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When we explain the term digital transformation, it means different for every company, and it can be difficult to cast an absolute definition. However, in a general context, digital transformation is defined as integrating digital technology into all areas of a business, causing a fundamental change in the operational structure of a business and how they add value to consumers' lives. Apart from that, it's a cultural evolution that bounds businesses to challenge the status quo and try new things. It demands a transition from traditional business models to the relatively updated principles and methodologies that promise efficiency and growth.

Organizations' expenditure on the digital transformation (DX) of businesses model notably increased despite the challenges amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as stated by the 2020 International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Digital Transformation Spending Guide. IDC predicts that worldwide spending on DX technologies and services will surge by 10.4 percent in 2020 to $1.3 trillion. Although it was less than 17.9 percent growth in 2019, it remains one of the notable spendings in a pandemic-driven period, rich with comical reductions in overall technology spending.

A business may opt for digital transformation for multiple reasons; among them, the most primary reason is survival. Survival is one's adaptability to change. In the wake of COVID-19, Consumer behavior has quickly changed in different ways since the rise of the pandemic triggered the crash of automated systems in areas like supply chain management when collided with sudden shifts in demand and supply. A business’s ability to adapt instantaneously to supply-demand shock, volatile market conditions, and rapidly shifting customers' behavior has become a survival need.

Impact Of COVID-19 Pandemic On Digital Transformation

The world has observed the pandemic rapidly mold both the “what” and the “how” of businesses’ DX agendas. For instance, the employees' perception of digital technology has switched from “nice to have” to “the only way they can work,” making DX a solution to modern-day problems.Some primary concerns of CIOs and CEOs related to Digital transformation amid COVID-19 include.

• Improving the reach of customer support via tools like chatbots
• Automation tools to manage crisis and unwanted situations
• Forced elimination of redundant or conflicting processes/systems

Digital transformation is appearing as a monster that feeds on conventional systems or work models. A reason why facilities have developed a healthy relationship with digital technology leaving their traditional working habits behind.

How To Prepare for Digital Transformation

For digital transformation to successfully overrun and transcend the conventional business processes, it is crucial to understand what can go wrong. Below are the five steps to take before starting DX.

Move Gradually

For digital transformation to be fruitful, the collaboration among employees and different departments of a facility is vital. In every organization, around 70 to 80 percent of employees do not know what colleagues are doing. For digital transformation projects to succeed, this habit has to be left behind. Invest time to make sure that all involved understand what everyone else is dealing with.

User-Friendly Technology

Technology is the heart of any digital transformation project, whether it's a new project management software to use internally or certain digital products developed to attract new customers. In both cases, the reality is crystal clear, and if it is difficult to use, people will hesitate to use it. This is specifically important from an HRM viewpoint. When most of the workforce are digital natives, in-house technology must be intuitive, or this talent will easily be distracted and switch to somewhere else.

Answering The WHY Question

Transparency is one of the most important aspects of digital transformation. Every key stakeholder involved needs to understand the reasons behind such a huge transformation. This is normal human nature, and you cannot convince people to change without explaining why they need to be changed.

Solution Breakdown

This idea is coined in the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. The idea explains the most effective way to approach a lengthy project like digital transformation. It is easier to overcome a big problem or a project by slicing it down into smaller phases. Once you have broken it into steps, design the roadmap by allocating the priority of every step.

Methods of Digital Transformation

Once you have destined your objectives and build the foundational basis of your digital transformation strategy, you must evaluate your organization’s capacity to select the suitable method for your digital transformation journey.

Strategic Partners

In Greek mythology, to rise again, Phoenix must have to burn first. This is how limitations become opportunities. According to Alan Talbot, chief information officer of Air Malta, knowing limitations is an important prerequisite while beginning the project. Air Malta identified the key technical areas where they lack technical and digital supremacy than consulted integration partners, Mule Soft and Ricston. Locally-stationed Ricston physically attended and worked at the Air Malta headquarters throughout the project to fully filter out the organization’s strengths and weaknesses. The reason behind augmenting the internal staff with outside experts is that their presence on board added significance to the project, so the outsourcing could enjoy the exposure of issues and practices an airline is likely to encounter.

Innovation Space

Another unique method to explore new technologies is to stimulate your digital strategy or segments in a digital workshop or a lab. This enables businesses to propagate ideas and test theories without disturbing the organization’s daily routine and actual operations. Renowned Car manufacturer Porsche has stationed the Porsche Digital Lab to test AI and the internet of things to enhance both the automated driving experience in their vehicles and the working environment for their staff. Similarly, Japanese electronics company Fujitsu has developed several Digital Transformation Centres worldwide to serve as innovation labs where their curious customers can visit to experience new digital technology.

Change Teams

Another possible way to accomplish your digital transformation objective is to station a dedicated change team within the facility. You can choose to outsource consultants or identify innovators from within the organization. These change workers work together to accelerate the digital transformation drive and visit each team or department to drive progress. Another notable aspect of involving this practice is that these change agents are people who consider this practice as their full-time job rather than someone trying to spare time from their busy schedule.

Involve Everyone

Many organizations push a load of digital strategy and transformation to senior management, making the CEO the pilot of a transformation project. Expecting such a huge change to be delivered by only one or a few people is a false practice. Success is based on creating an environment free from the traditional mindset. Drivers of this change need to mold the cultural mindset as everyone has a part to play, from the clerk to the upper hierarchy.

Conclusion

A solid digital strategy is something no business can confront the Future without. But keep in mind, the main drivers of digital transformation are technology, people, and process. Digital transformation is not just about pitching technology at the problem as it depends on people and processes as well. Without collaboration and adaptation in the three main drivers of change, one cannot get any fruitful transformation and end up ruining the whole project. The experts believe that digital transformation solely depends on organizations remembering these three key points.

1. Always be realistic. Adapt what is achievable at the moment and don’t try to implement it all at once.
2. Mindset and approach is the prerequisite of technology.
3. Cultural change is mandatory for digital transformation to provide promising results. As it's more about people rather than a standalone technology.

The companies that are embarking on success are gradually moving towards the digital transformation initiatives and accepting that failure is a part of the learning curve, rather than wasting time seeing how digital transformation will work for their competitors. Let us know in the comments section below about your opinions and how you are planning to opt for digital business transformation.

In the global market, it has become a new normal to integrate technology in the existing business model to achieve technical superiority and improve operational capabilities. To do so, all kinds of Businesses outsource to meet their technological needs and expect their outsourcing partners to improve their business processes and maximize revenue. Outsourcing your software development requirements can help you focus on business development and management while IT experts handle your software development needs.It can easily be interpreted that the global outsourcing market occupies a share of around $77 billion. 65% of the businesses that have already outsourced successfully are aligned in a queue to outsource more of their IT and software services to attain a competitive edge in this modern era of technology.Although, everyone agrees that outsourcing your software development is a budget-friendly practice. But we cannot neglect the fact that outsourcing comes amidst some challenges as few business owners fail to choose the right development partner. They end up choosing a partner having insufficient know-how about the customer’s business needs and product objectives.[lwptoc title="Factors to Consider While Outsourcing Your Software Development" skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]With time, the number of IT outsourcing service providers is increasing at an accelerated rate. Everyone offers different project plans and offers when it comes to project management. The options are almost infinite in such a diverse ecosystem, making it much more crucial for a business to choose the right outsourcing service provider.

Factors to Consider While Outsourcing Your Software Development

As a business owner, you can evaluate all aspects of a project but must spare time to ponder over the following points, which can help you choose the best among numerous outsourcing partners.

Analyze Your Requirements

This is the first aspect to consider every time before searching for an outsourcing service provider. The definition of best varies from person to person. To choose the best, you have to understand your needs and expectations.As a business, it’s your liability to run a smart decision-making process by identifying your business needs, evaluating the problems, and analyzing possible solutions. There is no one absolute solution for choosing an outsourcing partner as it varies with the nature and size of your project, such as the requirements, plausible solutions, etc.

Technical Expertise and Exposure

Another crucial step is to gather information about the service provider, their skills, professionalism, capabilities of their employees, portfolio, communication skills, attitude towards the problems and challenges, seriousness regarding the deadlines, and passion for putting their two cents in an area of the technological revolution.It's always better to hold a meeting with a developer team who will work on your project. Choose a team that follows agile development methodology as it’s more effective in the project development life cycle.While communicating with the developer’s team and upper hierarchy, try to know about their working attitude and seriousness towards a project. Refrain from choosing a vendor who doesn’t have exposure to the latest technologies.

Market Reputation

Everyone wants to work with a reputable service provider. As a visionary business entity, you always search for a professional software development vendor to make a deal with. You need to know before making a contract the scalability of their solutions.Try to know about their adaptability to unseen business challenges. These are some of the most important aspects. But no one will tell you about their weaknesses, and the only way you can get first-hand info about these hidden aspects is by checking their market reputation.Look at their client and project portfolio or get client reviews on their website or social media pages. To move the extra mile, you can have their clients onboard ask for their experience and opinion. Ponder over all these aspects and decide whether you want to hire that vendor or not.

Budget & Size

Budget and Size are very important factors when it comes to outsourcing your software development. If we talk about the size of the project, keep in mind that not all companies undertake any size of projects. Some companies only opt for lengthy and complex projects.There are numerous small to medium-scale companies that undertake projects of any size and complexity. Before approaching an outsourcing partner, evaluate the project plan, whether it is small, medium, or large-scaled, then shortlist the possible vendors as per your feasibility.Analyzing the budget is equally important as sometimes we expect too much as compared to our budget. Before approaching a technology service provider, we need to analyze the budget for the project and how much Return on Investment (RoI) we can retrieve from it.Never compromise on the quality for the sake of cost-cutting. Some vendors include hidden charges in a final amount apart from the project cost. Try to neglect such vendors.

Software Project Development and Management Methodology

Adaptability is the key to survival. In today’s rapidly evolving business ecosystem, businesses need to continuously adapt to the changes and shifts in market dynamics. To stay competitive in the market, you have to opt for the agile development methodology. Agile and Sprint development models are highly effective when it comes to communication and collaboration.

Also Read: IT Staff Augmentation – Best Model for Outsourcing Software Development

Outsourcing vendors who offer flexible delivery plans are agile enough to adapt to rapidly changing technologies. Always choose the outsourcing partner who follows the agile development model and is not reluctant to adapt to the evolving expectations of the client and still deliver as per the predefined schedule.

Financial Stability of Service Provider

It is highly recommended to check the financial stability of a vendor. The client should deeply examine hierarchy and technical details etc. Unimportant factors can cast a huge impact on your project and business relations with the vendor in the future. For instance, you have signed an agreement with your outsource partner, and in the middle of the project, the vendor got bankrupt and abandoned you.Imagine the catastrophic scenario and consequences you have to deal with. Being financially stable means the vendor can sustain itself in the market for a prolonged duration having long-term achievement plans rather than having a volatile monetary goal. While opting for a vendor, one must examine how much time they are in the field or if they are an entrepreneur with zero experience and uncertain financial stability. Get first-hand info about the investors and their assets.

Trust and Security

The trust factor can’t be measured in the beginning as trust develops while working with a partner. You need to provide all your intellectual data and sensitive business information to the vendor, which can be misused if not handled by professional means.While outsourcing your software development, one of the major concerns of a business owner is data and intellectual property security. So, before choosing any vendor, make sure they will go beyond their comfort zone to protect privacy and sensitive data. It is crucial to choose a partner who runs regular security check routines and audits of its network.Check whether they possess the necessary equipment or methodology to protect your sensitive data and prevent leakage of confidential information. Due to such risk factors of privacy and data mishandling, make sure to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before you share any of these high-profile data with your outsourcing partner. It will safeguard your sensitive data and information from any alleged fraud or damage.

After-Sale Services

Even the most renowned software solutions and top-of-the-line software service providers guarantee 99.99%. Unfortunately, there is no ideal solution available with 100% perfection. Even if it is simple software, you can’t neglect the probability of a future error.Ensure that your vendor offers after-sale service and access to their technical support team for future assistance. This support must include recovery, maintenance, upgrades & error fixation.

Technical Documentation

Any type of software development outsourcing requires dealing with a lot of technical information and documentation. To keep the development process moving without any hurdle, maintain a technical document regarding it.The technical document or report should possess all the technical specifications, timelines, plans, and cost measures. It will help you get an estimate of your budget, time, and effort allocation.

Free Trial

If you are still confused and couldn’t decide on a vendor, you also have an option for a free consultation or a trial. You can choose any option to ensure quality, outcomes, and durability. Ensure that the solution solves your problems, has mandatory features and functions. A free consultation is a semi-stimulation feel free to ask any question and clear all the doubts so you can get a clear picture of how it will add value to your business model.

Conclusion

Outsourcing is the most efficient way to increase productivity while focusing on more core business aspects while allowing professionals to efficiently manage your project or a process. It’s all about choosing the right partner for the right project.By analyzing the factors to consider while outsourcing your software development and integrating them in your decision matrix or feasibility study, you will get fruitful outcomes by extracting the most out of the software outsourcing services.

Outsourcing in today’s time is the most effective way to cut costs and spare resources (Both Human and Material) to invest in core business areas. Due to these benefits, many companies choose to outsource tech services and solutions including software development services.[lwptoc title="Outsourcing Challenges and Solutions" skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]While there is a bright light that comes with outsourcing, it does not come without a dark side. This article will discuss the outsourcing challenges that companies face and how to overcome these challenges effectively.

Also Read: When to Hire an Agency for your Software Development?

Authority & Control

Who will possess the authority and responsibility to make important decisions and choices about the project to raise tension between a business and an outsourcing firm? Employees of a business tend to behave like they have total control over the project and its parameters and the complete authority to make important decisions. They may not accept and support the change in the project management lifecycle. On the other hand, the outsourcing team can think and act contrary.

Solution

The best way to overcome this problem is to declare in the outsourcing agreement to what extent the outsourcing company and business’s employees can exercise control over the project.Limits should be declared about what sort of decisions a service provider can make regarding the outsourced project. Terms and conditions of the service agreement should be made clear to the employees of both the business consulting outsourcing firm and the outsourcing vendor.

Exaggerated Expectations

Most of the time business makes a mistake of expecting too much from an outsourcing firm. It may think or act like everything will be handled by the outsourcing service provider, and it has nothing left to take care of. Such overwhelming and false expectations can lead to project failure and disappointment for the business and becomes one of a business damaging outsourcing challenges.

Solution#1

To tackle this challenge, the best possible way is to make things clear in the very beginning about what will be the role and responsibility of the outsourcing service provider throughout the project life and what results should be expected from the outsourcing vendor. It is mandatory to make the company seeking outsourcing services aware of the plausible risks and the potential costs linked with outsourcing.

Also Read: IT Outsourcing Trends for Growing Companies in 2021

Companies may have fantasized that selecting an outsourcing service provider and triggering a project development life cycle can be done quickly, according to the plan and expectations. Also, they may underestimate the time required by the outsourcing team to complete the project.

Solution#2

Companies should spend sufficient time in selecting an outsourcing firm. They should select a vendor that they think can fully align with their expectations and meet their requirements.To make the process professional, a business should take the qualitative and quantitative approach while outsourcing a vendor and get a time estimate for project completion and a transparent timeline of the project lifecycle from the outsourcing service provider before the project begins.This would eliminate any exaggerated expectations or false hopes on the part of the business regarding the delivery of the project.

Cultural Differences

Offshore outsourcing can bring diverse talent onboard, but the cultural and communication barrier can bring a wave of problems. When companies assign their projects to offshore vendors or teams, they have to tackle corporate differences and regional differences.Corporate differences occur because outsourcing involves two different organizations. Regional differences occur because the business and the outsourcing service provider are stationed in different regions, countries, continents, or even time zones.These corporate and regional cultural differences can cast shadows on different areas of your project management. It can interfere with the communication barrier, time clashes, & misunderstandings and distract the team members resulting in poor performance and decreased productivity.

Solution

To overcome this issue, a business that will outsource a project, especially for the first time, should arrange a workshop to train its employees about the corporate and regional cultures, educating them about the demographic variations & their impact on the practices and norms of the outsourcing firm.On the other hand, a similar workshop related to the awareness about the clients’ organizational and regional differences and norms can be arranged by an outsourcing service provider for its employees.

Linguistic & Communication Barrier

Another challenge that companies face while outsourcing their projects to intercontinental or intracontinental vendors is linguistic differences and communication barriers. People might have their regional dialects that you might not be able to interpret properly. Another challenge that results due to the communication barrier is unsaid suppositions.Many businesses have experienced this problem while outsourcing. While working and interacting in the same building or office space, employees discuss stuff and picture what others think and state. On the other hand, when the developers are working offshore, there are many ways to order, or a request can be mishandled or communicated wrongly.

Solution

The communication barrier can be reduced by using HD cameras, fast internet for proper streaming, and online chat rooms or groups for instant messaging and video conferencing.For effective collaboration, remote working platforms such as Basecamp can be used. For overcoming linguistic differences, businesses in English-speaking countries can outsource to countries or regions where professionals can easily understand and speak English.

Loss of Sensitive Data or Information

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s move to work remotely has contributed to a notable rise in cybercrime costs expected to top $1trn for the year 2020.

As Companies are increasingly faced with the dangerous consequences of cybercrime and data breach, outsourcing comes with a potential risk of compromising sensitive data and intellectual properties such as business plans and confidential documents, etc.Doesn’t matter how large and developed your organization is; if it’s a startup or an enterprise, having complete security of your data and IP is crucial. While working with a remote team of developers, you might be required to share a lot of important data, including your core business details, operational structure, and other high-profile information. Apart from the important details, you might be sharing your database, resources, and other important tools while outsourcing.Suppose your outsourcing contract lacks explicit statements such as the seriousness of your IP protection and information or resources. In that case, you may be standing on the edge of losing all of your sensitive data.

Solution

This problem can be tackle by signing a legal contract like a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with the outsourcing vendor. The risk of a data breach gets diluted when the outsourcing vendor implements strict security measures.The outsourcing company should maintain a checklist to ensure if the service provider is implementing technical measures like

• Protocols for Resources & Data access
• Strict control and security check to prohibit unauthorized entry into premises
• Administrative control and regulations over employees’ conduct

Conclusion

As discussed, outsourcing challenges typically involve loss of control, communication barrier, exaggerated expectations, lack of organizational trust, and data breach, challenges making it difficult for businesses to adopt it.If you and your leadership fail to interact actively with your outsourcing service provider, the vendor becomes a surrogate for your business. But these outsourcing challenges are overcome easily if handled professionally, making outsourcing beneficial for the organization in terms of cost, service levels, and access to talent.

Online shopping is rising so quickly that the global online shopping market size is expected to cross 4 trillion in 2021. These stats give attention to the debate on the best ecommerce platforms. While some people prefer Shopify Plus, some side with Magneto 2, and others enjoy their ecommerce experience on WooCommerce.

Are you also confused about selecting the best ecommerce platform among these? We are here to knock that confusion away by getting into the details of all these platforms in this article. Let's take a look at the market share of the best ecommerce platforms.

Best ecommerce Platforms Market Share in 2020

• Woocommerce: 32%
• Squarespace Commerce: 17%
• Shopify: 15%
• Magento: 4%
• Wix Stores: 4%
• Others: 28%

Now, let’s analyze each of these best e-commerce platforms individually:

Shopify Plus

Shopify provides cloud-based ecommerce platform to a large number of businesses. It is quite popular with small-scale businesses, but it also powers big ecommerce organizations.Shopify emerged as one of the most successful startups in 2006. There are currently over 500,000 stores on its platform, including Tesla Motors, Wikipedia, Mozilla, and Google.

Image Source: IceCubeDigital

Shopify stores are operated by the ecommerce business itself, unlike Wix, Squarespace, and Magneto. Although Shopify needs less maintenance than alternatives such as WooCommerce, it can still be a little more costly and constrained in certain situations. Shopify is a CMS, like WordPress, made to build online stores. It is very easy to use and can be handled effectively by a non-technical person. It lets your store go live in less than 20 minutes with a working e-commerce shop. The shop's personalization is as simple as possible. You can render any look for your website and bring in the vibe you want.

Image Source: WebsiteBuilderExpert

Shopify Plus is a "Pro" edition of Shopify, a publicly-traded Canadian-based business e-commerce website that originated to support small retailers. With its ability to automate complicated technologies and still maintain product lists of up to 100 variants through many platforms, Shopify Plus is one of the strongest ecommerce applications for business enterprises. Shopify Plus provides more technological assistance, onboarding and automation resources for facilitating the process of products.

Shopify Plus gives you the following benefits:

• A Secure and Fully Hosted Platform
• Unlimited Bandwidth
• Shopify Plus Customisation
• Time-Saving
• Better Scalability

Although Shopify provides the basic tools that retailers need to start and develop in e-commerce, Shopify Plus is the answer to consumers who have grown significantly larger than their expectations and want to expand without spending large amounts of time, money, and energy.

Magneto 2

Magento is an ecommerce platform made for medium to large online stores. It provides one of the most durable feature sets, making it perfect for aspiring online stores. Magento is among the most scalable website designing tools in the world. However, it needs a lot of developer expertise and substantial investment. If anyone has no programming background, he should not opt for Magento as it is not recommended for beginners. It's best for businesses that have good budgets.

Image Source: AlanStorm

The Magento UI is considered by developers to be very practical since there is a simple, easy configuration and the Navigation Menu includes clients, items, promotions, sales, and reports. Magento Open Source includes the following features:

• Mobile-optimized shopping
• Instant purchase
• Global selling
• Site search
• Extended Functionality via App marketplace
• Integrated checkout, payment, and shipping
• Customization options available
• Catalog management

Image Source: MagePlaza

Magento provides ecommerce store owners with protection and security, which is a core priority for online stores. Being one of the most used ecommerce platforms, Magento has a broad customer base that helps enterprises get quick support.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the most common tool of building an eCommerce store with a 32% market share placing it at #1 in the e-commerce market share list of 2020.

Automattic bought WooCommerce in May 2015 for $30 million, according to the reported deal.

Automattic is the company behind WordPress.com as well. WooCommerce is the perfect ecommerce platform for small companies who already own a WordPress site. It is also ideal for those who want a comprehensive web store but are on a budget. It also has tons of third-party themes and plugins, making it versatile to meet most requirements.

Image Source: WordPress

The free version includes the following features:

• Mobile-optimized shopping
• Inventory management
• Search engine optimization
• Shipping options and calculator
• Catalog management
• Product reviews
• Coupons and discounts
• Geo-location support

Even though the UI of WooCommerce is very simple, you need to have the basic HTML or CSS experience to run and maintain your online store on this platform. It also includes SSL support. However, it requires you to obtain your own certificate.

Image Source: NextCart

Being an open-source solution, it gives you a lot of features on its free version. However, you may enjoy its advanced features like product comparisons, pop-up notifications for the latest orders placed, multiple payment methods, products displayed before purchasing, quick browsing, etc.

Which one is the best ecommerce platform among Shopify Plus, Magneto 2, and WooCommerce?

Regardless of your businesses' size, you can get numerous benefits by selecting the right e-commerce solution. Moving to a different platform will result in high costs and require many efforts, hard work, and time. So, it is wise to choose the right e-commerce platform for your business in the very beginning. Many considerations play a role in assessing which eCommerce platform to use. It depends on your technological expertise, budget, the scale of your business, and appropriate features required. That being said, you may pick the desired e-commerce platform as follows:

• You should choose Shopify Plus if you have little technical knowledge and are merely searching for the best way to start your shop with unlimited bandwidth.
• Go for Magento 2 if your budget is not restricted and you are looking for a strong place to launch your large store.
• If you want to learn to do your stuff yourself and want an option that can expand your business without compromising its potential, you should opt for WooCommerce.

Conclusion

A specific ecommerce platform could take one business to the top and may restrict another one. So, choosing the best ecommerce platform for your store depends upon your requirements, budget, user interface, and many other factors. Carefully analyze your needs and then proceed with testing an ecommerce solution. After testing, opt for the one that you feel is the best for your specific business needs.

While Covid-19 continues to hover like a dark cloud, most companies and individuals struggling to find a new normal in the pandemic-rich world have now got an effective medium to sustain their business needs. The containment measures like strict lockdowns ensured that people stay at home and spend more time in front of their screens as it has uplifted the internet as the primary source of entertainment and a shopping platform. This new normal molds traditional brand reach and visibility by pushing companies to adopt digital mediums and that has influenced an era of digital transformation which we are witnessing today.[lwptoc title="Digital Transformation - The Only Silver Lining Of Pandemic" skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]Under the shadow of the ongoing pandemic, consumers have shifted dramatically toward online mediums, and companies have also made reforms to meet consumer demands. Different survey reports confirm the sudden shift toward digital interaction between customers and companies. Indicators also reveal that Respondents are three times active now than the pre-crisis period as at least 80 percent of customer interactions are now digital.

Also Read: Shopify Plus v Magneto 2 v WooCommerce – Best ecommerce Platforms

Digital Transformation Statistics

• Below are a few statistics and reasons that reveal how pandemic changed the marketing world, and companies rely more on digital marketing.
• 40% of social media users polled said they were spending more time on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
• Indicators reveal an almost 70% increase in social media content generation during the COVID-19, a 60% increase in blog content, and a 50% increase in video content
• 80% who have a content marketing strategy, 70% made significant or moderate adjustments to their strategy because of the pandemic
• 70% of companies have shifted from face-to-face interactions to a digital medium
• 75% of Small businesses claim that they have improved their digital marketing areas like SEO, social media marketing, and data analytics
• 25% of consumers started watching more live streaming videos during the pandemic
• According to Forbes, OTT platforms in India experienced an 80% surge in subscribers amid the lockdown.

Based on the above-revealed stats and data, we can easily understand how people think and behave in recent times. These routine shifts and behavioral changes push businesses to explore more about consumers’ interests and improve their digital reach.

Most Heated Ecommerce Platforms During COVID-19

From the empty hallways of shopping malls to the busy servers of online shopping portals, COVID-19 has reshaped every place and process. As we discussed earlier Majority of consumers are now heading towards digital marketplaces to shop. An August 2020 survey from eCommerce ad agency Channel Advisor conducted by Dynata shows the following results.

US Top Retailers Ranked By Retail Ecommerce Sale In 2020

(All sales are in Billion Dollars)

• Amazon: 309.58
• Walmart: 46.2
• ebay: 38.8
• Apple: 27.51
• The Home Depot: 16.71
• Best Buy: 15.7
• Target: 13.82
• Wayfair: 11.66
• The Korger Co.: 11.28
• Costco Wholsale: 11.18

Effect of Pandemic on US’ Retail Ecommerce Sales (2018 – 2020)

As the pandemic has accelerated eCommerce dependency worldwide in a dramatic manner as online sales are conquering new peaks. In the 3rd quarter of the US retail forecast, the following results are found.(The following graph represents sales in billion dollars)

Influencer Content

People are bound to spend more time in their homes due to strict lockdowns, the closure of mainstream cinemas and amusement parks, and watching more influencer content. Since May 2020, digital consumers from the US and UK who followed influencers like Vloggers and Youtubers were most interested in influencer content that entertained or helped them do stuff with their daily lives amid the lockdown routines. The graph below portrays the post-impact shape of influencer content.(All portions represents percent share of total volume)

The Opportunity In This Era of Digital Transformation?

Although around 70% of businesses have already undertaken or implemented marketing transformation strategies to eliminate the product-consumer gap, consumers still feel businesses are still lacking in offering the mobile friendly platforms and accurate customer support.

Conclusion

The above statistics and data show upheavals in the global market, and we saw a rapid transition towards digital dependency during the pandemic. Examining the differences between what we saw in Pre-COVID trends vs. what we experienced in 2020 reveals a surprisingly unique set of observations. You can’t sell a car in a fish market and vice versa - the digital transformation is inevitable. To meet consumers’ demand differently and sell where people are looking to buy, it is now crucial for businesses to adapt to the recent changes and improve their digital channels.

Data has become an integral part of every company. The complexity of data processing is rising with the data amount, rate, and variety. The problem arises from the amount and complexity of measures required to bring information to a state easily accessed by business users. Data engineering teams also invest their time constructing and improving ETL pipelines. In this article, we will discuss the usage and process to design and implement the serverless ETL pipelines on AWS.

Technical developments have substantially changed the software development environment. Cloud platforms such as IaaS and PaaS have prompted businesses towards better feasibility. Likewise, serverless computing has facilitated code implementation into development.

Image Source: Cuelogic

Serverless Cloud Providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) operate the server and technology needed for data collection, computation, routing, event notification, and display for data applications. AWS offers a range of professionally controlled software, including planning, scaling, and management, utilizing a smart payment model to develop and maintain business software. As businesses create a serverless pipeline, Amazon S3 is typically the primary data store that they use. Since Amazon S3 is very versatile and accessible, it is ideally suited as a unified source for data.

Usage of ETL Pipeline

ETL (extract, transform, load) is a data aggregation related to the three measures used to integrate data from different sources. It is frequently used for the building of a data warehouse.

Serverless ETL has become the vision for teams who wish to concentrate on their core tasks instead of operating a massive data pipeline infrastructure.

Data is obtained and analyzed in the ETL pipeline's extraction portion from various networks, such as CSVs, online services, social networking sites, CRMs, and other business systems.

Image Source: Guru99

In the process transformation phase, the data is then modeled in a form that simplifies documentation. Data cleansing is also often part of this phase. The processed data is loaded into a single hub in the loading phase to make it convenient for all participants.

Related: ETL Pipeline and Data Pipeline – How to create an ETL Process

The ETL pipeline aims to identify, report, and maintain the correct data in a form that makes it simple to view and evaluate. An ETL tool would encourage developers to concentrate on logic/rules rather than create the means to apply the code. It eliminates the time that the developers use to develop the tools, which helps them concentrate on other essential jobs.

Building Serverless ETL Pipelines on AWS

A serverless architecture on AWS is based upon the following processes:

Data Ingestion

AWS provides a wide variety of data intake tools to help. You may use the Kinesis streaming media tools family to ingest data and use Kinesis analytics to evaluate the details while streaming and deciding on the data before it goes on in the data lake. Kinesis Analytics can evaluate the log data from the system and assess if the logs are out of the data range, and mark it for intervention before it fails. AWS also provides Database Migration Services (DMS). It offers businesses for on-prem devices that do not generally communicate to object storage or the analytics interface but instead speak to a file system. You may use an AWS Storage Gateway for the integration or an AWS Snowball for data collection and 'Lift & Shift' to the cloud.

Image Source: AllCloud

After that, you should set up AWS Direct Connect and start creating a direct network link between the on-prem setting in the AWS services, whether the cluster is existing on-prem, a data warehouse, or even a big storage unit. Data intake is essential to keeping the data feasible, and you need to select the best method with the right data form.

A Searchable Catalog

A searchable catalog is essential to build a data lake. Without it, you will just have a storage platform and not a data lake. You need it to get insights from your data. AWS Glue comes into play here as it is a stable, scalable data catalog created as data enters the Data Lake. It quickly crawls data to build a classified catalog. After processing the results, you have to be able to show them and gain insights. This can be achieved directly by Spark SQL analytical software. You get a range of resources utilizing the AWS framework, such as API Gateway, Cognito, AWS AppSync, to help you create those user interfaces over your data lake.

Also Read: Next Gen Application Microservices Architecture on Kubernetes

Data Security Management

Data confidentiality and governance management are fundamental factors, as an unsafe data lake is unusable. In the end, a data lake means taking a bunch of individual data silos, combining them, and providing more information from a full perspective. On AWS, you have a broad range of protection services such as Identity and Access Management, enabling you to safely manage access to AWS facilities and benefits. With IAM, you can build, control, and use permissions to allow and reject access to AWS services to AWS users and groups. AWS's Key Management Service (KMS) helps you to build, maintain, and track cryptographic keys through a wide variety of AWS services and applications.

Image Source: AWS

Amazon CloudWatch helps you continue tracking AWS services and programs such that configurations and adjustments can be conveniently measured, evaluated, and registered. You can use various resources to handle data in a very stable, scalable, and granular fusion.

Data Transformation

AWS helps you quickly access serverless analysis using AWS Step Functions and AWS Lambda to coordinate various ETL workflows utilizing multiple technologies. AWS Lambda helps you to execute applications without servers. One can run code with zero administration for almost any form of program or back-end operation using Lambda. You need to upload your code, and Lambda manages all the scaling. AWS Step Functions is a web service that helps organize distributed apps and microservices modules using visual workflows. Each component executes a particular role or activity that allows you to scale and modify applications quickly.

Image Source: AWS

AWS offers easy access to scalable computational and processing capabilities to quickly extend almost every large-scale framework, including data collection, fraud identification, clickstream analytics, serverless computing, and IoT processing.

Conclusion

You can use the AWS Glue ETL for two types of works: the Apache Spark and the Python shell. The Python shell work enables you to execute small tasks utilizing a fraction of the machine resources. The Apache Spark helps you conduct medium to broad functions that are more numerical and memory demanding using a distributed processing system. As serverless services become more efficient, we will see more companies using traditional architectures to be serverless. Anyone who is planning to build a new data platform should start with serverless. Let us know know in the comments section below if you have any query regarding designing and implementing the Serverless ETL Pipelines on AWS.

Outsourcing has been transforming the global industries in the past few years. It is rapidly being accepted and adopted worldwide, and according to experts, it will only show growth in the near future.

• Around 300,000 jobs are outsourced by the US annually.
• The top reason for outsourcing (70%) is cost reduction.
• The total IT budget in 2020 grew from 12.7% in 2019 to 13.6%.
• 58.8% of US marketers saw no covid-related changes in the outsourcing marketing activities.

- CapitalCounselor.com

To be an expert in any discipline needs the core knowledge of that field and adequate experience. A single person cannot have expertise in every single field.

Image Source: nTask

The way some businesses operate these days by overburdening a single person with a variety of different tasks, even those that he has not much idea of, prove into their downfall. In this way, quality is compromised a lot. The solution to such a situation is outsourcing.[lwptoc title="Top 5 Skills That are Being Outsourced" skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]Businesses should be open enough to work with freelancing teams or individuals. In this way, the task is assigned to the expert in that area resulting in beneficial outcomes. In this article, we will discuss the Top 5 Skills That are Being Outsourced these days.

Top 5 Skills That are Being Outsourced in 2021

1. Infrastructure Management

Outsourcing to an infrastructure supplier of equipment such as hardware, servers, and network systems will help the businesses and organizations cut costs and labor.Building your infrastructure from scratch is expensive and difficult. Not only does it require high costs, but also extra maintenance by skilled IT professionals. Start-ups and small enterprises may minimize their expenses by outsourcing IaaS since the infrastructure service provider owns facilities and is liable for maintaining and debugging systems.

Image Source: FileCloud

You can easily scale your infrastructure on-demand as your provider will already have the resources, tools, and expertise, and you will also enjoy improved regulatory compliance.The adaption of IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) helps in business growth allows the team to focus on improving their products rather than worrying about maintaining and handling a huge system.

2. Graphic Designing

Graphic designers are known and revered for their skills and the latest editing tools to deliver their services. They are blessed with an artistic sense to wrap their designs with messages.Outsourcing these projects ensures that you can count on a professional graphic designer with tools and expertise to produce a professional image for your business.A graphic designer can guarantee the desired combination between text, image, font, background, colors, and decorative elements to positively impact your customers with your business's messages.

Image Source:Penji

Graphic software like the Adobe product suite can be very costly to buy and maintain. Professional Designers already have all this software to deliver their services, so you will have to pay them for their service and save yourself from buying expensive tools.

Also Read: When to Hire an Agency for your Software Development?

Every designing job requires a different range of skills and experience that all graphic designers can not manage. You can employ a professional for each of your requirements through online outsourcing for the best results.

3. Website Designing

A well-designed website is the need of the hour these days. Your website contains all the essential information about your business and directs your clients to your products, services, offerings, promotions, etc. If you already own a website, but it is not working well for your business, you must consider a redesign.You should analyze to check the things that need to be on your website. After the analysis, you can move ahead by making a budget plan and then looking for a professional team or individual to outsource it.

Image Source: SDETech

Outsourcing website design and redesign allows immediate access to almost anything from IT professionals to advanced technology you need for a successful project – without the cost of hiring and training an in-house team. The right outsourcing team or individual can help you make the website stunning, user-friendly, and suitable for your business.

4. Virtual Assistants

A business owner has tons of responsibilities under his shoulders; he should focus on the most critical tasks rather than handling the littlest problems. A virtual assistant helps you to use your resources towards what is essential to you.A virtual assistant can help you save time by taking charge of everyday tasks and working quicker in simplified ways.

Image Source: SDFSystems

Most Virtual Assistants are well experienced in a range of business processes and will help you find cost-effective approaches to operate the organization and save you money where necessary.You might invest a lot of money contracting to multiple providers, including social network administration, newsletter promotions, credit reporting, event management, and so on. All of these costs add up to a significant number. Most virtual assistants have several years of experience and offer their skills to handle all these activities for you – with absolute accountability.

5. Social Media Marketing

Social media is an enormous marketing opportunity for businesses because of its popularity. Outsourcing your social media marketing will benefit your business in myriad ways.Social marketing campaigns can boost your brand's visibility, help you gain new customers, and earn your current customers' trust.

Although there isn't any fixed method to help your social media profile attain the best position, it is suggested to rely upon an experienced professional to market your products and services.

By the end of 2021, the overall value of outsourced IT services will surpass $413.72 billion.- (Daxx) (Statista)

One may think that he can manage his social media himself. Although most people are acquainted with the basics, a social media marketer knows the methods, tricks, and tips to market your product in the way that a rookie can't. Plus, handling this job to a professional will save you loads of time and take the extra baggage off your shoulders.

Closing Note

We have discussed outsourcing business services in this article and conclude that outsourcing benefits your company or organization and saves you costs and time. It lets your in-house team focus on the crucial tasks and gives you ease in terms of scalability, new services, etc.

2020 happened to be a catastrophic year. Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic, counties worldwide started implementing containment measures by announcing strict lockdowns and curfews that pushed their economies towards economic strangulation. IT Outsourcing trends have been altered and upgraded since strict lockdowns in difficult economic conditions are implemented. That has badly influenced the performance of businesses of all sizes.Adaptation is the key to survival. In these times of crisis, every company had to adapt or die. It led to the evolution of technology trends to meet the rapidly shifting needs of consumers, operations, and existing systems.[lwptoc title="Technology Outsourcing Trends for Growing Companies in 2021" skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]These unexpected and sudden shifts are also affecting software and IT outsourcing trends and demands. Companies are bound to revise their existing operational methods and teams to counter the economic hit man still knocking at the door as COVID-19 is yet to be controlled. It’s still uncertain to predict what might happen in 2021 if the world comes back to normal or not.

IT Outsourcing Trends for Growing Companies

This blog post will let you explore the key trends crucial for growth in 2021, as these trends have already shown some proven statistics in recent times.

Remote Work Teams

Despite the lockdown, the total IT budget rose from 12.7% in 2019 to 13.6% in 2020. Let’s discover how. The pandemic has pushed more and more businesses to hire remote staff and work teams.The World Economic Forum claims that the number of remote workers is set to double in 2021. This significant shift towards remote work impacts the tech industry more than other sectors, as a report by Avasant reveals that middle-sized tech companies have been the largest contributors to the growth of the IT outsourcing industry in 2020.The topmost benefits of hiring remote teams include cost-cutting and flexible work times. Both the factors are crucial for the growth in this pandemic-rich environment.Amid the economic crisis, cost reduction is the topmost priority for every business to remain fiscal positive. Allowing your team to work remotely or hire external remote teams for a project promises a notable cost reduction.Despite lockdown measures, the businesses need to keep working to make timely deliveries which can only be made possible by allowing workers to work remotely in flexible hours. Secondly, recruiting offshore employees enhances productivity. Hiring foreign talent can bring diversity and efficiency to a team.

Edge Computing

Edge computing is happened to be a game-changer in the tech industry. In 2021 it will experience not only continued growth but its integration in even more sectors of business. Let's discuss what Edge computing is meant. Edge Computing allows data processing on mobile or IoT accessories. Instead of transferring the raw data to centralized databases for processing, it will enable remote locations to read data in real-time.

Also Read: When to Hire an Agency for your Software Development?

For instance, suppose your business is collaborating with a software company that has developed the system to check if someone is not wearing a surgical mask. In a mainstream routine, cameras would be placed in all corners of the building to transmit video recordings to a centralized database for machine learning mechanisms. With Edge Computing, these video images are processed at the camera, and the results are then transferred to the centralized database as a readily available result. The cost, time, and memory saving are significant.Edge Computing will be dominating every field and area in the near future, and your IT team will require learning the skills to implement it. If your employees are not capable enough to do so, there are several companies from where you can outsource to make it work for you.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are some of the topmost emerging areas of IT. AI helps your businesses in several different ways, such as:

• You can make accurate predictions about what customers will buy by extracting useful insights from their buying patterns.
• Implement Robotic Assistance in the form of Voice, Speech, and Facial Recognition algorithms
• Organize unstructured data without human assistance
• Automate your eCommerce platform
• Add additional capabilities to your product by introducing intelligent devices and systems.
• If technology is the race, then AI is the fastest car you can ever have to win against all the rivals. Don’t hesitate to adopt this emerging trend of AI. The longer you wait, the further you’ll be left behind. 2021is here, and we will be able to experience exponential growth in the field of AI.

Mobile Apps

The majority of consumers in the world choose mobile-based platforms when it comes to internet surfing. More and more people are making transitions from traditional platforms like desktops and laptops to mobile devices only, and the trend will continue in 2021 and onwards. According to Stat Counter, mobile device usage currently occupies 50.88% of the total market share, while PCs stand 46.39%.How can your company utilize this trend? Make your website or eCommerce platform mobile-friendly. Move one step ahead and introduce the android or IOS application of your platform. It will attract the attention of more and more users.As more and more people desert traditional desktop systems, the best route to success is a mobile-friendly website and a mobile app. If your tech department fails to deliver, you need to outsource the development facility.

5G Network

Only a year after being available to consumer markets, the global 5G network’s value is around $41 billion. This overwhelming success and continuously expanding 5G technology have brought futurists to conclude that the 5G industry will continue to rise with an annual growth rate of 43.9% from 2021 to 2027.What makes 5G Network one of the largest tech support around the globe? Two major reasons for such overwhelming growth are:

• The number of devices connected to 5G
• The speed of data exchange

According to Statista’s prediction model on the number of 5G users worldwide (by region) in 2021–2025, the 5G network will be notably functional in China and the North American region in 2021.Due to the promising speed of superfast 5G technology, businesses can develop robust IoT systems that bring manufacturing, transportation, and other systems to the shared platform and improve the efficiency and productivity of their business.

Cloud Services & Distributing Networks

While the current market value of cloud computing systems has achieved a notable mark of $180 billion globally, the SaaS alone is expected to generate $113.1 billion in revenue in 2021. The PaaS, SaaS, and IaaS markets show annual growth of 24%. In the next two years, the global cloud computing market is expected to reach $623.3 billion.These statistics are enough to convince anyone to replace their existing systems with cloud-based technology. While migration to cloud storage is challenging and costly, more and more companies are planning to transition from centralized to distributed data storage facilities.Cloud computing promises more data protection, faster operations, and the opportunity to improve business processes by allowing easy and trouble-free implementation of various business apps.

Cybersecurity

Zion Market Research predicts the cybersecurity market to attain a net worth of $181.77 billion in 2021. By the year 2022, cyber insurance is expected to mark a $20 billion market share.As businesses are now forced to work remotely, especially after the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, they become vulnerable to cyber threats without proper cybersecurity protocols and measures. The 2020 HLB Cyber Security Report shows that 65% of British tech companies had their systems been breached or exposed during the lockdowns.According to a report by HLB, the other side of the coin reveals that 55% of (polled) companies are gearing up for spending more on cybersecurity in 2021.No doubt cybercrime is causing immense damage to businesses in the same way a need for the implantation of cybersecurity is also increasing.

Conclusion

The trends above are much obvious, especially to those observing closely what’s evolving and shifting in the contemporary market and within the domain of IT. If you want improvement in your conventional business process, it’s time for you to station these technological trends. COVID-19 has left us no choice but to trust and adopt modern technologies. If you don’t consider these IT outsourcing trends for your business, you could be left behind.

In this era, with such advanced technological developments and communication technologies on board, in-house hiring employees are no longer the necessary way for a business to be successful. The rise of globalization and recent developments in technology has made it possible to hire remote international teams (aka Staff Augmentation) without any hurdles or risks. It’s a new normal, especially in IT and software development industry, where more and more IT-driven businesses are making transitions from mainstream in-house development to IT staff augmentation.[lwptoc title="IT Staff Augmentation – Best Model for Outsourcing Software Development" skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]In this blog post, we are going to explore in-depth aspects and benefits of staff augmentation.

Staff Augmentation Model – Definition

The Staff Augmentation Model simply means extending an in-house work team by hiring experts on a short or long-term project basis. It means that you can fill up a team’s skill gap by hiring dedicated experts to fulfill specific project requirements and curb the cost, time, and liabilities of recruiting in-house employees.Specialized talent sourcing agencies provide an opportunity for the businesses to explore dedicated experts willing to join their project. The fact that this staff is employed and managed by the agency also means a robust and quick onboarding process without tackling HR-related issues.These firms hold a database of experts’ profiles; you can opt to expand your staff with dedicated developers confidently. Choosing to cooperate with a talent hunting portal frees you from the headache of staff finding, onboarding, and retention. The practice of outsourcing is more beneficial for the businesses that need to run the hiring process more frequently to expand their existing staff with professionals having different levels of skills on a project basis, either short-term or long-term.

Contemporary Trends

Outsourcing and staff augmentation holds a substantial volume in the global economy’s revenue. As in 2017, the outsourcing market amounted to around $89 billion globally. Over time, more and more businesses are starting to outsource to focus on their core business processes, solve capacity issues, and improve service quality.

Advantages of Using IT Staff Augmentation Services

To spare time and cost, businesses are making smart moves towards staff augmentation. This type of outsourcing opens new corridors of opportunities and growth no freelancers or in-house team can offer, such as:

• Lower development costs
• No recruitment hassle
• Lower operational costs
• Less legal liabilities
• Access to the rare and needed specialists
• Increased output and team size
• Flexibility

Let’s discuss in detail what they are;

Development Costs Cutting

The primary advantage of staff augmentation and remote development teams is significant cost-cutting. Your remote team members will most likely require lower salaries if they are based in Eastern Europe or Asia, where the cost of living is much lower than in the US and UK. It will save a huge overall expenditure.Another reason is well known to everyone that recruiting in-house employees in countries like the US is very expensive, especially when it comes to software engineers and developers. The main reason is the fringe benefits that employees demand, such as social security, etc. The bottom line is, inter-continent staff augmentation is a smart way to cut down development costs.

No Recruitment Hassle

As soon as you contact the IT staff augmentation agencies, all the search & recruitment work become their responsibility. They search for qualified candidates that will suit your requirement criteria. The only segment of the hiring process which remains on your part is final interviewing and selection.

Also Read: When to Hire an Agency for your Software Development?

Less Operational Costs

Workstation space, equipment, taxes, bills, etc. – all of these things sum up to generate a notable portion of operational expenses, especially in Western countries. With inter-continental staff outsourcing, the operational costs drop significantly. Therefore, by opting for staff augmentation, you can decrease your operational costs by a notable margin.

Less Legal Liabilities

Recruiting people always involves legal liabilities and lengthy documentation. Taxes, payroll, fringe benefits, all of these things push such liabilities. By using staff augmentation, the outsourcing firm serves as the legal employer of your developers. Therefore, the outsourcing firm bears all the legal liabilities and handles all the paperwork on their own.

Gateway To Opportunity Corridor

The other notable advantages of staff outsourcing include direct access to the desired developer, which you cannot find in your city, region, or country. The reason is you might not be searching for the right expert at the right place. In such a scenario, you can always find the right remote professional at a lower cost. Staff augmentation companies open gateways for direct access to such professionals.

Improved Output

Fewer development costs allow you to hire more developers who can accelerate your project by increasing your output per unit time. Consider an example of the same expenditure: either hire 10 US-based developers or 16 Asian developers with the same expertise and experience.

Flexibility

Last but not least, remote staff outsourcing enables you to become more dynamic with geographical and time flexibility. For instance, there is an urgent wake-up call due to a critical issue that needs to be handled; your remote developers can deal with it while local programmers or developers are still out of reach or sleeping.Some people think that staff augmentation makes their projects or companies more vulnerable, while the reality reveals the polar opposite. They make you more flexible and dynamic while allowing you to cut budget and time allocation to unnecessary and lengthy recruitment procedures, etc.

Important Aspects of IT Staff Augmentation

Along with the apparent advantages, you also need to explore some important features of this expanding cooperation model. Let’s see what they are:

Protection of Intellectual Property

You want to be confident that your intellectual property remains safe. For the sake of this privacy, the agreement you sign with an outsourcing firm must involve NDA (non-disclosure agreement).Keep in mind; your remote developers will possibly be having the same access and control over the system and data as your full-time employees have. So it’s crucial to ensure the safety of confidential data by making sure they don’t misuse it.

Legal Agreement

The outsourcing firm remains the legal player of your team when it comes to hiring remote developers. Although they work for your facility and serve as your team members, the outsourcing company is the one who hired them officially. That’s why it’s important to clearly define each working group’s domain of responsibility in the agreement.

Transparent Charges

In normal practice, the outsourcing firm should charge a flat monthly fee for every developer it provides. The fee should include the actual pay and the company’s service charges. Such terms and conditions related to payment must be transparent.

Conclusion

IT staff augmentation provides businesses with the benefits mentioned above and opportunities when utilized correctly, as we discussed. Less development and operational costs, less legal liabilities and documentation, no burden of recruitment, increased output, and more flexibility are some of the key advantages you can enjoy by choosing the IT staff augmentation services.