Introduction

9 out of 10 startups fail! While the most popular reason for this is a lack of funding. However, the lack of adequate and suitable talent is a bigger underlying issue that causes startups to fail and hinders business growth. Businesses fail to grab outstanding opportunities as they don't have the right talent required to fulfill necessary conditions. Additionally, many ongoing projects are also often affected by this problem because as the project progresses, its requirements change. Thus, a company will need to expand its team. Also, employee turnover can risk the continuity of work and delay project milestones. This applies to companies of all sizes equally but applies all the more to startups and small & medium enterprises. In such a case, people are often confused if it is better to hire and expand your in-house team or scale your team with external remote software developers.

You might think that the ideal option around this is to immediately recruit new in-house resources. However, this might not always be very effective as hiring and training the right talents is a highly time-consuming and lengthy process, especially when promptness is the key. And more often than not, the opportunity is lost, and nothing can be done about it if things are not done on time. Colloquially speaking, you snooze, you lose. Expanding your in-house team comes with other limitations as well.   

This is where hiring dedicated remote developers comes into play, as this new and proliferating model makes up for many of the limitations of in-house teams. Hiring remote developers has proven to be very effective, and more and more enterprises are seeing this as a new future. A future where in-house teams work together with remote development partners to successfully build world-class digital products. Hiring remote developers is more cost-efficient and makes more sense, as once the project is over, you can release the resources and relieve yourself of the financial burden, unlike in the case of benched employees. With this contemporary model, you can focus entirely on your business without having to worry about your project. Choose the right full-stack software development partner, and they will take care of all your development needs. Do what you do best, outsource the rest

That said, even hiring dedicated remote engineers has its own limitations and challenges. But before we go into that in detail, let's take a quick peek into how scaling your team with external developers can be beneficial.

The 6 big challenges of remote development teams

Challenge #1

Quality of service & expected results

It isn't very pleasant when the final project delivery is nowhere near what you had envisioned. This not only wastes your time & resources, but now you are left with a product or website which does not have the potential to take you where you aspire to be. How is it possible to avoid such a situation if you are not aware of the quality of service of a remote developer?

Solution:

One way to get over this challenge is to get a sense of the company's service, its quality, and its work before you finalize your project with them. You can do so by simply requesting a free trial from the partner you are looking to work with. A few companies provide prospective clients with a limited free trial where you can truly experience the quality of work firsthand and decide for yourself if they are the right partner for your project before proceeding further. You can also go through their case studies and previous projects to assess how they have worked and performed previously.

Challenge #2

Communication gap & coordination

Effective communication is the crux of any successful teamwork and collaboration. People often believe that outsourcing projects to an external partner create barriers in communication which leads to improper coordination and unsatisfactory or failed projects. While it is true that this can happen many times, it is not always the case.

Solution:

The first basic step to avoid any communication hindrances is to steer clear of language barriers by finding a remote team in the right location. For example, India is the world's second-largest English-speaking country. It also has a very robust IT sector consisting of highly skilled and experienced IT engineers. Moreover, once you start working with a partner, it is important to have a constant working line of communication through regular online meetings with the partner and the development team to ensure continuous information exchange regarding the project. This is something that should be set in precedence before you start collaborating with an external partner.

Challenge #3 

Time Zone differences

Being in a different time zone from your remote development team might lead to issues in coordination and communication. Let's say that you are facing an urgent issue in the evening at your office in San Francisco, but your team of Android developers in Ukraine or India might have already left the office and are already asleep. Not having access to your remote resources in a time of need can derail the progress of your project. It also makes conducting real-time assessments difficult, for it might be hours before you can contact the development team and get an issue resolved or convey your message to them directly.

Solution:

Availability of support during working hours in your time zone is something that must be discussed and agreed upon beforehand if such support would be required for your project. Preferably, look for a partner whose team or representative will be available as per your time zone. Have a pre-planned schedule of regular meetings, and also have a set schedule of which POC or developer will be available to communicate with you at your time. Looking for a partner in a country whose timezone matches yours can be even more helpful. Again, India is a country where the timezone of the country matches and overlaps with the working hours of other countries such as Australia, the US, the Middle East, the UK, and the rest of Europe. Indian tech companies also provide round-the-clock availability or time zone adjustments to accommodate client requests at any time of the day.

Challenge #4 

Transparency & Productivity

Managing your project with hired remote developers who are halfway across the globe can prove to be a bit of a challenge, especially if you have a large project and an equally large team that needs to be overseen. It is essential to make sure that all developers are working at the required levels of productivity and meeting what is expected of them timely. This requires the presence of a fair level of transparency in their work. How can this be achieved while working with hired remote developers?

Solution:

The first step is to streamline communications. Request for constant communication and regular reporting from your project manager or POC, and encourage them to have a continued and open line of communication. Accountability should be established at all levels, and the same should be displayed in the form of periodic reports. Make use of an effective project management tool like Trello that can help you simplify your tracking and reporting. This will allow you to spend more time focusing on your business instead of worrying about your project progress. To optimize productivity, you must also be aware of what is working and what isn't working. This can be achieved through regular audits of workflows and reviewing steps of the existing process to identify and get rid of any choke points that bring work efficiency down.

Challenge #5 

Confidentiality & Data Security

Your ideas and data are invaluable. Trusting an external partner with all this sensitive data is tough as you are not sure if your data will be safe or if it will be shared or misused by your partner. Moreover, a weak data security infrastructure on your partner's end might make your data more prone to loss or theft.

Solution:

Start off by doing basic research about the partner you intend to work with. Conduct an analysis of their track record and previous work to understand whether the partner is reliable. Also, look out for reviews, especially client reviews on Google and directories such as Goodfirms or Clutch. Moreover, it is advisable to evaluate the data security infrastructure and best practices used by a company and conduct extensive screening in this regard. Additionally, you can sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with the external development partner. This will create a strong base of trust before you begin work and help you ensure the safety of your data and its confidentiality. 

Challenge #6 

Organizational Differences

An often overlooked yet a very pertinent factor while hiring dedicated remote developers. Organizational differences between your organization and your partner can arise in many forms. It can be mismatched vision, values, understanding, work culture, work style, differing expectations, and countless others.

Solution:

Some differences will always exist. The same applies even if you hire in-house developers or other talents. It is up to you to establish and prioritize which difference gaps are important to you that will have the possibility of affecting the strength of your collaboration and project. More importantly, only work with a partner whose culture, vision, and work align with yours. Try and understand what the values that the partner you're looking for follows, how they work and collaborate, and what exactly their vision is. All this must be well thought out before proceeding. There are many remote software development companies, such as Zignuts Technolab, which foster a robust and open work culture that create the perfect grounds for positive collaboration.

To wrap it up

Hiring a dedicated remote software development team indeed comes with its own set of challenges. However, these challenges can be easily overcome by choosing the right partner. Do your due diligence and research before you proceed. Be sure to go through all the points given above and have your potential partner address how those challenges will be tackled. Also, do an internal analysis to identify what unique challenges you are likely to face during collaboration and how they can be overcome. Most importantly, Choose a partner whose work style, vision, and culture align with yours or one that is adaptive enough to work alongside your organization.

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