{"id":70147,"date":"2024-07-10T13:31:48","date_gmt":"2024-07-10T11:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zaven.co\/blog\/?p=70147"},"modified":"2025-04-08T20:00:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T18:00:15","slug":"what-do-you-actually-seek-from-external-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zaven.co\/blog\/what-do-you-actually-seek-from-external-support\/","title":{"rendered":"What do you actually seek from external support? Identify what’s preventing you from completing a project on time and within budget"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Let\u2019s make it clear: if the capabilities are there, a project is best delivered internally. Sometimes, however, we are missing certain capabilities that are required to deliver said project in a realistic timeline. These may be related to skills (e.g. technical expertise, domain experience), budget (hiring locally is too expensive) or just capacity (not enough manpower). What are good reasons for outsourcing software development?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The answer to the question from the title should be the thing that\u2019s preventing you from completing a project on time and within budget. As mentioned earlier, these fall into one of the following categories:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\udcda<\/th>\ud83d\udcb0<\/th>\ud83d\ude82<\/th>\ud83d\udee1\ufe0f<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Knowledge<\/strong>
I\u2019m looking for someone who knows how to do this<\/em><\/td>		Savings<\/strong>
I\u2019m looking for someone who can adapt to a flexible budget<\/em><\/td>		Throughput<\/strong>
I\u2019m looking for someone who can do it quicker<\/em><\/td>		Security<\/strong>
I\u2019m looking for someone who will mitigate my risks<\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For each of these, let\u2019s explore some example business stories and how they translate into specific metrics that are relevant to your needs.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowledge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Have a look at the following business cases where knowledge is the primary added value:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI want to build an MVP for pre-seed capital I secured. I know what I want, but I\u2019ve never managed a development team and don\u2019t know how to start. I have a colleague who was willing to help out as CTO, but he backed off and left me alone. I\u2019m looking for a partner who will help me to turn my ideas into a digital product.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2013 Sheila, startup founder<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe develop our web application internally but a planned feature includes advanced data visualization and we\u2019re concerned if our front-end developer can handle it. We\u2019re looking for a front-end developer with experience in complex UX\/UI who can temporarily join our team and help us deliver this feature.\u201d (example project: tablet app for water leak locator<\/a>)<\/p>\n\u2013 Dave, Team Lead<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cOur product needs to be integrated with a specific 3rd party application. We don\u2019t want to distract our internal team from their priorities and we also want to make sure the integration is done right. We want the feature to be developed by someone recommended by that 3rd party or who has already integrated with this application in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2013 Matt, CTO<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe have a successful SaaS product and want to provide our customers access through a mobile app. We don\u2019t want to hire a mobile developer because it would take him too long to finish it alone and after that we won\u2019t have enough work for him to justify a full-time position. We are looking for an external partner, who can deliver this app and later do maintenance and bugfixes from time to time.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2013 Joanna, Head of Product<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI need to build a customer portal to streamline our services (CXP) and it has to look good. Most of my platform is for internal usage so I am fine with basic UI but the user-facing part needs the right attention from people with a strong UI\/UX design background.\u201c (example project: customer experience portal for cybersecurity company<\/a>)<\/p>\n\u2013 Claire, Head of Customer Success<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe already had a great product with a loyal customer base but recently investors made us scale up ASAP, so we expanded operations and now our application is really slow. My internal team is suggesting potential improvements but I am afraid of significant changes without someone who had experience with such transitions and optimizations.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2013 Steve, CTO<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI\u2019ve built an MVP of my startup in AWS\/Azure but in order to scale sales we need to also serve customers who, due to compliance, need to run it on their own hardware.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2013 Xavier, Head of Business Development<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If any of the above examples sounds familiar, prioritize experience (lower risk) and technical expertise (better quality)<\/strong> when looking for an outsourcing Partner. The metric you\u2019re most interested in is insights<\/strong>, i.e. how much they know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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