. Especially in Vietnam, IT Outsourcing in Vietnam has emerged with $11.0B in revenue (according to a report by the Vietnam Software and IT Services Association). Vietnam also ranked 9th in Tholon’s Top 50 Digital Nations. The total ICT export is reported to be $91.5B, bringing $3.5B of software export turnover. This number is predicted to grow more in 2022.

While these destinations will continue to grow sustainably, Eastern and Western Europe have emerged as credible outsourcing destinations in recent years. A few other Eastern European countries are fast-growing destinations for offshore IT solutions due to advanced technology and robust infrastructure.

Also read: Top 8 IT outsourcing countries

Upcoming trends of the IT Outsourcing market

1. Remote work continues

Although the pandemic is receding, there’s little sign of working practices returning to pre-COVID ‘normal.’ And while it’s here to stay, remote working might not continue in the same way.

In the UK, for example, 36% of employees did some work at home in 2020 – up 9% in 2019. In the US, where only 7% of employees could regularly work from home before the pandemic, 36% said they did some telework because of it.

 

 

It’s impossible to say definitively what the coming year will hold, but the steps organizations are taking give us an idea of what’s to come. Several high-profile organizations have enthusiastically embraced remote working, and like it so much they’re making it the default setting.

• US insurer Nationwide has announced plans to reduce its 20 offices to four
• In 2020, Shopify announced that it is a ‘digital by default company’ and that most of its staff will permanently work remotely
• Dropbox is becoming a virtual-first company, with remote work being the default
• LinkedIn will allow people to choose full-time remote work or a hybrid option

 

2. South-east Asia as the top destination for IT outsourcing

As most of the top destinations for IT Outsourcing in the world such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam are in Southeast Asia, this region will be the

To demonstrate just how attractive these markets are, the 2017 A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index ranked the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam in the top ten for outsourcing in the business environment, financial attractiveness, people skills, and availability of workforce.

 

3. Positions to be outsourced

Overall, software development will be of higher demand, with Back End developers, Front End developers, Full Stack Developers, Mobile Developers, QA Testers and UX/UI Developers being the most sought-after. However, the key technologies needed will be in Cloud computing, Blockchain, and Cybersecurity.

• Cloud computing: In 2018 alone, companies invested approximately $ 175.8 billion in cloud computing infrastructure and services worldwide, more and more jobs in Cloud technology will be in demand.
• Blockchain: This technology has been around for years, but it was Bitcoin that brought the idea to mainstream attention when this cryptocurrency became the first to use the blockchain as its underlying platform.
• Cybersecurity: Hacking, cyberattacks and data breaches are now commonplace in today’s digital world. In fact, The number of connected IoT devices has increased by 9%, reaching a total of 12.3 billion worldwide.

 

 

With the ever-changing market as of today, the IT Outsourcing industry has many to offer with an unprecedented growth rate and potential. As technology is the core of our enhancements, IT Outsourcing is sure to boom in the future. If you want to hear more about this industry and figure out how your business can harness the potential of tech through outsourcing, please contact Lotus QA for further information.

3. A shift from a single vendor to an ecosystem of third-party relationships.

Instead of accessing limited technology, and talent pool when working with only one vendor, stakeholders tend to cooperate with a slew of IT outsourcing providers to be less dependent on one vendor and better risk mitigation.

4. Outsourcing has been overshadowed by the prioritization of new technological advances.

Based on a recent McKinsey report on technology transformations, just 10 percent of respondents identified cost reduction as a priority. Meanwhile, 38% prioritize innovating technology to make it a competitive advantage.

The shift to prioritizing value over cost efficiencies from third-party services has accelerated the evolution toward a highly outsourced IT environment.

Explore tech trends with latest statistics to leverage the advancement in dynamic technology landscape.

Lotus QA has the expertise and experience with IT services in many domains such as retail, food and beverage, healthcare, etc., making us one trustworthy and professional service provider for businesses wanting to implement IT outsourcing. When working with us, you will get access to:

• High Security: LQA not only follows stringent procedures of ISO 27000:01 for optimal security and international standardized process but also flexibly adapts to clients’ requirements
• Quality Human Resource: we ensure staff competency through strict rounds of interviews, on-job orientations, and continuous learning & development for the most suitable QA staff.
• Flexibility: We provide different working models to allow clients to choose or change the plan at any time.

Contact us for more support with automation testing services:

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

When choosing the IT outsourcing vendor for your business, you are spoilt for the choices of thousands of IT service providers from all over the world. With each of the vendors claiming to be the best choice for you, there are many IT outsourcing vendor selection criteria that you have to put into consideration.

Let’s check out our article on How to choose the most suitable IT outsourcing vendor for your business.

1. Technology expertise & focused domains

For most of the time, the main reason for one business to resort to the help of a third party is the lack of technical knowledge and domain expertise. For example, an industrial manufacturing company wanting to implement digital transformation doesn’t have what it takes to build an ERP system, so they outsource the function to a renowned vendor who knows the technology and the industry. This helps save a lot of effort in building and maintaining an in-house tech team.

Concerning the technical matters, you should consider the technical expertise and the focused domains that you will work on.

Technology expertise

Technology expertise means the programming languages, the frameworks, tools, etc. that will be applied in your application. Not only that, but you will also need to identify the level of experience you want your employees to have.

For a non-tech company, identifying these matters is no easy job, but it can be easily done with the help of a technical consultant to give the most objective view of what you would need. Then, when you’ve already known the technical requirements, you can produce a job description featuring all the technical requirements and select the most suitable IT outsourcing vendor.

Focused domains

Besides the universal knowledge that every of your tech team needs to have, you should also aim for those IT vendors who understand your industry. With this being done, the outsourced team wouldn’t have to spend much time on the project requirements just to understand some terms in the field.

If they have the domain knowledge they claim to have, the time spent on getting to know the system will be shortened, hence saving your business a lot of resources and time.

2. Reference from clients, case studies, and testimonials

For the IT outsourcing industry, it is very common that some vendors are economical with the truth. They tend to paint the perfect picture of what technologies they can use, how well they can do with complicated projects, etc., making you the “easy target” for fraudulent acts.

To prevent this, you should take references from clients, actual case studies and testimonials. Of course, the vendors will always want to direct you to their website so that you will see what they want you to see. Even though it’s good to know what they can put on the table, but it is also a must for you to go to a review website to see the vendor’s real work.

For example, you can go to Clutch – a website that interviews real clients, collects data, and compares competitors. On this website, when a vendor wants to publish a review from their client, their client will have to log in and leave detailed information about the project, including the position that the client holds, the project, the ratings they want to give for different criteria namely cost, flexibility, etc.

Besides, you can also ask for the case studies of the IT outsourcing vendor for that one particular part you want to outsource. Ask for the details of the projects, what challenges and how they overcame them. With all of these, you can now grasp a sense of how they deal with potential problems and their solutions.

3. Reasonable hourly rate

According to a survey from Deloitte, recent years have witnessed a sharp increase in the number of organizations giving priority to cost reduction. With a clear vision and focus on the cost, it is vital that you consider the vendors that have a reasonable hourly rate.

With IT Outsourcing, many businesses have to choose between hiring a domestic vendor and a foreign vendor. While the domestic vendor can offer closer proximity, better managerial presence and better communication, the foreign one’s biggest advantage lies in the cost. Therefore, to optimize spending, it is advisable that you consider offshore/nearshore vendors. For example, you’re a business in the US, so you can consider vendors from India, Ukraine, and Vietnam.

Take a look at the average wage for IT workers in these countries to see how much you can save when choosing them:

Countries	Rates
Ukraine, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belarus	$25-$50
Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile	$30-$50
South Africa, Morocco, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt	$20-$40
India, China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh	$18-$40

Choosing vendors with reasonable hourly rates does not simply mean choosing the ones that offer the lowest rates. You also have to consider many other factors, such as budget coherence, their prestige, their commitment, employee competency to decide.

Related posts: 

Top 8 IT Outsourcing Countries

Top outsourcing companies in Vietnam

4. Favorable service policy

Another important factor for you to consider is the service policy that the vendor is willing to offer. This can be shown through their flexibility and cost-sharing policies.

Flexibility

It is very common that your process or your requirements don’t match the service offering that the vendors follow. If that’s the case, you should go for the vendors that can adjust themselves to align with your operations. By working with a vendor that is willing to do this, you will not have to spend a lot of time adapting.

Flexibility is also shown in how the vendors offer the engagement model. Each vendor will have its main models, but only some of them are ready to change their way of working to meet your needs. Stick to these vendors because their willingness to adhere to you shows how important you are to them.

Cost-sharing policies

When working with an external party, it is often the case that you are hindered by numerous hidden costs. For example, an embedded testing center has to import these specific electronic devices from a foreign country to carry out testing. The cost to transport and move the devices from one country to another can be very costly, and many vendors will charge you more for this.

However, with those vendors that have cost-sharing policies, they will be responsible for the transport fee in their countries, all you have to take care of is the fee for delivering them to the vendor’s place. Please be noted that not every vendor can offer you these cost-sharing policies. Therefore, you have to look very carefully and ask for the details of how much they can help you save.

5. Location, time zone & culture

The location of the outsourcing service providers can affect greatly how the project will operate in the future. When it comes to IT Outsourcing, you can either hire a local team or the remote team (which can be offshore). With different choices, you will have different approaches and management methods.

For example, in case of emergencies that require close-up management and direct check-up from the vendor, a closer vendor would save up the time and travel costs.

In terms of time zone, you should choose those IT vendors that can easily set up meetings and provide answers quickly. Any problems or issues can be addressed immediately without any delay. Choosing the countries with opposite time zone is not very ideal, unless you can save a lot of money with them.

Culture is another feature that you need to take into consideration, as it can immensely affect team morale and possibly team performance. Cultural differences lead to crashes in how the team works and communicates with each other. If an issue cannot get delivered and handled with cultural awareness, it is very much likely to fail, leading to a derailed project.

6. Strict process

A strict process can help you make sure that every operation and function from both parties go hand in hand. As a result, you can also streamline the project’s objectives, hence achieving the desired results.

Choose the right IT outsourcing vendors that can strictly adhere to the agreed work process. With this being done, every activity of your project will be turned into a cognitive part of the well-oiled machine in which any problems will have a protocol to deal with.

Besides the working process, you also need to find those that can produce a detailed security process. This security process is considered a blueprint of what to do and why it is necessary to achieve robust security. A security process makes the employees from both the clients and vendors comply with certain steps and rules, which will eventually ensure that everything is carried out as scheduled.

Lotus QA as a trusted IT Outsourcing vendor

Lotus QA has the expertise and experience with IT services in many domains such as retail, food and beverage, healthcare, etc., making us one trustworthy and professional service provider for businesses wanting to implement IT outsourcing. When working with us, you will get access to:

• High Security: LQA not only follows stringent procedures of ISO 27000:01 for optimal security and international standardized process but also flexibly adapts to clients’ requirements
• Quality Human Resource: we ensure staff competency through strict rounds of interviews, on-job orientations, and continuous learning & development for the most suitable QA staff.
• Flexibility: We provide different working models to allow clients to choose or change the plan at any time.

Contact us for more support with IT outsourcing vendor:

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

Cost-saving has always been the top priority for businesses when implementing IT Outsourcing. But when we break it down to smaller categories, there are different approaches for different outsourcing models. To accurately estimate the IT Outsourcing cost for your next project, check out our guide for fixed-price projects and time & material projects.

1. For fixed-priced project

The project-based IT outsourcing model is the working model that deals with small-size or mid-size projects. The name speaks for itself. It means that the model works based on each project. These projects have crystal-clear requirements of what the outputs are. Tailor-made for projects with fixed budgets, a project-based outsourcing model is the most suitable when you already know what to expect from this project.

To estimate the price for a fixed-priced project, you need to follow through these steps:

• Break down the project into smaller parts
• Estimate effort for each task
• Set the price unit for each task
• Estimate cost for infrastructure
• Estimate additional Cost

Know what IT Outsourcing model is for your business

Break down the project into smaller parts

You need to break down the project into small parts for a thorough estimation. As an IT outsourcing project contains a lot of features and tasks inside it, you knowing about these features and considering the prices of them help you gain a clearer vision of what you should include in the detailed estimation.

For example, an outsourced testing project might have different requirements in terms of the functions, modules, platforms, operation systems, etc, each of which has different pricing. When you estimate the project, you can get a hold of what you’re gonna outsource through a list of these.

Estimate effort for each task

The most common calculation unit used in IT outsourcing is man-month (or man-day in some cases). Usually, the vendors will provide you with their estimation of how many man-months are there gonna be. Looking into this number, you can see whether the number is accurate. If not, you come to the vendors to discuss more what they do during this period of time and whether they can ensure the delivery time of the product to your business.

Set the price unit for each task

This is how clients and vendors do when it comes to the price unit for each task. First, you say the expected price for the service. Before coming up with these numbers, it is a must that you do your research on the average price range in different locations, with different companies. Second, you ask for the rate cards from the vendors. They will provide you with the details about their talent pool, what they can offer and how much it costs for these talents to work on your project.

After considering the rates from different sources, you can decide what the base rates you want to go with and look further into which vendors can give it to you.

Estimate cost for infrastructure

IT Outsourcing does not simply mean you hire the people from your vendors. In many cases, you have to outsource the infrastructure too. For infrastructure cost alone, it can take you significant IT Outsourcing Cost, maintenance requirements and hardware replacements.

From time to time, you also need to upgrade and update the utilities to run the outsourced team smoothly. As a result, it is a must for you to set aside your IT infrastructure cost because it will help you avoid any budget deficit in the future.

Estimate additional Cost

The situation of additional IT Outsourcing Cost is very common. These costs can come from the management costs, cost of unplanned and unforeseen risks, allowances, annual benefits, bonuses, etc.

These additional cost does not come in full form and they are not the same for a different project. In fact, it depends on how the vendors work with the talent pool. For many cases, the vendors will do annual bonuses and management costs, and you only have to pay for the overall service price.

So, remember to include all of the costs for your service level agreement so that you don’t have to pay additional costs in the future.

2. For time & material project

Time & Material (or T&M) contract is another popular IT Outsourcing contract that is being applied in many companies and projects in the world. In Time & Material, how you can estimate the IT outsourcing cost is a little different than that.

• Define the Team Structure
• Check the rate card for each position
• Estimate cost for infrastructure
• Check for payment policy

Define the Team Structure

In terms of project requirements, Time and Material is for businesses that are unsure of what the outcome of their projects/products should be. As a result, the first thing you need to identify when estimating the IT Outsourcing Cost for this is your team structure. To do this, you need to answer these questions:

• What kind of IT functions do you want to outsource?
• Do you need a team to do the whole software development life cycle, or do you just want to outsource software development or software testing?
• How do you want to manage your outsourced team? The project manager can be your personnel or you can hire the project manager from the vendor.

Once you’re done with the team structure, you can move to the next step: which is to check for the rate card for each position.

Check the rate card for each position

There are big differences between how much it costs for you to hire a software developer and a software tester. Even the rate cards for the same position with the same experience vary within different countries. You can take a look at this example table:

Destination	Rates	Countries
Eastern Europe	$25-$50	Ukraine, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belarus
Latin America	$30-$50	Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile
Africa	$20-$40	South Africa, Morocco, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt
Asia	$18-$40	India, China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh

As you can see, different destinations offer you different price ranges, and you need to know what you want to prioritize to choose a suitable market for further research. It is also advisable that you can consider the rate cards from multiple vendors to finally choose the one that can offer you the best service within your budget.

Estimate cost for infrastructure

For Time & material projects, the infrastructure may vary and change over time, as your business would also change the project requirements and trajectory. So how do you estimate the infrastructure cost?

The answer is you need to dig deeper into these factors to see whether you would want them to be covered by the vendor or not.

• Data centers
• Network and storage
• Physical servers
• Virtualization
• Operating system
• Databases
• Application
• Data

Infrastructure is tangible, so you can easily set what you want to achieve from the outsourced team. In case of any changes in the future, you should include a term in your service level agreement, clarifying what range of change is allowed.

Check for payment policy 

For Time & material contracts, the payment policy is very important. Normally, the client will pay the vendor in a monthly basis, covering every single kind of cost for the outsourcing services. However, due to the competitive market, the client now has the benefit of choosing from those vendors that have payment policies.

For example, Lotus QA currently has the “Cost-sharing” policy for our embedded software testing service. For any client in this service, Lotus QA will have some sort of financial policy in which we will share the costs in some particular situation. Plus, our services are far beyond that, as our embedded software testing team will take care of the logistic part, in which we transport the infrastructure and the to-be-tested machines to Hanoi. In other words, you won’t have to worry about the tariffs, the customs when delivering the testing devices to Lotus.

On the final note

The IT Outsourcing market in 2022 faces new challenges including competition for talent, tech layoffs, and the global economic recession. Despite that context, Gartner predicts 2023 IT spending will still grow 5.1% compared to 2022. Instead of cutting down costs without any strategic plan, IT leaders adjust their budget priorities.

If you want to update the latest trends in IT Outsourcing, and get the most valuable return on your investment, check out our IT Outsourcing Ultimate Guide: Definition, Types & Models, And Trends To Look Out for in 2023!

Get lost in how to estimate your outsourced project? Don’t know where to go with your IT functions? Contact Lotus QA’s expert for more information on this. With personnel with more than 5 years of experience, Lotus QA can give your the consultation that you need.

Lotus QA has the expertise and professionalism with IT services in many domains such as retail, food and beverage, healthcare, etc., making us one trustworthy and professional service provider for businesses wanting to implement IT outsourcing. When working with us, you will get access to:

• High Security: LQA not only follows stringent procedures of ISO 27000:01 for optimal security and international standardized process but also flexibly adapts to clients’ requirements
• Quality Human Resource: we ensure staff competency through strict rounds of interviews, on-job orientations, continuous learning & development for the most suitable QA staff.
• Flexibility: We provide different working models to allow clients to choose or change the plan at any time.

Contact us for more support with automation testing services:

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

As for IT Outsourcing, there often are contradictory perspectives on whether it can really bring about benefits for your business. Many companies have praised IT Outsourcing for having a major impact on their business presence and budget, but many also have stated that the outcome of IT Outsourcing cannot outweigh the risks that it poses the business to. In this article, we will walk you through the most common IT outsourcing risks and several ways to overcome them.

1. Security risk 

When you outsource your IT operations to another company, it is inevitable that you lose some control of your business. Particularly with IT functions, it is very much likely that you will expose your system data, customer information, etc. to the vendor to do the work. Even though this is very common when you do IT Outsourcing, there can still be potential IT outsourcing risks, mistakes and failures that can easily bring your whole system down.

 

 

Once you’re affected by the security risks with IT Outsourcing, your business is more prone to:

• Immense cost for dealing with the consequences of security breaches
• Distrusted customers
• Legal penalties
• Possible compensation and resulting lawsuits
• Loss of credit and reputation

To ensure maximum security system and delegate your IT tasks to a trustworthy vendor, you should particularly focus on the following matters when choosing IT outsourcing vendor:

Security System

Ideally, you should consider vendors which have multiple measures to ensure security, including:

• International standards on how to manage information security such as ISO/IEC 27001
• Physical security layers and biometric authentication
• Legal documents and agreement for legal bound
• Network security with access control, antivirus software, application security, firewalls, VPN encryption, etc.

Security Process

A detailed security process can show you how the security is ensured through different steps. Each of these steps will contribute to a well-protected, well-supervised project so that there can’t be any breaches or data leakages. Consider this process a blueprint of what to do and why is it necessary to achieve robust security. Also, this security process creates a sense of synchronization even though the security awareness and resilience of each employee vary greatly. A security process makes the employees from both the clients and vendors comply with certain steps and rules, ensure everything is carried out as scheduled.

Security Certificate

How your vendors handle system security is directed reflected through the international recognition that they can have in this matter. For system security, ISO/IEC 27001 is currently the most trusted and popular security standard. Any vendor that is capable of this has proven that they can examine information security risks, threats and vulnerability, etc. These vendors can also know the coherent and comprehensive suite of information security controls, risk treatment and overall security management process.

2. Poor communication

The matter of poor management is a chronic problem that perhaps managers encounter in every IT outsourcing project. Poor communication can lead to missed information, which can be one loose screw that 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.

 

To overcome the challenges and difficulties in remote work communication, there are several steps that you can take to minimize the pros of IT outsourcing. They are:

• Set contact points. In this step, you need to clarify the people that will be in charge of delivering ideas and updates to the other party.
• Agree on a communication platform that you are familiar with so that every piece of information is recorded and archived synchronously.
• Format your reports with needed information. “Which number should be made clear?”, “which metrics should be assessed?” are the questions that need answering.
• Set up daily meetings, daily reports to keep up with different phases of the project.

Another approach to handle poor communication is that you choose a vendor that has close proximity to your company, most ideally a nearshore software outsourcing company. The advantage of nearshore IT outsourcing is that it can bridge the time zone gap between your business and the vendor to prevent any long waiting time.

3. Hidden costs

In terms of cost, it is very likely for business owners to miscalculate the overall cost of the project. Besides the visible cost coming from forecasted numbers and estimations, there are a lot of hidden costs underneath.

These hidden costs can come from the unmindfulness of the current IT market, leading to false market research and dramatic changes in how the project will go. As a result, these changes will cost a lot more for the outsourced team to adapt to.

 

The next hidden cost that you may encounter is the cost of managing vendors. Without proper management methods and approaches, the outsourced project will be put at the risk of failure, leading to the urgent need of managing staff and other management-related costs.

With this situation, Lotus QA thinks you should follow these steps to minimize the outsourcing hidden costs:

• Set a solid Service Level Agreement to clearly state each party’s responsibilities. This is also the legal bound for the service provider to fulfill their tasks as agreed
• Outsource activities with a clear understanding of your market. It is even advisable for you to consider a business analyst for the right trajectory of your company in terms of technology.
• Contemplate specification costs, design costs, knowledge-transfer costs, coordination costs, and control costs to cover them all in the service level agreements.

4. Problem with quality

Quality issues are considered one of the biggest risks in IT outsourcing as poor quality IT products aren’t always noticeable but can stifle business growth during operation. Since your business will unavoidably lose some control over your project management, the overall quality is at risk, as it is very hard for you to determine whether the outsourced team is adhering to the quality standards.

Actually, there are no official definitions for high-quality and low-quality code, but you still can review the code with two main qualities of clarity and maintainability.

• For clarity, you have to make sure that the codes are well-documented and well-tested before being handled for execution and production.
• For maintainability, your expectations need to be communicated before the project starts, laying down the quality benchmarks in advance in particular modules or functions of the application.

 

To avoid this pitfall, there are some simple ways as follows:

• Request for a pilot project to see how well the outsourced team can work with the project. Clear objectives, a checklist and standard points are to be set up for later evaluation.
• Set up quality metrics so that the team will closely follow necessary steps to fulfill these metrics
• Do regular briefings and check-ups in place to ensure consistency in code quality.
• Conduct code reviews (self-check, cross-check, manager’s review, etc.)
• Involve software testing in your software development process with the vendor. Unit testing, functional testing, performance testing, etc. are very important to ensure a robust application before going into production.
• Use project management tools for logging of issues and management of backlogs. Any problem needs to be addressed and handled with care.

5. Cultural differences

Cultural gaps is another issue of IT outsourcing. According to a study made by Accenture in 2018, more than 60% of all outsourcing deals fail, completely or partially, mainly because of a lack of cultural compatibility between the vendor and the client.

When you outsource your IT function to third parties, very much likely to be from other countries, you encounter many cultural gaps such as:

• Time zone differences
• Language barriers
• Geographical distance
• Customs differences
• Diverse decision-making style
• Different work environment and working style

 

Cultural awareness and cultural compatibility are not something that you can force on your business and your outsourced team. In fact, the only possible way to deal with this is to develop cultural intelligence, which is a form of organizational capacity in functioning effectively in culturally diverse situations.

Also, when choosing your outsourcing providers and destinations, you should always see things from a culture-related perspective to enhance your IT outsourcing strategy.

6. How Lotus QA can help you mitigate these IT outsourcing risks

With the experience working in multiple IT Outsourcing projects, Lotus QA understands IT outsourcing risks of this approach and how to deal with them and turn them into our stand-out points.

Lotus QA has the expertise and experience with IT services in many domains such as retail, food and beverage, healthcare, etc., making us one trustworthy and professional service provider for businesses wanting to implement IT outsourcing. When working with us, you will get access to:

• High Security: LQA not only follows stringent procedures of ISO 27000:01 for optimal security and international standardized process but also flexibly adapts to clients’ requirements
• Quality Human Resource: we ensure staff competency through strict rounds of interviews, on-job orientations, continuous learning & development for the most suitable QA staff.
• Flexibility: We provide different working models to allow clients to choose or change the plan at any time.

Contact us for more support with automation testing services:

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

IT Outsourcing has been internationally recognized as a viable solution for the puzzle of how to implement digital transformation. In the light of the fast-paced development of the global IT market, many businesses are rushing into hiring an external team to take care of their technical matters, but few of them report positive outcomes. To effectively harness the potential of IT outsourcing, it is a must for you and your business to develop an IT outsourcing strategy. Let’s take a look at this action plan from Lotus QA to know where to start with IT Outsourcing.

1. Know the objectives for IT outsourcing

There are many benefits for your business when it comes to IT Outsourcing. If done right, IT Outsourcing can help you reduce the overall cost for the IT department, shorten the timeframe for faster product release, access to the international talent pool, etc.

Your business should always consider the cost factor first when starting your IT outsourcing project. According to a survey from Deloitte, the recent years have witnessed a sharp increase in the number of organizations giving priority to cost reduction, while in 2018, the key objectives of outsourcing were to enable speed to market, scale faster, enhance user experience and achieve competitive advantage.

IT outsourcing strategy – project objective

With a clear vision and focus on the cost, you can then dig deeper into the specific parameters such as cost to achieve, rate cards, investments, ROI, etc. when considering the vendors.

On the other hand, under the uncertain economic climate as it is today, businesses also need to stand out in the crowd, so it is advisable that you go look for providers that can also elevate the way you do your business, enable you to be more flexible and help you implement the latest technology. With the edge to be ahead in the technology competition, you can easily manage to be the ground-breaking name in the market.

So, what is the ultimate decision-making factor that you want to focus on your next IT outsourcing project? Deciding this will help you shape in mind the requirements for the vendors, hence completing the first step to get a strategic scheme for IT outsourcing.

 

2. Decide what part of IT functions you want to outsource

Not every IT function can be outsourced. For security concerns and the matter of authority, many businesses have said that they have to consider many factors to decide which part of their technology operations can be outsourced to an external party.

Let’s take this example from HBR. In a business, there are many IT operations, and if we divide it according to the “Strategy vs. Commodity” approach, we can clearly see which operation makes you stand out in the market (the strategy), and which operation does not differentiate the business from its competitors (the commodity). For business owners, it happens to be a common case that for the strategy, you keep it in-house, and for the commodity, you outsource it.

 

 

However, the current situation of the IT market shows a different approach. The strategic IT operations now require thorough knowledge and experience that an in-house team can barely have (except for the team from big corporates), hence the only possible way is to outsource them. Therefore, the question of “what IT functions to be outsourced” will be answered if you know what part of the business you are capable of and what part needs the help of experts.

Another approach for IT Outsourcing is that you can outsource the minor part of your operation first. By doing this, you can have a litmus test for how well you can perform and the possible outcomes from outsourcing. Even in the case of failing, the important parts of your business will remain uninfluenced

3. Choose the outsourcing models for you

It is very important that you know the IT outsourcing model for you. By knowing your outsourcing models, you can know the basics of how you will run your outsourcing projects and the model that fits your financial situations and your plans the most.

 

 

You should look into these IT outsourcing pricing models before signing any contract with an international technology outsourcing company. By knowing how you are going to collaborate, you will have better plans streamlining your visions and your goals. At Lotus QA, we implement the four IT outsourcing pricing models, including:

• Project-based (for businesses that have clear objectives and fixed budget)
• Time & Material (for businesses that want flexibility)
• Dedicated Team (for businesses that want total control of who will work on their projects)
• Staff Augmentation (for businesses that want highly skilled staff to work on their short-term projects)

Find out more about IT Outsourcing Models: Choose the Right Approach

4. Define detailed requirements and tasks to be outsourced

When you’re done with the planning part of the outsourced project, the task now is more simplified, as you only need to go over the technical details of the requirements. There are plenty of kinds of IT outsourcing projects, but it all comes down to the following list:

• Project’s stakeholders (who’s taking part in this project and their responsibilities)
• Scope statements
• Tools and programming languages (if any)
• Testing specifications (if any)
• Security requirements (what measures, what tools, etc.)
• Management requirements (reporting platform, leave request, meeting request platform, etc.)
• Maintenance requirements
• Data storage and information management requirements
• Platform management
• Communication requirements

With the detailed requirements broken down to smaller different criteria as above, you can then define which tasks should be outsourced. Follow this process of requirement analysis, system study, code development, testing, implementation, deployment and maintenance/support.

5. Develop work process and work management

When working with an external party, how can you make sure that every process and operation from both parties go hand in hand? How do you streamline the project’s objectives to your business objectives without any hiccup?

 

The answer to these questions is the work process and work management. With a properly developed work process, every activity of your project is turned into a cognitive part of the whole project, making the whole operation a well-oiled “machine” that everyone can follow. For each phase of definition, execution and termination, each specific action is well-designed and noted so that even the most complicated task can be effectively managed.

For work management, how you control the tasks and the people working on those tasks are also very important. The approach you have on work management will directly affect how you chop down the task, review and possibly redo it. With a proper work management system in hand, your business can keep track of every little detail of what is going on in your project.

6. Develop risk management measures for IT outsourcing

IT Outsourcing brings not only great benefits but also major threats such as theft of intellectual property, unethical conduct, data breaches, etc. With a proper risk management plan and necessary measures, your business can stay unharmed of the already-existing risks of outsourcing. It not only helps you be well-prepared for the worst-case scenarios with the service providers but also iteratively improves your immunity to potential risks in the future.

• Risk management plan and measures include:
• Security measures
• Ownership for each potential risk
• Contingency plans
• Risk management training

7. Conclusion

IT Outsourcing offers great benefits but also brings many threats to your firm. To avoid these risks, you need to develop an IT Outsourcing strategy successfully by following these guides:

• Know the objectives for IT outsourcing
• Decide what part of IT functions you want to outsource
• Choose the outsourcing models for you
• Define detailed requirements and tasks to be outsourced
• Develop work process and work management
• Develop risk management measures for IT outsourcing

With the details listed in our article, Lotus QA hopes you can find the best approach to implement the newest technologies in your business. If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact us via our contact page.

 

8. Consult IT outsourcing Strategy with Lotus QA

Lotus QA has the expertise and experience with automation testing services in many domains such as detail, food and beverage, healthcare, etc., making us one trustworthy and professional service provider for businesses wanting to implement automation testing. When working with us, you will get access to:

• High Security: LQA not only follows stringent procedures of ISO 27000:01 for optimal security and international standardized process but also flexibly adapts to clients’ requirements
• Quality Human Resource: we ensure staff competency through strict rounds of interviews, on-job orientations, continuous learning & development for the most suitable QA staff.
• Flexibility: We provide different working models to allow clients to choose or change the plan at any time.

Contact us for more support with automation testing services:

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

Outsourcing automation testing is a popular choice among businesses who want to save cost and time in their testing process, but not every one of them knows how to successfully choose an automation testing services provider. To do this, you need to be aware of many aspects, ranging from requirement clarification, technical skills required, etc. Let’s find out more about the actions you should take to find an automation testing services provider in this article.

 

1. Clarify overall requirements

Always define the overall requirements of your project before choosing any service provider. You and your business need to well understand what you expect from the outsourced projects, both in terms of the technical aspects and expenditure to devise a detailed plan for your operations.

 

Goals and objectives

What businesses most expect from automation testing services can be cost reduction, faster time to market or the need for experts in automation testing. Define which is your priority and you can proceed to the next steps. Based on the information about this, you can find the vendors that can meet your particular needs.

 

 

Kind of testing

Automation testing is not a one-size-fits-all solution for your testing process. As automation testing can only take care of some particular kinds of testing, there are scenarios in which your products definitely need manual testings. In other words, there is a variety of what you can test with automation testing, and you need to consider them carefully before starting the testing activities.

For example, you can implement automation in functional testing, unit testing, integration testing, smoke testing, non-functional testing, performance testing, regression testing, etc. But for Adhoc testing, user acceptance testing, etc., it is vital you carry out manual testing.

Read more: Automation testing vs. Manual testing

 

Scope of work

You can outsource your whole testing department, or just some functions of your project. With the scope of work clear in mind, you can then form a checklist of what specific features need to be outlined.

 

2. Have a checklist of technical skills in automation testing services

With automation testing in general, there are plenty of testing tools and programming languages to be implemented. But for an outsourced testing project, you need to stay consistent with the choice of the testing tools.

 

 

For each test objective or approach, there are different automation testing tools, so you just can’t grab any automation software tester to join your team. From the initial decision for the testing tool, you will have to find the test personnel who have the technical knowledge and experience in the following criteria:

• The programming languages required in that tool (Python, Javascript, C#, etc.)
• The supported platforms and reporting functionality of the tool (iOS, Android, etc.)
• Script maintenance and reusability

Read more: Interview questions for software testers

 

3. Know your desired ROI (How much time, effort and money can be saved)

For automation testing projects, the most frequent reason for doing this is to get a better ROI (return of investment). The cost for setting up an automation testing team and writing test cases, test scripts may take a much longer time than that of a manual testing project, but the long-term outcomes will help the team save better.

 

 

Since this is such an important and beneficial thing for businesses to pursue, they also need to be more careful when calculating the ROI. From the metrics of how much time the project will work on, how many people need to be on the project, you ask the service provider to give a wrap of the overall ROI you can gain from the project, and then choose the vendor with the most promising numbers.

 

4. Clarify the expected speed of regression tests

When implementing automation testing, one benefit you can gain from it is the testing speed. Automation testing allows you to shorten your testing time in some particular testing types, say regression testing, as one month’s work can be done within just more than a week. Knowing this, you also need to work out the expected time to market for your project, hence the testing timeframe is indicated.

 

 

With the attention to the speed of regression tests, there are some particular things you can require from your vendor to achieve it:

• The use of test management software
• The implementation of the test schedule
• The technical measures to ensure consistent speed

 

5. Clarify the cost (Salary & Benefit, Tool cost, Maintenance cost)

Hiring an external party to deliver automation testing may be costly. Although the overall price for testing is very little compared to the development cost, automation testing is another spectrum as the job requires knowledge of certain programming languages. In terms of costs, you need to consider the following things:

 

Salary & benefit

Be aware of the average salary and benefits for automation test engineers both from your region and from other parts of the world. From this information, you can decide which country you want to hire the automation testing services from and the scope of price for your project.

 

Cost for automation tool

For automation testing, you can either choose the open-sourced tool or a commercial tool. Each has its pros and cons as follows:

• For open-sourced tools, you don’t have to pay for anything when working with them, but you are more prone to security and maintenance risks.
• For commercial tools, it is very costly for you to use them, but after all, you can get full support from the tool developer and better security measures.

 

Maintenance cost

One major problem with automation testing, in general, is the maintenance cost. If there are any changes in the developing process, the automation code for testing just might not work, causing the test team to find and fix the code all over again. This maintenance process may take up hours or even days to detect the changes and fix the code, hence the cost for maintenance is also another thing you need to note on your contract.

 

 

6. Seek you automation testing services with Lotus QA

Lotus QA has the expertise and experience with automation testing services in many domains such as retail, food and beverage, healthcare, etc., making us one trustworthy and professional service provider for businesses wanting to implement automation testing. When working with us, you will get access to:

• High Security: LQA not only follows stringent procedures of ISO 27000:01 for optimal security and international standardized process but also flexibly adapts to clients’ requirements
• Quality Human Resource: we ensure staff competency through strict rounds of interviews, on-job orientations, continuous learning & development for the most suitable QA staff.
• Flexibility: We provide different working models to allow clients to choose or change the plan at any time.

Contact us for more support with automation testing services:

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

A successful software QA outsourcing project requires not only a thorough understanding of your objectives but also in-depth knowledge of the testing market around the world. In this article, let’s find out more about the top countries for software quality assurance services to choose the most suitable destination for your outsourced test center.

 

A Quick Review of Top Countries for Software quality assurance services

To make a favorable destination for outsourcing software quality assurance services, it takes the compilation of many features, including the average salary, Education in IT, Policies for foreign clients, the current number of QA engineers and technical skills. Take a look at this simplified table to gain an overview of the countries with the top software quality assurance services.

 

	Average yearly salary	Number of annual IT graduates	Focused segments of software testing
India	$4,334	1,500,000 (engineering and technology)	AI for automation Automation testing End-to-end testing Cloud Testing
Vietnam	$7,631	50,000	Application testing Automation testing Manual testing API testing Full Cycle testing
The U.S.	$75,242	2,170,000	Application testing Cloud testing IoT testing Security testing DevOps testing AI testing
Ukraine	$8,000	130,000	Full Cycle testing API testing Agile testing Automation testing Game testing
Poland	$17,148	98,250	Manual Test Design and Execution Automated Testing Test Automation Framework Design Functional Testing Load & Performance Testing End-to-End Software Testing API Testing
The Philippines	$8,724	171,960	Application testing Automation testing Manual testing

 

1. India

Currently, India reigns as the most renowned destination for software testing outsourcing in particular. The deciding factor making India the top software quality assurance services country is the reasonable costs for hiring a software tester. With a large pool of low-cost software test engineers, India offers the lowest price for testing services.

In terms of technology, test engineers from India tend to go for the latest and upcoming technical features. In fact, TopCoder has rated India as the 10th most advanced country in terms of Programming skill rankings across the popular outsourcing locations.

 

Software quality assurance services in India

According to research from Deloitte, in terms of governmental policies, India also favors foreign investors, especially in the technology sector. Moreover, the longtime experience in delivering IT services and the undeniable reputation of India in the global IT market have led the government to offer incentives in the best way they can. Besides the policies for the growth of technology in general, India has always boosted education in technology with multiple incentives and many more technology institutions. Such supports from the government has granted India the opportunity to thrive with the largest talent pool.

Also read: Essential QA Metrics to Navigate Software Success

2. Vietnam

Vietnam is the “rising star” in the global software quality assurance services market. Although Vietnam has only gained its reputation recently, the country turns out to be a small but vibrant destination for top-quality software testing services. Every year, there are about 50,000 tech junior graduates from technology institutes, providing an abundant source for Vietnam’s talent pool. About 20% of these graduates will work in the software testing industry.

 

 

What’s so special about the testing services from Vietnamese vendors is the high-quality human resources. According to the A.T. Kearney GSLI, from the early education on Information Technology to the resource availability and financial attractiveness, Vietnam always works towards to best quality in our IT workforce. In this chart, Vietnam ranks alongside India and The Philippines – two popular IT Outsourcing countries. Plus, Tholons Global Innovation COUNTRY INDEX – 2020 ranked Vietnam in the 9th place for talent, skill and quality, proving the country’s capability to ensure high-quality testing services and catch up with the latest testing trends.

The workforce for software testing in Vietnam is well-trained of the required skills in QA processes. For example, the automation testers in Vietnam will sure know the automation tools and frameworks such as Selenium, Appium, Cypress, Ranorex, Eggplant, Katalon, etc.

In terms of government policies, there have been some decisions and laws to protect intellectual property development and cybersecurity, all of which are of great benefit to businesses planning to outsource their software quality assurance services in Vietnam.

Read more: Why you should choose Vietnam as your IT Outsourcing destination

 

3. The U.S.

Despite the rising positions of many other test hubs in the world, the U.S. remains a trustworthy destination for outsourcing testing services. Among tech nations, the U.S. has always been one of the leading places for the most ground-breaking technologies. The application of the latest technologies in the U.S. is the most advanced. Unconsciously, the work quality in the U.S is the standard for every other country to follow as this country has a high level of professionalism.

 

When working with software testing vendors from the U.S., the obvious benefit for you is the language. Since the U.S. has a wide variety of cultures, it is very easy for you to get people with the same cultural background as yours.

Also, America is the home to many famous software testing outsourcing companies in the world, namely Mindful QA, ScienceSoft, QA Mentor, etc. These companies have already made their names in the global testing market, and are trusted destinations for business from all around the world.

 

4. Ukraine

Information Technology is one of the key strategic industries in Ukraine. The value of Ukrainian software outsourcing exceeded $5B in 2020. Also, Ukraine was named the “Offshoring Destination of the Year” by Global Sourcing Association (GSA) in 2017 and ranks 20th the GSLI.

 

According to a popular vendor in Ukraine, the country has more than 1,600 IT service providers, and about 90% of them offer testing services. What’s more, 24% of IT specialists in Ukraine are QA/testers, and 19% of them have 7+ years of experience. There are a little over 48,000 QA experts, and around 16,000 ICT graduates enter the market annually.

The country organizes a wide range of QA conferences such as BAQ Conference, QA Fest, Security Testing Marathon, IT Weekend Lviv: Software Testing & Big Data, etc.

 

5. Poland

The country’s IT services market reached $4.6B in 2019. Around 32% of Polish IT experts work for IT outsourcing (others are working for BPO and GBS companies). Around 29,000 QA professionals are involved in the IT sector in Poland. There are also 500+ IT companies that offer outsourced software testing services.

 

 

Moreover, Poland was ranked 15th in Tholons’ Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations. Poland was also listed 16th in the world for English skills in the EF English Proficiency Index.

 

6. The Philippines

The Philippines is one of the biggest names for IT Outsourcing and software quality assurance services in Southeast Asia. The BPO and outsourcing industry, in general, has been in The Philippines since the mid-1990s, making this country a favorable and professional environment for IT outsourcing operations.

 

 

Besides the fairly reasonable price for the high-quality work, The Philippines can also provide you with the following:

• Effective communication as English is one of the national languages in the country. Almost every tech engineer in The Philippines can speak fluent English. This also leads to cultural fit and compatibility with western countries, bridging the gap in the communication process.
• Famous IT Outsourcing destination with favorable investment policies. Since The Philippines has been in the market longer than any Southeast Asia country, it has long developed a friendly environment for foreign companies to cooperate with domestic IT service providers.
• At present, Outsourcing companies in the Philippines employ more than 2 million people. Therefore, you will have access to a very large talent pool.

 

 

Consult IT outsourcing Strategy with Lotus QA

Lotus QA has the expertise and experience with testing services in many domains such as retail, food and beverage, healthcare, etc., making us one trustworthy and professional service provider for businesses wanting to implement testing. When working with us, you will get access to:

• High Security: LQA not only follows stringent procedures of ISO 27000:01 for optimal security and international standardized process but also flexibly adapts to clients’ requirements
• Quality Human Resource: we ensure staff competency through strict rounds of interviews, on-job orientations, continuous learning & development for the most suitable QA staff.
• Flexibility: We provide different working models to allow clients to choose or change the plan at any time.

Contact us for more support with testing services:

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

Software QA Outsourcing has been a feasible solution for elevated QA outcomes, but it also received controversial opinions from many businesses. To gain a proper understanding of this matter and decide the trajectory for your companies, it is advisable that you acknowledge the following pros and cons of software QA Outsourcing.

 

Advantages of Software QA Outsourcing

IT Outsourcing in general and Software QA Outsourcing, in particular, have some significant advantages to bring about for your business if they are applied properly and orderly. These advantages include:

 

1. Cost-effectiveness

The financial impact always has paramount importance to the assessment of one successful software testing project. Regularly, after the software development process or software launch, business owners test software functions to ensure the highest quality. By outsourcing your QA processes, your business can avoid making major investments in infrastructure, software and personnel. But simultaneously, you are spoilt for choices with many outsourcing QA vendors competing over you.

 

 

Besides the differences in salary range between building an in-house software testing team and hiring an external QA team (which can be 31 – 33%, according to a report from ISO), software QA outsourcing can also help you reduce infrastructure costs and increase testing expertise.

 

2. Time-Saving

Instead of investing a huge amount of money for a long time with the hope to gain something back from your investments, you can start your testing project right away with an outsourced QA team.

This QA outsourced team has already had what it takes to have a fully functioning and experienced QA staff to work on your project. No additional time will be needed for training, onboarding, nurturing staff, as these are all taken care of by the vendors.

 

 

Moreover, the outsourced QA team will have the resources to fill in the positions of QA experts, helping your business have the experience and expertise to speed up the testing process. With such speed, your development life cycle is shortened, hence the faster time-to-market. Needless to say, faster time-to-market can bring you numerous other advantages such as the edge of competition, improved margins, etc. to your business.

 

3. Test Expertise

Expertise is perhaps one of the most important features that one business leader seeks when working with QA outsourcing vendors. With digital transformation acting as the major drive for businesses to change, the need for significant technical expertise is higher than ever. Even for a non-tech company, technology is still an imperative part for them to evolve and adapt to the tech-infused world.

 

 

But getting access to the testing expertise is not easy at all. Especially for medium-sized and small-sized businesses, their reputation falls short to attract talent, plus the limited resources. For a technical project, or a testing project in this case to succeed, a viable option is to get the expertise through an outsourced team. This outsourced team not only hires you the senior-level staff but also helps you gain subject-matter expertise of any kind. You can choose from a variety of manual testers, automation testers, test leaders, test managers, etc.

 

4. Flexibility

Outsource software testing offers you the benefit of a fast team scaling and quick adaptation to project changes. Put it simply, an outsourced QA team can be scaled upon requirements within a short amount of time.

Whether you want to scale up or down, the vendors can still adjust the team members that you want in no time. In case of changes in business trajectory or testing objectives, an outsourced team can also quickly adapt to your requirements in terms of technical skills.

To look further into this, you can consider more ways to maximize your flexibility in this detailed article from HBR.

 

Disadvantages of Software QA Outsourcing

Despite some of the major benefits of software QA outsourcing, there are still big bottlenecks that you need to gain clarity of to avoid the failure of outsourcing testing functions.

 

1. Low Security and Confidentiality

The issue of low security and confidentiality has always been the biggest problem that one business has to deal with when outsourcing their QA functions. Even for the most secured system, cybersecurity attacks can always find multiple loopholes to illegally exploit. And this risk is even heightened when you outsource your testing processes to an external party.

 

 

To be more specific, you share your source codes, customer data, reference models and workflows with the outsourced team. Without proper documentation and preparation for potential security risks, you are at greater risk of being copied, plagiarised and leaked.

Of course, this case only happens when you accidentally partner up with shady vendors, but the risk of low security and low confidentiality is still there. The one viable solution for this may be signing an NDA or reviewing the security processes before starting the project.

 

2. Lack of control

When you outsource your testing project to a third party, you are effectively signing over management control and decision-making to that party. Even though you receive the reports from the project manager or the team leader, you are still blind-sided to some extent.

There are still things unseen, words unheard and actions unsupervised. This lack of control can derail the whole project and waste your time if you don’t have the timely and actionable information for fix-up whenever problems come up.

To fix this, you need to come for those vendors that have a clear communication and working process in which daily and weekly reports are carefully delivered. In these reports, a clear checklist of what to be included is a must so that you can have clarity over your project. Meeting schedules, video-conferencing are also very useful and direct ways for communication and control.

 

3. Challenges with remote work communication

Remote work communication is inevitable when you outsource your IT functions, and it can create many communication challenges. In many cases, you even have to contact an overseas team, causing many additional problems. These issues that remote teams may stumble on include:

• Limited direct and face-to-face communication
• Different timezone and cultural traits (for those offshore testing centers)
• Technical limitations such as poor internet and lack of a common communication tool
• Late replies due to lack of physical engagement

 

 

With these problems greatly impacting the quality of a outsource testing center, businesses now need to take serious actions to improve their remote communication to ensure a smooth workflow.

However, for some businesses that are new to all this outsourcing thing, they tend to lack awareness and preparation for the communication process. Without a proper one, the vendor and the client are prone to failure and isolation, which are the last things you want from an outsourced testing project.

On how to deal with the aforementioned problems, Lotus QA recommends you follow the guide for Remote Work Communication Best Practices, which included the strategic features to cover for effective communication.

 

QA Outsourcing with Lotus QA

By partnering with Lotus QA, we strive for the enhancement of the benefits you can get from QA outsourcing and the minimization of the potential risks. At Lotus QA, we have a well-written testing process and communication process to put you through smooth and effortless operations and simultaneously give you close management of your project.

 

 

Lotus QA with one of our focuses on quality assurance can provide you with the best outsource software testing service. At Lotus QA, we can ensure you of:

• High Security: LQA not only follows stringent procedures of ISO 27000:01 for optimal security and international standardized process but also flexibly adapts to clients’ requirements
• Quality Human Resource: we ensure staff competency through strict rounds of interviews, on-job orientations, continuous learning & development for the most suitable QA staff.
• Flexibility: We provide different working models to allow clients to choose or change the plan at any time.

Contact us for more guidance on this:

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

Software QA Outsourcing can be a great enabler for the success of your tech products or your digital transformation journey. However, if not done properly, it can cause malfunctions and derail your project to failure. So here are some do’s and don’ts for you when doing businesses with software QA companies.

 

What you should do with Software QA Outsourcing

1. Define your objectives and testing scopes

The first and foremost thing you need for a successful software QA outsourcing project is to define what you want from this operation. For example, some companies prioritize overall cost reduction when they outsource their QA functions, some emphasize the QA experts that they get to work with. For different business objectives there come different objectives for your QA outsourcing project. You should know this beforehand to look for the vendors that can offer you what you want.

 

 

When you’re done with the ultimate goal for outsourcing, you go for the testing scopes. It can be the whole testing department, a product line, a single product, a product release or just a function. Knowing this kind of information can help you ramp up preparations for outsourcing planning and have timely and actionable steps to further execute the software QA outsourcing project.

 

2. Have a security system for software testing

At any time and in any situation, no matter what the scope of your business is, always remain vigilant, especially when you outsource your project/product for an external party to test.

The current situation of the global IT market has raised many concerns about security threats its consequences and these heightened risks are even bigger when you outsource your IT functions. To prevent the severe strains on security operations and prepare for your process, one thing you need to do with the vendor is to review the security process and determine what gap may exist. Risk prevention and necessary acts need to be prepared for any threats in the future.

 

 

Ideally, you should consider vendors which have multiple measures to ensure security, including:

• International standards on how to manage information security such as ISO/IEC 27001
• Physical security layers and biometric authentication
• Legal documents and agreement for legal bound
• Network security with access control, antivirus software, application security, firewalls, VPN encryption, etc.

 

3. Strictly follow test process

The test process is perhaps not the deciding factor for a successful software QA outsourcing project, but without a strictly followed test process, it is very hard to put in place an effective operation.

The test process is like the spine of the whole testing project which keeps everything running smoothly. It not only chops down the whole project into smaller parts for easier management but also offers the overall sense of consistency of your software product.

 

 

With every small step of the testing process being monitored and managed, you and the outsourced team can always have a quick undertaking for any derailing detail.

A test process can be customized flexibly, but once a process is determined, you should always stick to it. For a well-oiled testing project, the process needs to work all the way down to details. For example, “what inputs are expected from you?” and “what outputs do you expect from the vendors?” are the questions to be answered. These kinds of information will clear the fog and make your software QA outsourcing operation easier than ever.

Read more: 7 Tips for Effective IT Outsourcing Management

 

What you should not do

1. Let the price decide

For some companies, the price reduction is their priority. But don’t let the price be the sole reason for you to choose a vendor. When choosing a service provider for your business, always bear in mind that the ultimate goal is to get the services with a lower price and equivalent quality.

By saying this, we want to emphasize the balance between the price and the quality. A reasonable offer is a good offer is when you don’t have to compromise the overall quality of your project. If you blindly choose whichever vendor can offer the lowest possible price, the consequences will be severe. These consequences may include:

• Poor-quality services and personnel
• Insufficient infrastructure and resources
• Lack of security and legal assurance

 

 

Of course, you want to choose the most reasonable price offer, but the smart thing to do is to consider other factors as well. These factors can be individual certificates, company certificates, security processes, communication processes, etc.

 

2. Use too many platforms for communication

The concerns over communication and integration between the vendor and the client have been one of the biggest reasons why businesses are reluctant with IT Outsourcing in general. But when you break it down to smaller problems, the most obvious issue lies in the channel for communication. For one party, it might be more convenient to use this platform, but for the other party, it might be a different one.

 

 

The right answer for this is to choose an official channel for any kind of announcements and updates. There have been many cases of poor management when the teams use too many platforms to communicate. One is for the client, one is for the team members, etc. In each platform, there are hundreds more conversations going on, so it will be very hard for you and the vendors to connect under this chaotic situation.

Without setting up a proper communication focal point, not every one of the project can grasp the idea of what’s been going on, resulting in miscommunication and malfunctions.

Read more: Remote work communication in IT projects: Questions answered

 

3. Miss on the test documentation

Once you start your software QA outsourcing process, don’t haste the outsourced team into writing test plans and test cases right away. For a testing project to go smoothly without any hiccup, the first-ever thing you need to prepare is the documentations of whatever is included in your project. The tech specifications, notes, explanations, etc. are to be included.

 

 

Don’t just toss this documentation around. In contrast, it is advisable that you check regularly for the progress and how much they know from the project. From this ground knowledge, you will know their performance in some sense and have corrections whenever the tiniest hiccups appear.

For the vendors, complicated test documentation is never ideal. Instead of going full text, you should also put some infographics, charts, tables in place as visual aids. This can help the outsourced testing team have a deeper and quicker understanding of the project.

 

In conclusion

When doing software QA outsourcing, there are hundreds of mistakes you might make along the way, and the aforementioned do’s and don’ts are the things that Lotus QA has concluded through many testing projects with clients from all over the world.

We hope that with the advice from Lotus QA’s experts and experience, you can successfully apply it to your software testing outsourcing projects and avoid the issues along the way.

 

 

Software Testing Outsourcing with Lotus QA

Lotus QA with one of our focuses on quality assurance can provide you with the best software QA outsourcing service. At Lotus QA, we can ensure you of:

• High Security: LQA not only follows stringent procedures of ISO 27000:01 for optimal security and international standardized process but also flexibly adapts to clients’ requirements
• Quality Human Resource: we ensure staff competency through strict rounds of interviews, on-job orientations, continuous learning & development for the most suitable QA staff.
• Flexibility: We provide different working models to allow clients to choose or change the plan at any time.

 

Contact us for more guidance on this:

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