The Age of Mobile Apps
In recent years, the demand for mobile app development has escalated, and according to Gartner, this demand will continue to grow at least five times faster than IT’s capacity to deliver it through 2021.
With the demand for applications skyrocketing, reportedly well over half of IT managers are facing a massive app development backlog and a number of challenges to successfully launch a mobile app product. Gartner predicts that by 2019, out of every three new mobile apps will fail within the first six months of its market launch. When it comes to developing a mobile app, organizations continuously cite time and money constraints as the biggest barriers, followed by competing priorities and lack of a highly-skilled mobile development team.
Because of these constraints, a growing number of companies are relying on outsourcing their app development needs in order to free up their time to meet other business needs. If your organization is facing similar challenges, here are four signs that it may be time to consider outsourcing for all of your mobile app development needs.
1. Your company faces gaps in required skill sets
Organizations are facing a growing shortage of high-skilled mobile app developers. According to Outsystems’ State of Application Development Report, 88% of organizations said that mobile functionality is either a requirement or very important. However, 37% claimed they face a shortage of competent developers, and 44% reported there is a knowledge gap in their organization for the skills needed to take on mobile app development projects.
Mobile development requires newer skill sets and for developers to keep up on the constant changes and marketplace requirements. The solution to keeping up with the required skill sets may not always be simply hiring another mobile developer. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find mobile developers who possess a broad spectrum of skills, who can cross over between languages, and who can take on a wide range of projects. Therefore, outsourcing your app development can be a good way to make sure your product is built with all of the latest technologies by a team that possesses the right expertise for every step along the way.
2. You can’t keep up with mobile development technology changes
Why should your organization pay thousands of dollars to subscribe to or purchase a crucial tool or technology that your development team may only use once? By outsourcing app development, your company can tap into all of the technologies that may be missing from your current development stack.
Hiring an outsourcing team that already has these tools in place will allow your organization to claim you use the latest technologies in your application without the overhead and costs involved with getting your team up to speed themselves.
3. Your app needs to get to market quickly
Time constraints are another reason why organizations should consider outsourcing their app development needs. 65% of IT managers surveyed by Outsystems reported that it takes over three months to develop a custom application. 11% of those surveyed reported that for them, the time required stretches out over one year. Not surprisingly, this can create a significant backlog and lead to considerable dissatisfaction among team leaders. Nearly half of the survey respondents said that they’re unhappy with the current velocity of their application development teams.
Lengthy development times can be detrimental to an organization, especially in the mobile-first world we live in. A lengthy development process can cost more money, lead to your competitors capturing the market first, and even create frustration among your stakeholders.
By hiring an outsourced development team, your organization can quickly iterate your ideas and launch your app to market much faster. For modern organizations, following this lean methodology is key for efficiency and eliminating waste in every possible way.
4. You lack the budget for in-house development
Mobile app development costs can add up quickly. While larger companies may be able to absorb development costs easily, there are very few organizations with unlimited budgets. If an app is not your organization’s primary product, but rather an addition to what you already offer, then chances are you will not have the appropriate infrastructure to start building apps in-house immediately. Investing in this infrastructure can be quite an undertaking and one that simply may not make sense.
Another cost to take into account is that of hiring new developers if your app is to be built in-house. The recruitment process as well as training and onboarding any new hires can be a heavy cost. For organizations on a budget, it can be much more cost-effective to simply outsource your afpp development to a qualified development team, especially if ongoing mobile development is not a key focus of your company.
As with any outsourced service, no two mobile application development teams will be the same. It’s important to find a team that meets your specific needs— just make sure they truly understand what you want to accomplish.
