Outsourcing is a gateway to adopt and practice innovation and gain enhanced productivity. However, a software program can be disruptive and pose business challenges, particularly for companies with a limited financial funnel that creates a restriction to adopting the latest trends. But the goal is still the same – get more leads on the table and convert them into sales.

To anticipate the demand of potential customers, organizations should be open to outsourcing as these services are a great way to get a direct, realistic cost advantage. Further, they also contribute to improving the delivery rate while discovering new marketing territories and helping with future-readiness.

A quick evaluation can provide clarity on how a company’s inefficiencies can be cut down with the right outsourcing collaboration. Software development outsourcing continues to grab attention as companies limit their budgets and get their product to the market, faster. You can list out a variety of reasons, including improved compliance, enhanced accuracy, risk mitigation, and focused strategies – all of these make outsourcing a definite trending option in 2019. It will attract huge investments and cause a substantial shift in the way smaller enterprises run their businesses.

As more measurable business process outsourcing trends surface, it might get difficult to stay updated on what is currently making the news.

From what we have seen in the first two quarters in 2019, here are the latest software outsourcing trends…

software outsourcing trends to look

1. Offshoring IoT

Companies are integrating technology across a broad spectrum of business processes. Implementation overlaps with outsourced services, including the IT support, ERP software and facilities management. However, the realm of offshore processes is expanding. In a world where outsourcing is not considered a purely cost-saving feature in the IT landscape, IoT outsourcing will entail the development part!

Many companies are already engaged in developing low-cost solutions like device management platforms. Now, they are more likely to get into integration with these highly lucrative outsourcing deals, i.e. engaging beyond only the costing bit. For startups focusing on the development of their own devices, 2019’s version of gateways will be in great shape to grab business opportunities that seemed off-market until now.

2. More Machine Learning

With billions invested and much more lined-up for this technology, Machine Learning (ML) is here to stay. This asset of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has enormous potential across industries and business genres that are yet to be defined. With its wide approach to addressing different sectors such as healthcare, finance, and high tech, this is going to be one of the bigger players and 2019 could be its year for creating a cult following from the curious businesses hungry to grow quickly.

For machine learning to fit into your business, it demands access to all available data sets and vast resources to train the software, making it a prime selection to outsource! Moreover, scaling is the most important factor organizations get more concerned about when managing huge data. Moreover, execution is not as fast and simple as database queries. Being highly skilled in every domain is not possible, so you need outsourced expertise!

3. An Era of Agile Methodologies

Even if we context this discussion to a marginal aspect of application development, there are considerable evolution cycles that you will notice. Software development practices continue to evolve hurriedly. With frequent changes in customer requirements and constant new demands, several agile methodologies have been adopted — this is slowly turning into a bare essential, not a democratic decision anymore.

Getting development practiced in offshore outsourcing implies an iterative method of management.

To implement agility, the chosen outsourcing model should encourage communication and collaboration, assume flexibility, and justify delinking processes from people. Nimble-footed is the approach if you want to eliminate the chances of potentially fatal project failures. With reduced risks, offshore outsourcing practices can help in increasing scalability and create faster ROI. Agile methodologies are going to play a big role in the development of solutions that can be reused to deliver efficiency. The moral of the story? Go Agile!

4. Prioritizing Your Security Concerns

Data securities continue to be a major concern with more advanced technologies challenging businesses, continuously. Companies are extremely possessive about their data. And they should be! After all, it takes a lot to build a customer database that can keep sales channels busy and revenue cycles consistent. This year, we should see a huge increase in advanced security automation and security analytics solutions.

Building your own robust security solutions to protect data is not a feasible choice for small to medium companies focusing on customer traction. Relying on experts to stave off breaches can inspire better security. In fact, global spending on cybersecurity is going to rise to some trillion dollars, as IT firms are looking for more ways to respond to increasing threats. Hence, outsourcing your security management is the safest and perhaps the most cost-effective option complying detailed policies.

5. Moving Ahead to Hybrid Cloud

Desktop or web app applications hosted on dedicated servers within the premises is now being called a legacy approach which is slightly surprising, considering this is not entirely obsolete. Cloud-based platforms are charming decision-makers from all business scales. Companies want access to their data and information whenever and wherever, without spending time in handling cloud-specific functionalities.

Extracting more value from the cloud service providers has become the norm and one of the most significant needs happens to be Hybrid Cloud. This blended form of public and private cloud, using dedicated servers is creating an easy and highly value-driven IT architecture.

A hybrid portfolio eases security concerns by isolating or restricting access/features. You can also request customized hardware to meet your specific application performance requirements for gaining more technical control. Compliance options, technical predictability, and better security – all of these gather to foster innovation and stimulate efficiency in such cloud ecosystems. In fact, stats give a clearer picture, stating 50% of IT service providers will utilize the cloud-based technology in 2019.

Summing it all up…

The outsourcing environment keeps changing every few years – highly unpredictable, very non-conformist, on the lookout to upset what you thought was fixed. With the advent of new equations, like gamification, software development companies are looking for more ways to make an impact in this quickly-changing market. Offshore services help firms save cost and work with developers who make product or service realization quicker. Outsourcing something like open-source software development too is at the top of the trending list.

There is no doubt that offshore outsourcing will continue to evolve in 2019, but service providers need to work on spotting a seemingly innocuous requirement snowball into something significant.