Any successful Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product is founded on building a robust, scalable and secure web application. From startups, to companies serving millions of users, many SaaS companies require skilled web development teams to start or grow their idea. But hiring and sustaining an in house development crew is costly and time consuming. The good news is that outsourcing web development serves as a strategic solution to that.
For SaaS outsourcing web development to bring any real benefits, it should be done for specialization, with cost saving, time-to-market, and more. But having said that, you don’t have to have experience with outsourcing to know that it involves complexities and you should take the decision carefully because it’s not easy to do it right, particularly, when you’re building a web platform for your customers that needs to be high performance, secure and compliant.
In this post, I’ll tell you what you need to know about outsourcing web development for SaaS and how it can help to move to the next level of your product.
Why Web Development gets outsourced for SaaS Projects?
There are a number of reasons why startups today are outsourcing web development of SaaS. Outsourcing gives SaaS companies the flexibility to push out from cost effective to scalability without having to worry about building and scaling the complex web application while the expertise required to do so still tapped.
- The other is everyone’s access to expertise and specialized skills.
When building a SaaS platform, it requires a plethora of technical skills including back end development, frontend design, security protocols, and all the third party service integrations a user needs to be able to use your product seamlessly. By outsourcing, you get to utilize a team of highly skilled developers with great skill in the known technologies and frameworks e.g React, Angular, Node.js, Ruby on Rails, Python etc.
Specialized SaaS Expertise:
Cloud Infrastructure and DevOps: If you’re using a developer who understands cloud computing platforms, such as AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure, along with DevOps practices, your SaaS application will always be scalable, secure, and optimized for performance.
API Integrations: Most of the time SaaS applications have to integrate with third party tools such as payment gateways, CRM systems, marketing platforms etc. Such people make sure the connections are still seamless enough, even though they deal with outsourced developers, such developers with experience in API integrations.
Security Best Practices: SaaS platforms deal with sensitive data, therefore web security is a priority for them. Outsourced teams that have experience can ensure that encryption, multi factor auth (MFA) and compliance with industry standards like GDPR and SOC 2, are all in place.
- Cost Efficiency
An in-house team for a SaaS development project is likely to burn a hole in your pocket very soon. Salaries, recruitment costs and office space requirements are added up, in case you want to hire a diverse team of front end and back end developers, security experts and project managers. The most significant advantage of outsourcing is that SaaS companies manage to reduce expenses by cooperating with skilled professionals from areas with lower labor cost.
Cost Benefits:
Lower Labor Costs: For example, outsourcing to Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, or Latin America can save you as much as a half and even 60% of what it costs you to hire a local employee.
No Need for Office Space: Outsourcing will save you from paying for an office, the normal cost for infrastructure, equipment, and other employee benefits.
Flexible Pricing Models: Flexible payment options are usually available from most outsourced teams: hourly pricing, fixed price contracts or dedicated teams so you can better manage your budget.
- Faster Time-to-Market
In this ultra competitive SaaS market speed is everything. Every delay in product development is an open invitation for your competition to take your market share. By outsourcing web development, you get to have the services of experienced teams, whose work is entirely focused on building and growing your product.
How Outsourcing Reduces Time-to-Market:
Dedicated Teams: By working on only your project, an outsourced development team has no other internal projects to distract them from—so you benefit from quicker turnaround times.
24/7 Development: You can ensure you’re working on it around the clock by outsourcing to teams in other time zones. This helps to reduce downtime as well as promoting project timelines.
Agile Methodology: However, most of those companies that outsource their software projects are already using the agile development practices, which support iterative development, frequent deliveries and the capability of incorporating the feedback quickly. This makes sure that your SaaS platform grows with use input and market needs.
- Scalability and Flexibility
In order to scale quickly in the face of growth in user demand, SaaS platforms need state of the art tools. By outsourcing, you receive the flexibility to increase or decrease your development team size depending on the project while avoiding the headache of having to do too much hiring or firing.
Scaling Benefits:
Rapid Team Expansion: For new features, or if you want to hit a deadline, it’s easy to add more developers, designers or testers on the project.
Built for Growth: Your SaaS platform will be designed to scale, in that an outsourced development team will plan the architecture to handle growing numbers of users, transactions, and data.
Ongoing Maintenance: When your SaaS product matures, you will require updates, bug fixes, and feature additions that are a regular occurrence. When you outsource, you will have a team committed to help you in the long run providing you personalized help while knowing your platform and goals.
- Core Business Functions Being the Focus
If you are a SaaS company, your main task is to solve customer base and paradigm problems. The beauty of outsourcing web development is you’re not attached to all the technical complexities of creating and supporting a web application; you can focus on developing your business instead.
Key Business Areas to Focus On:
Marketing & Sales: If you outsource your technical tasks to a team, you can devote more time to acquiring new customers, creating brand awareness and getting your sales funnels in order.
Customer Success: Good customer support has become a must for SaaS companies. This means you can dedicate more resources to making sure that your users are successful with your platform and let the experts worry about technical aspects.
Product Strategy: Unlike managing development projects, you’ll be able to refine your product strategy, determine what users want, and define your next set of features.
Here’s what to consider before outsourcing web development for SaaS.
Outsourcing web development for SaaS has lots of advantages, but you also need to watch out for several things when partnering with a SaaS development company.
- The research on finding the right outsourcing partner
The partner you choose for outsourcing your development will determine your success. Look for outsourcing companies with:
Relevant SaaS experience: They should know how to build SaaS applications, with a deep understanding of their unique scalability, data security and multi tenancy requirements and challenges.
A proven track record: Before you hire a SaaS development services provider, check their portfolio and case studies first to know for sure that they’ve previously developed SaaS products similar to yours.
Strong communication skills: Without clear communication, projects get off track, missed deadlines occur and concerns don’t get addressed quickly.
Cultural and time zone compatibility: Check to make sure your outsourcing team’s work culture fits with yours and that you’ll be able to communicate successfully with the other side of the world.
- Security and Compliance
If you’re outsourcing development, the SaaS platforms you’re dealing with are handling sensitive data and you need to make sure your people develop it securely and according to best practices for compliance. Ensure that your partner is familiar with industry standards like:
GDPR: If you’re dealing with European customers, this is for compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation.
SOC 2: There are numbers of ways where you need to secure the sensitive data or follow the best practices for managing data privacy and confidentiality.
PCI-DSS: If you have a platform that handles payment information then this outsourced team should know about the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.
- This is the most important point! No ambiguity in Project Scope and Expectations.
From the very beginning, set clear project scope. Set your expectations of deliverables and timelines, as well as success metrics, so there can be no confusion. Connection with an outsourcer need to be a collaboration, not just a transaction, and communicating definitely is the key to a success project. - We Love You and Will Always be There for You
After the development of the website is completed, the outsourcing does not end then and there. For ongoing maintenance and support – have a look for partners who will keep your platform secure, functioning, and up to date. With your outsourced team, you can start a long term relationship which means more smooth updates, quicker bug fixes, and more innovation.
Conclusion
Outsourcing web development for SaaS comes with its own set of benefits including access to expert people, significant cost savings, faster time to market and better scalability. Outsourcing gives you access to a world class global talent pool, and lets you concentrate on business growth when your building a new SaaS product or enhancing an existing one.
Yet, to fully benefit from outsourcing, you have to select a good partner, determine your expectations, and make sure the development process meets the needs of your business. Partnering with a reputable web development outsourcing company will help your SaaS product grow quickly, improve UX, and maintain a lead in a crowded market.
Ultimately, outsourcing web development for SaaS allows you to combine the best of both worlds: Leading edge technical expertise and the ability to scale as your business grows.