Engineering Outsourcing: 6 Key Considerations

Outsourcing is no longer primarily about offshoring as a cost-cutting measure. For companies developing new high-tech solutions, nearshoring engineering services has many advantages that provide more excellent strategic business value than short-term cost-cutting. However, engineering outsourcing isn’t the best fit for all companies and all projects.

The following considerations will help determine when partnering with a custom engineering services provider is most likely to be a good fit:

1 – Technical skills and experience

Finding people with the skills required to develop innovative high-tech products is not easy. Recruiting, onboarding, and keeping these engineers challenged and motivated on an in-house team can be overwhelming for companies not accustomed to supporting a high-tech development team.

A good engineering outsourcing partner will have highly qualified engineers on staff who keep their skills up to date by working on various projects for different industries that require multiple technologies. An outsourced team that has already worked together will be ready to start immediately and can produce results quickly.

At Orthogone, our experienced designers and developers share knowledge with each other and are passionate about technology and taking on new challenges.

2 – Development time

At some point, developers have to take the time to learn the skills required to implement the latest technology. An in-house team may be capable of learning the required skills, but the time it takes could be too costly for your project. If you have a compressed product development timeline, or you need to get your product to market as soon as possible, then you need developers who already have the required skills and have the experience needed to apply those skills successfully to new projects.

Discover how our knowledge & experience help push the limits of performance, cost-effectiveness, scalability, and speed.

3 – Risks

Adding skilled engineers to an in-house team requires monetary and time investments in recruiting and infrastructure that are not only risky; they can also divert focus from a company’s core business.  With an outsourced team, the costs are fixed and predictable, and key company resources can stay focused on their strengths.

Ensuring that the work done is high quality is another risk that’s minimized by outsourcing to a reputable, skilled team. Quickly ramping up an in-house team for a rush project doesn’t create ideal conditions for high-quality work.

Learn more about the advantages of outsourcing in 6 powerful benefits of partnering with a leading software development company

4 – Communication

When you aren’t working face-to-face with people in the same office, communication can break down. However, as we’ve seen with remote work in 2020, many workers excel at maintaining and even improving productivity when working remotely. A technology partner that has years of experience working remotely with multiple international clients will be well-equipped to set realistic expectations and maintain transparency throughout each project.

At Orthogone, we won’t start a project if we don’t have the expertise and resources needed to deliver high-quality results. Our clients know that they can count on quick and significant returns when they use our expert services, and we have ongoing partnerships with many of them. Mistakes do happen; however, we fix them, learn from them, and above all, never disappoint our clients.

We’ve answered some of the most frequently asked questions to make your decision easier.

5 – Flexibility

Change is part of the process. When creating innovative solutions, team members can’t be afraid to try new things or suggest new ways to solve problems. Before outsourcing a new project, ensure that your technology partner has the resources and capacity to accommodate changes and still meet deadlines. Having experienced, flexible project managers is essential in product development. An engineering services partner with good project managers can adjust plans and shift priorities when you need to make changes while ensuring delivery milestones are met.

In addition to our ability to quickly ramp up with the required staff and expertise, one of the reasons clients choose to work with Orthogone repeatedly is our flexibility in adapting to changes while providing the high performance needed to deliver results.

We’re successful because we deliver.

6 – Culture

When forming a partnership, you must trust the people you work with. Do their values align with yours? Can they be trusted with your confidential information and access to your intellectual property? Is their work environment secure? When building an in-house team, you have tight control over your company’s operations and what you expect of your employees. Still, when outsourcing, you must perform due diligence on the companies you’re considering as partners. How long have they been in business? Who is on their team? Who else have they worked with? What’s their track record for completed projects?

Learn more about what to expect from a top software development company or how partnering with Engineering Services Providers (ESPs) speeds up product development.

Are Orthogone’s custom engineering services right for you?

Since providing product development services is our primary function at Orthogone, we have highly skilled engineers working remotely with many North American and international clients. Our projects aren’t just one-offs. We’ve built multiple long-term relationships with clients based on mutual trust by constantly maintaining an open channel where both parties feel comfortable sharing their issues to achieve a common goal.

Let’s meet with your team to determine how we can work together.