10 Advantages of Offshoring Software Development That Other Successful Companies Don’t Want You To Know About!

featured22@wdd2x.jpgDiscover the Secret of Saving Thousands of Dollars Each Month While Increasing Your Web and Mobile App Development Productivity

Here’s the ultimate ‘Offshoring Discovery’:

If you think about it Google hasn’t even reached its twentieth birthday, yet it is one of the fastest growing companies in the world. How is it that some companies seem to have accelerated growth and others have come out of nowhere to become leaders in a really short period of time. How do they do it?

Answer: Leveraging Time and Talent

They are not stuck in the old traditional (comfortable) ways of doing things. In fact some would say they are rule breakers or industry transformers. But, the one thing they all have in common is a Global workforce. They have figured out how to leverage highly skilled and talented people from around the world.

They take advantage of the world economy and provide great jobs in countries where the cost of doing business is much lower. They have figured out how to leverage the time zone differences to extend their days and get things done faster.

You can do the same for your department and your company. All you need to do is leverage the advantages of offshoring.

Top Ten Offshoring Advantages And How To Make The Most Of Them

Advantage #1 – No Real Estate

Where is the person going to sit? The cost associated with that desk space is a big consideration in the leading corporate cities around the world. The price per square foot in any major city in the world is a big factor in the overall cost of providing for an onshore employee –desk, chair, computer, etc. On top of that there is the time needed to find the space, negotiate the lease, and build out the space. Plus you need to be comfortable taking on the long term commitment. All are things that can slow you down.

When you setup an offshore development office you are not paying the high rents associated with onshore offices.  Nor are you taking on a multi-year commitment.

Advantage #2 – Highly Talented People

For many companies a limiting factor affecting growth is the ability to find smart, highly skilled employees. There are smart people born everywhere, and many pursue a University Degree in Computer Science or Computer Engineering. The cool thing about computers is the language they understand transcends spoken language. Computer languages have a much smaller lexicon therefore allowing many people to understand and decode what is being done.

Advantage #3 – Different Time Zones

What began as a disadvantage, smart companies like Google have parlayed into a strategic approach that speeds development by creating a 24 hour development cycle.

Having developers work both onshore and offshore allows development to continue when one group finishes their day. Development speeds up as the project is handed off from one team to the next. Some additional management time and co-ordination between teams is required but the result is staggering. What would take 3 days to develop using a resource in a single time zone can now be completed in a day with round the clock development.

Advantage #4 – No HR Headaches

Have you ever wished that you could just have a conversation with someone about the type of people you are looking for, and they immediately got it. They then went off and wrote the job posting, prescreened all the candidates for you and then just brought you the list of candidates for you to choose from. That’s what happens when you work with an organization that manages the all of these details for you. An additional bonus is that you don’t need to get approvals for various job sites, salary levels, etc.

You establish your budget for your offshore team and then you’ll get just one invoice, which is a pure expense to the business. No need to manage payroll, or benefits.

If someone doesn’t work out it is then easy to release someone from the team with no HR issues.

Advantage #5 – Easy to Manage

Everyone wonders about managing people half way around the world, the key is to have your overseas staff working for one organization that takes care of all the basics like checking to see if everyone arrived on time and put in their full days work. What you need is while you are sleeping, someone else is watching over the team for you and creating for you the basic reports.

You get to focus on the tasks they are working on, the challenges they need help with you don’t need to deal with the petty little stuff.

Advantage #6 – Responsiveness & Scalability

As your needs change it is easy to change your workforce. When you need more people or you need to shrink your workforce you can just pick up the phone or send an email and say I need more or less. You are not managing space, infrastructure or employee termination processes.

You can also easily swap out someone that is not working out for you because the relationship is with the Offshoring Company you are working with. The relationship they have with you is larger than that one person.

Advantage #7 – Security, Control and Confidential Information

Having security, control and protecting confidential information is easier today. With today’s technology it is easy to setup a VPN or virtual private network access or VDI virtual desktop access to your current infrastructure. This gives you full control over the access to your systems. You can even install monitoring software that lets you check-in on people from time to time and see what they are doing with or without notifying them.

Advantage #8 – No Hidden Costs

When you have a dedicated team of developers offshore that is provided to you through one provider you pay just one price per month: there is no hidden costs.

When you hire for a project, you often run in to additional costs because of natural evolution of change as the code moves through the normal testing and release schedule of alpha, beta, release candidate, live.

This process creates a natural conflict between the offshore development company and yourself due to the management of scope creep. Scope creep is eliminated when you use a software dedicated team.

Advantage #9 – Culture

When you outsource a development team (rather than a project team) you can indoctrinate them in your corporate culture – Wear the logo – etc. They become your employees, they know your standards and understand what it is that you are trying to accomplish. This naturally leads to a better outcome. You know this to be true. Your best developers are the ones that have bought into the company goals and culture. It is no different when you move development offshore.

Advantage #10 – Continuity – Same Resource – No Retraining

When you hire an offshore development team they are your team dedicated to you. As the scope of the project changes it is no different than how you manage your home team. As new projects arrive, you assign them to your team. These are the people you are comfortable with and you have developed trust in.

When you work on a project basis when the project ends the team is disbanded and moved to other projects. You may or may not be able to have the same people.

Take the next step…

Get any and all of your questions answered about offshoring at Stepin Solutions, simply email at hello@stepinsolutions.in to schedule time to get any remaining questions you have about offshoring answered. We have an experienced web and mobile development team. And if you need a dedicated developers we will reach out to you to achieve your dream by providing a full stack development team.

API Programming : Backbone of Mobile App Development

Do you think mobile app development needs API support for flexible, light weight and robust application development? If you don`t have any idea about it then you are at the right place to be aware about the truth and hidden scenes.

APIs, or “Application Programming Interfaces”, have revolutionized the way that we use web and mobile applications by allowing computer programs to talk to each other. Because of this revolution, software development and innovation has periodically sped-up over the last 10 years and apps get integrated and communicated in an amazing new ways.

What is an API?

We use our PCs, laptops, mobile phones and tablets very day to communicate with our friends, family and colleagues. But how do computer programs communicate with each other?

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Application Programming Interfaces(APIs) are the hidden backbone of our modern world which allow software programs to communicate with one another. Although most of us don’t know it, behind the scenes of every mobile app and website we use is a mesh of computers “talking” to each other through a series of APIs. As you see in figure, every mobile and digital watch make use of APIs to run their native applications by making a request to web server for getting app relevant data. And web server will send a response of that request via API response. So it makes each mobile app works smoothly without getting heavy. Today, the “API economy” is quickly changing how the world interacts. Everything from photo sharing, to online shopping, to hire a cab is happening through APIs. Because of APIs, technical innovation is happening at a faster pace than ever. If you already write software, you are probably familiar with APIs. But the rest of you may be wondering: what exactly are APIs and why are they so important?

APIs: A Software Backbone

Michael Bock has said in its blog that at the most basic level, an API is a set of rules that dictate how one application communicates with another. APIs aren’t that new either; as written in “What APIs are and Why they`re Important”, APIs were just a way of building applications for a desktop operating system like Microsoft Windows. But in the age of the internet, they have the power to plug applications into, well, almost anything. They’ve already transformed websites like Google and Facebook and Twitter into services that talk to a world of other applications, across PCs as well as mobile phones. But that’s small potatoes. They’re also breathing new life into old-world operations, including mobile carriers and even auto makers.

On the Web, APIs make it possible for big services like Google Maps or Facebook to let other apps “piggyback” on their offerings. Think about the way Yelp, for instance, displays nearby restaurants on a Google Map in its app, or the way some video games now let players chat, post high scores and invite friends to play via Facebook, right there in the middle of a game.

APIs do all this by “exposing” some of a program’s internal functions to the outside world in a limited fashion. That makes it possible for applications to share data and take actions on one another’s behalf without requiring developers to share all of their software’s code. Sharing code at that scale would be massively inefficient in addition to posing major security threats. APIs allow for this type of integration without sharing the actual code that makes the software run. APIs are useful even for open-source software (where the code is freely and publicly available): most developers don’t have the time or patience to look through thousands of lines of code just to use one piece of functionality. Instead, that functionality can be offered through an API.

Without APIs, applications would be incredibly disconnected and therefore confusing. APIs allow applications to talk to each other and for more innovative and consistent applications to get built. Imagine, for example, if Google Maps didn’t offer an API: every mobile application and website on the internet would have to figure out how to implement their own mapping system from scratch, an incredibly difficult task. APIs can also be useful internally for a company in addition to sharing resources across companies. Instead of having to duplicate code for each of other apps, they can share data via one API. APIs simplify much of the complexity of software development by limiting outside access to a specific subset of functionality — usually data exchange. Because of this, new software can often be built in weeks instead of months or years.

Why APIs are so important?

These days, APIs are especially important because they dictate how developers can create new apps that tap into big Web services—social networks like Facebook or Pinterest, for instance, or utilities like Google Maps or Dropbox. The developer of a game app, for instance, can use the Dropbox API to let users store their saved games in the Dropbox cloud instead of working out some other cloud-storage option from scratch.

In one sense, then, APIs are great time savers. They also offer user convenience in many cases; Facebook users undoubtedly appreciate the ability to sign into many apps and Web sites using their Facebook ID—a feature that relies upon Facebook APIs to work.

When you search for nearby restaurants in the Yelp app for Android, for instance, it will plot their locations on Google Maps instead of creating its own maps. Via the Google Maps API, the Yelp app passes the information it wants plotted—restaurant addresses, say, along with the Yelp star rating and more—to an internal Google Maps function that then returns a Map object with restaurant pins in it at the proper locations. Which Yelp can then display inside its app. (On iOS, Yelp taps Apple’s Maps API for the same purpose.)

We see APIs like this all the time. Elsewhere on page you may see the icons to share anything on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn or Youtube. These are just links that call on the APIs associated with each of those services to allow users to Tweet or post about the thing you want to share without leaving the site itself. Mobile devices like iOS and Android phones and tablets have many  built-in APIs. For example, Apple recently announced a new API called “HealthKit” as part of iOS 8 that allows developers to access a user’s health data from a a central place.MH_Squared_Social.png

An API is a Promise

A major issue with APIs is that they aren’t necessarily permanent. Just because a company is making an API available now doesn’t necessarily mean it will be available tomorrow. Twitter infamously limited third-party access to its API at the end of 2012. This had the effect of killing all alternative Twitter clients and forcing users to use Twitter’s official apps and website, where Twitter can show users ads as it pleases. This was done under the guise of providing a more cohesive user experience, but for many developers who relied on the Twitter API, it meant shutting down their business because of Twitter’s decision.

Other examples of this API abandonment are common. Startups that provide an API often shut down or get acquired, and Google is notorious for closing down services that people rely on like Google Reader (that allowed people to aggregate all the news services they read into one place). Since web APIs are still in their infancy, there is still a lot to learn. One of the things API providers should understand is that an API is a promise: once other people are relying on it, it is crucial maintain it and keep it active.

APIs and Innovation

The good news is that for the most part, APIs encourage innovation and don’t stifle it. Without APIs, communication between apps would be stifled, software developers would continuously be re-writing software that performed the same functionality, and generally innovation would slow. APIs have allowed for more trivial things like sharing photos with friends, but also for the potential to re-imagine government. As the world moves further and further into the technical revolution, APIs will have an even bigger role powering the apps and websites we use every day.

Power your mobile apps with APIs

We have an experience API developers in our team. If you want to hire a trusted API developer to develop APIs for your mobile apps , we will gladly assist you to reach to your dream! We provide a full-stack development teamto create a valuable product. Just drop us an email at hello@stepinsolutions.in

Billing Dilemma: What is better for client? Fixed cost or hourly rate?

Many years of my experience in web and mobile development, including complex and often risky quoting processes I was involved in during my career at Stepin Solutions, has left me with the same dilemmas: how to accurately quote web projects? What time buffers should I assume? What risks to consider?

The final quote sent to the client is based on the time estimate and aforementioned factors. I’m sure the same patterns are applied by the most of worldwide web agencies which struggle with clients requesting fixed-bid assignments.

What are the client-side results of fixed-price approach?

Quotes sent in by potential project managers are probably not free of overestimating. Let’s face the truth – in most of the cases it is the project managers who is more aware about the real costs and potential risks of a project.

Of course, years of experience in managing software projects allow to estimate resource needs more accurately, however even with the help of Nostradamus we are not able to predict every possible situation. And I’m positive there are more situations like this than characters in this article! Even solid track-record and extensive experience in custom web application development does not make it much easier to predict problems with various website components or with integrating the software with an external APIs.

Medium- and low-budget developments created with a help of open-source solutions such as Symfony or Drupalor Magento can be delivered within accurately prepared estimates and without major issues. On the other hand, custom development can create complications and getting into more and more specific requirements brings unwanted project growth. And then, we either start to try and force-fit the project in the budget or debate on whether the requirements meet preset project scope or not. Instead of working on the real project development, we waste days or even weeks talking about it, negotiating and clarifying the specification.

What if the projects were charged by only actual time spent by the agency and their developers? What if we could forget the full specification and manage the project on the go? Impossible? Well, there is a way that make it easier – the Agile approach and charging projects by man hour costs.

The software is being developed iteratively (in so called ‘Sprints‘), and the goal of each iteration is the delivery of a product (e.g. a particular, predetermined set of software features). Each sprint is followed by testing and compatibility verified against business requirements. Successively, features or even the whole project can be redone or pivoted.

waterfall-project-management.jpgLet’s try and answer the question: Why hourly rates are a better solution to charge projects than fixed pricing?

  1. Gathering requirements
    Starting a project with creating a full specification means the crucial decisions are being made in the very beginning. Well, the question is whether we know enough about the nature of project at the moment. Changing requirements later can be difficult, not to mention how costly it can get.
    Using Agile, we start working having only the business requirements and key features. The features are being adjusted after their core is created and when we have the essential information. Changes in the project are just a natural part of it in Agile approach.
  2. Financial risk
    I suppose we can all agree that words “precise” and “long-term” assessment stay in opposite. During an estimation process we are forced to introduce project risk factors. Charging hourly rate eliminate potential risks because we cover only the real time spent to achieve particular tasks and goals.
  3. Common priorities
    In fixed-priced projects the priorities of both sides, although common, can lead to a situation where the contractor wants to complete the project as effectively as possible in order to maximize its profit (which is dependent on spent man hours). On the other hand, the client desires a product of the best quality and the time frame is not of his concern, since it doesn’t drive any extra cost. What’s the solution to that? Decide on working with the best contractor and charge the project by the time.
  4. Meeting expectations
    In the waterfall model, acceptances are made by stages, therefore it’s harder to track progress. Any changes made can mean throwing out parts of work already done. In the Agile model you can review the work results more often (sprints usually take weeks, rather than months), so we can track our expectations on the go.
  5. The project can be started earlier
    In Agile approach we don’t focus on creating complex and full specification from the start. There are only particular business requirements and incremental work – from the general key features to the details. Everything is more clear, the documentation is rather simple and comprehensible as it covers only the particular iteration.
  6. Tracking progress and verifying requirements
    In fixed-price approach the project is verified by the client after certain stage is fully complete. In fact, we don’t have a possibility to verify the requirements as they go. In Agile model we track progress constantly, we are well informed and have full transparency in terms of requirements, especially those financial.
  7. Changes in the projectCharging hourly rates allow us to change priorities at all times. Agile gives us full control – we can pause what we do at the time and simply change direction. Constant tracking of the outcome enables us to improve the project on the go – sometimes the best ideas come up in the middle of the work. Agile makes them real without the necessity to renegotiating, meetings, quoting and futile documentation.
  8. In the end, it’s… cheaper
    That’s right! As I mentioned before, when charging fixed rate, the agency must calculate any risks and problems, what can lead to overcharging. Charging hourly rate is actually cost-effective, because the client pays only for the real work done.
  9. The time we don’t track
    Discussion whether a particular piece of the spec means this or that is a waste of time. Have you ever calculate time spent on discussions and negotiating? Not to mention planning every little detail of the project before starting it.

OK – I believe I’ve done my best to convince you to charge projects hourly, using Agile methods. I’m sure that during the next initial negotiations it’s very likely to hear following question:

Agile is great, the sprints are awesome, that’s it – let’s do it! But first I need to hear how much it’s going to cost?”

 There’s no way to charge by fixed price in Agile – it just doesn’t work like that. I’m aware, though, that cost must be somehow estimated, so it’s always helpful to conduct couple of workshops and specify business requirements (having a list of user stories and wireframes help a lot to determine estimates). With a help of workshops and tech-planning and project analysis it allows us to estimate the number of sprints (cycles) required to deliver the outcome by a particular team and pre-calculate the cost. We can also give a range to the client based on how many cycles a project of similar nature normally takes.

Mind that nobody can promise the estimates which match the final budget. There’s no way to predict any modifications or the elements that would need further discussions. Full transparency and control is crucial to approach the project holistically, especially from the financial perspective.

Sound good, doesn’t it? Well, another doubts can arise – what if…

“If I pay for each man hour, how I can be sure that they won’t tweak the hour count?”

A diligent analysis of the potential project manager is crucial. A product of the highest quality that fully meet client’s expectations can only be made by a team we fully trust and the team than can have proven track-record.

What to consider when choosing an agile development agency?

The size and the experience. If the agency runs for years and its portfolio shines with robust projects, delivered for trusted brands and employs top experts of particular competencies, it’s sure a way to go with. It’s always a good idea to reach out and get to know the tools the particular agency uses to track progress.

And if you’re searching for coding and programming partner, Stepin Solutions is the one which can be the best fit for your project.

So, Now what? If you will work with an experienced team like us whom you trust and ycan be a part of our development process, the success is sure. Agile approach following hourly rate is likely to deliver much better outcome than the fixed price projects.

At last we would like to thanks merixstudio for publishing this topic as its very important to clear this dilemma before starting a project and when clients are unaware about the risks involved with fixed costs. As we found merixstudio`s artical very useful for our readers we have published it on our site.

How mobile applications can help Travel industry & Tourism industry?

There was a time when people used to travel around the world with guide books, maps, and different awkward printed material; that era has died out. The future is always on: it is portable and always in your pocket in the form of a smartphone or a tablet.

As a result, the relationship between travel and technology has become closer than ever, with more and more businesses turning to mobile apps to promote their services and reach customers in a more personal way.

The travel and tourism are a huge 6.3 trillion dollar industry according to the 2015 statistics. A huge part of this success has been played by mobile apps. As the partnership between the tourism industry and technology grows, both of them have earned several grand slams and much more are on the way.

Interesting facts supporting the partnership of the travel industry and apps

The 7th most downloaded app category
85% use smartphones to plan their travel when on leisure tours
72% people will post photos about their travel on social platforms like Facebook
46% check-in via their smartphones when on holidays
30% use mobile apps to find the best hotel deals
29% use mobile apps to find the best flight deals
15% users specifically download travel apps to plan a trip ahead

If truth be told, Travel & tourism industry is indeed lame without mobile apps. The wise travel company have already understood & opted for most advanced travel & tourism mobile app development and are extracting high ROI. What is your strategy for minting money by contriving a perfect Travel & Tourism mobile application for business? If you are still at sea, consult the right App design & development company to strategize.

Then You Are at the Right Place. We are trusted Mobile App Development Company to make Travel apps. Our Apps will Promote And Reflect Your Travel Business Interests. Our Apps will be Specially Designed to Impress Your Customers. Be a winner with your custom apps for your Customers!

Contact Us to DiscussYour Custom Mobile Travel App Requirement Emai us at: hello@stepinsolutions.in. Visit our website to know more about us and our services http://www.stepin-solutions.com

Pros and Cons of Native and Hybrid Mobile App Development

 

In previous article about options of Mobile App Development we have narrated the basic understanding and differences of Native and Hybrid mobile app development as options.

Continue reading

Hybrid Mobile Apps vs. Native Mobile Apps

If you are thinking of developing for the mobile application market, an important decision is to decide between developing a native application or a hybrid one. Choosing to use native or hybrid mobile application is always the pain for everyone who wants to make their mobile apps.

From our experience working with mobile app development we have made following comparison.

Native apps are specific to a given mobile platform (iOS or Android) using the development tools and language that the respective platform supports (e.g., Xcode and Objective-C with iOS, Eclipse and Java with Android). Native apps look and perform the best.

HTML5 apps use standard web technologies—typically HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. This write-once-run-anywhere approach to mobile development creates cross-platform mobile applications that work on multiple devices. While developers can create sophisticated apps with HTML5 and JavaScript alone, some vital limitations remain at the time of this writing, specifically session management, secure offline storage, and access to native device functionality (camera, calendar, geolocation, etc.) Continue reading