What is Software Outsourcing?

Software outsourcing means hiring an outside organization to complete all of the activities of a software development project instead of undertaking them in-house. When a company needs to reach its objectives faster, stay within budget, and build a competitive advantage, it requires a talented IT team to achieve that. Experienced outsourcing providers have the resources, talent, and expertise to build high-quality software. That is why companies worldwide are using this business strategy to grow their business by reducing operating costs and increasing the quality of services.

Benefits of Outsourcing

By choosing the right outsourcing strategy, your business can become more flexible and agile and adapt to the changing market conditions and challenges. The result is cost reduction and quality service, as mentioned above. However, the advantages of outsourcing go far beyond and include:

• Access to skilled experts
• Faster delivery
• Focus on core tasks
• Increased efficiency and productivity
• Reduced risk
• Time-saving

The importance and the benefits that outsourcing offers have become even more evident in the context of the COVID-19. The pandemic has forced many companies to cut costs and prioritize their digital transformation to support their business. The result is an increasing demand for outsourcing. Even businesses who had never considered this kind of service before have turned to it in these difficult times. More and more companies are keen on finding ways to reduce costs and overheads wherever they can. No matter what industry you’re in, outsourcing services can help you find solutions that are right for your business and keep you afloat.

How to Prepare Your Company for Outsourcing

If you’ve already decided to outsource software development, you’re probably wondering how to prepare before launching your collaboration with the service provider. Outsourcing is a business investment, so it is essential to have a clear plan and implementation strategy. You must be well prepared and know what you need before taking the first steps. In this article, we will provide you with some practical steps that you should take to build a successful outsourcing strategy. The steps before starting the project would usually include:

Step 1: Define your goals

For a project to be successful, it is essential to clearly define the business goals you want to achieve through outsourcing. Your remote team needs to see the vision and the purpose of the project. Also, get them involved because there is a lot you can learn from their experience in these initial stages. This will help you determine how you structure and manage the project and ensure that the outsourcing team can meet your needs. Be as specific as possible and make a list of the items you want to outsource and how you want them to handle them.

Step 2: Plan the budget

A carefully planned budget will determine how quickly you can complete the project, the level of skill you’ll hire, and the types of technologies and equipment you can use. The more advanced the technology, the higher the development cost will be. The purpose of planning a development budget is to make sure that you’re prepared for all possible situations. If you don’t know exactly how much of your money is disposable income, it is very easy to let your spending out of control. Also, make sure you have money set aside for hidden costs that are very likely to come across.
An intelligent and structured budget planning will make all the difference to the growth of your business. It will also allow you to have the most productivity and efficiency while keeping overhead costs in check. In that way, your business remains profitable and successful.

Step 3: Document the requirements

Inadequate specification of requirements can lead to failure of the software development. That how important it is. The requirements specification document serves as a map of the product you’ll build and the features you want to include. That document will be used as a reference during software development and set clear targets for the teams. Without it is very unlikely that you will build the right product.

Step 4: Choose the right outsourcing partner

As outsourcing is growing in popularity, especially in the last years, there are many software outsourcing companies on the market. Carefully select and create a list of providers who know your industry and have worked in it before. As a part of the outsourcing strategy, you will need to prepare questions to ask each provider. Thoroughly research the potential candidate’s portfolios, past projects, customer reviews, and referrals. Ensure they have the right technical expertise and IT infrastructure that includes the latest hardware and software components. You should also review their hiring process; discuss the criteria they use to select a team specific to your business objectives and if they facilitate their training.

A trustworthy outsourcing partner with an IT background that meets your organization’s unique technical needs will help you minimize the risks and establish solid ground for the project’s overall success. The right outsourcing partner should be dedicated to helping your company
succeed and grow, so consider all the influence factors before making your final decision.

Step 5: Choose the suitable outsourcing model

The outsourcing model that meets your project’s requirements will depend on its complexity, budget, deadline, and level of involvement. There are three types you can choose from:

• The project-based model. – With this model, you fully delegate software development to an outsourcing company, from planning to release. After clarifying your complete project requirements, the project managers and business analysts from the outsourced team take full responsibility for forming the development team and the quality and performance of the project.
• The dedicated team model. – This model provides you with a remote software development team entirely dedicated to your product and business goals. The team will be chosen according to your demands. You can decide if they will report directly to you or assign the service provider’s project manager to coordinate the communication process. With this model, you share the risks and responsibility for the quality of the product.
• Staff augmentation model. – Staff augmentation or team extension model allows you to hire software development experts at any point of your project’s cycle to fill talent gaps or speed up the delivery. They work remotely as part of your in-house tech team. This outsourcing strategy can be on a short, medium, or long-term basis and gives you more control over your project.

If you need help deciding which outsourcing model covers all your needs, you can always contact Cosmic Development experts and discuss your requirements.

Step 6: Assign roles and responsibilities

Assign management roles and responsibilities early on will ensure that the work will run smoothly. In that way, your in-house and outsourced software developers will know whom they should report to and who needs to be updated about the progress of the projects. That, in turn, will eliminate confusion, create a more transparent workplace, and increases productivity.

Step 7: Establish channels for communication

Uninterrupted communication is vital for the success of a project, and it also requires a plan. Effective communication channels are crucial, especially when you and the outsourcing team don’t share the same physical space, and should be discussed and agreed upon from the start.

Invest in proper communication tools and establish a standard format of communication that will allow you to keep all of the information organized. Use project management tools like Jira and Asana, collaboration tools like Slack and Teams, and messaging platforms like Skype. Email, chat, phone calls are all options. We live in a digital age, and there are countless excellent tools and software available. You have to find out what’s best for your project. Whatever communication channel you choose, make sure it fits your project and helps you successfully operate with a fully remote team.

Step 8: Be flexible

Keep in mind that a talented development team is an expert in their field. Be flexible enough to hear their ideas a creative solution they may offer.

In Summary

We hope we’ve shed some light on the steps you should take to prepare yourself for a successful outsourcing process. By implementing these eight steps, you’ll systematically achieve your goals, you will save time and money, and mitigate risks and improve your project’s delivery.

Thinking of Outsourcing Your Software Development Project?

Suppose you lack the time, resources, and knowledge to build a software development team from the ground up. In that case, you should consider outsourcing software development by teaming up with an experienced software development company.
Cosmic Development is a full-service IT development company with over ten years of experience building digital products and dedicated teams for international companies. We can find the right people to create and implement the digital transformation strategy and turn your business into a digital leader.
We deliver high-quality software at top speed and efficiency. Our solutions and services will enable you to move faster, work better, and stand out in a shifting market. 
Talk to our experts now.

The post How to Prepare Your Company for Outsourcing: 8 Steps to Creating a Successful Outsourcing Strategy appeared first on Cosmic Development.

What a year, right? It’s been over ten months since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic. We lived through lockdowns; we learned how to function with social isolation; we disinfected almost anything that could be disinfected; and most important of all, we made the abrupt shift to working from home. We did all that we can to embrace the ‘new normal.’ However, leading an IT outsourcing company through one of the most challenging years in the 21 century was anything but ‘normal.’ This year brought economies worldwide to their knees. Millions of people lost their jobs. And for so many industries, the future still looks uncertain.

So, what did this mean for the successful functioning of Cosmic Development? What did we, as an IT outsourcing provider, achieve despite the new reality? What were the main things that marked 2020 for us? 

Overcoming the challenges imposed by the new reality:

Introducing work from home policy

Since we are an IT outsourcing company with an employees-first policy and offices in three countries across four different locations, we took the prevention measures recommended by the WHO very seriously. After the first cases appeared in Canada, Serbia, and North Macedonia, we immediately shifted to working from home for the foreseeable future. 

As the situation with the virus escalated and it was clear that remote work was here to say, we made sure all our colleagues are safe and have all the essentials to do their work at their best. And having in mind that working from home was available for us even before the pandemic, we adopted this new way of functioning with ease. You can read more about introducing remote work and the useful tools we used here.

However, a huge role in the successful implementation of remote work as a permanent way of functioning had the HR department with representatives in each office location.

Keeping employees engaged during a worldwide pandemic

As we have all witnessed, this whole crisis happened overnight, and it majorly struck our social life. Within a short time-span, the entire world adopted a “new normal” where people practiced social distancing and avoided public gatherings. The bars were shut-down, the restaurants became take-outs, schools and day-care centers were closed, and we forgot what theaters look like. And, to top it all out, there is the global economic crisis and recession.

This harsh reality affected us all. Employers had little time to adapt and provide all the required conditions for successful operation. Whereas employees had to make sure they stay proficient and effective in a whole new scenario. And with the kids staying at home, caring for family members, and psychological pressure from the lockdowns, it became very stressful. 

Being the link between employers and employees, HR teams worldwide had to rethink their role as they had to adjust whole companies to social distancing practices and a new work environment. More than ever, they played a crucial role in keeping their teams productive, motivated, engaged, and connected.

Cosmic Development’s HR manager spoke thoroughly about measures that need to be taken in order to ensure employees’ wellbeing during these, well, let’s say, unprecedented times. She pointed out holistic and agile people management as best practices because every individual is different and unique in their own way. “To do so, our department has been in touch with all employees on a regular basis. Personal coaching in the form of one-on-one sessions were introduced for the most affected employees. While for the outgoing, we organized online contests and events where people could spend time with each other.”

The name we gave to these activities was “Cosmic Beats Isolation”, and we gotta say, it was fun being part of them.

Cosmic Development’s small wins during disruptive 2020:

1. High-quality work has never been at stake

From leadership to newbies, our offices (including the ‘virtual’ ones) have been a place where a bunch of skilled and dedicated professionals work together and achieve tangible results. Having these like-minded people gathered together and adding the nurturing company culture that Cosmic promotes resulted in one compact and very productive team.  

We talked with our team members on their experiences on several subjects, including: how our content editor keeps up with the ever-changing viral video market, overcoming stressful situations from a PHP Developer’s point of view, the technical challenges that video editors face, and how do they overcome them, and how to manage an agile team in these remote times.

Do you want to join our growing Cosmic family? We are hiring! Check out the most recent vacancies here! 

2. Events worth mentioning

In early March, two Rumblers, Marija and Natasha, attended the Digiday Publishing Summit for a good reason. As Business Development representatives and one of the first people to join the Rumble team at Cosmic, they had an excellent opportunity to mingle with the most prominent names in the publishing industry. An event where media leaders talked about the latest trends and useful tools. There were interactive workshops, speed networking sessions, and cocktail hours.   

Another event of no less importance was the Virtual HR Transformation Summit. Cosmic Development’s HR Manager Biljana took the stage and shared her valuable insights on contemporary HR practices and retention strategies. She joined a distinguished list of HR professionals to discuss Human Resources management’s most critical aspects of the new reality.

3. Constant growth has been maintained 

Thanks to our diligent Cosmic crew, we continued to grow even when the whole world stopped. Looking back, we can see incredible growth of some of our loyal clients and on-going scale-up of those who have joined us recently.

This year we have been working with clients worldwide and kept our presence in North America, Western Europe, Western Asia, and Australia. As more and more companies had no other choice but to go remote, our dedicated-team talent solution became an attractive option globally. 

Now let’s get back to our loyal clients. Rumble is winning the battle against Youtube, and here is why it became the obvious choice for video creators. If eager to learn more about Rumble, read how video content brought success to the platform. 

Another platform that saw incredible success this year was the AI-powered website builder Bookmark. What lies behind Bookmark’s success its combination of outstanding leadership and dedicated-team talent solution. Bookmark’s success story is now available, and you can become a part of it, especially if you are a full-stack developer.  

Let us help you scale up with the best IT outsourcing solution. We build dedicated teams for brands! Schedule a free consultation today! 

Watch Video: Cosmic Development 2020 Rewind – A Year in Pictures

With the vaccines rolling out slowly, we can say that we are looking to a brighter future in 2021. Our team is generally thankful for making it to 2021 with all employees being well and sound, bigger in size and experience, and ready for new challenges. What can be more valuable than walking out as a winner from one of the most challenging years in modern times?

The post Cosmic Development, an International IT Outsourcing Provider, is Looking Back at 2020 appeared first on Cosmic Development.

As we are walking in the last quarter of the notorious 2020, we can state one thing for sure: Remote work and distributed teams are here to stay. However, companies can be skeptical about moving their agile processes online when it comes to working remotely. At first glance, why wouldn’t they be? Especially having in mind that Agile was initially intended for teams that are physically located together in the same workspace. Even according to the 12 Principles of the Agile Manifesto: “The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation“––the first agile teams were intended to work together physically.

Some challenges arise for distributed software teams:

• Synchronizing teams in different time zones
• Building rapport without face-to-face contact
• Collaboration between different cultures
• Coordinating stand-ups and meetings considering that team members are online at the same time for a limited amount of time

These are genuine problems, but they are far from unsolvable. With almost ten years of experience in staff augmentation and software development services, we can share some insights and strategies to help you narrow the gap between working on-premises and remotely.

Structure Your Teams

Think of your team from a software engineer’s point of view: quality software architecture needs modular design, so design your software accordingly. The same goes for building teams. Every team should be able to develop a single fraction of the project, and by that, successfully reduce the dependence between your teams in different time zones or locations. You will actually make teams autonomous parts of your project or company. When a project requires team members to take part from different locations, they can focus solely on their integration points and APIs.

Code reviews are considered as an important part of the development process for remote teams. Since your people are working at different times, sharing knowledge of the code between teams makes maintenance easier.

Building and Maintaining Rapport

Agile teams need to build solid rapport between team members. This brings trust, reduces misunderstanding, makes self-organization easier, and builds morale and motivation. Take time, as much as possible, to get to know everyone within your distributed teams. A personal touch is a must. Creating strong rapport will lead to smoother communication between teams, which in turn leads to better workflows.

After all, who said that face-to-face meetings have to be offline? Especially these days, when Zoom and Google Hangouts have become our new-normal offices, we encourage using them in order to minimize the gap between distributed agile teams. At Cosmic Development, we are avoiding strictly scheduled Hangouts meetings for intra-team communication. Instead, we strive to create a culture of using video chats even for spontaneous informal conversations and ad-hoc meetings. Needless to say, instant-messaging tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams are very helpful in solving small issues or in simply keeping in touch. 

To help address some remote communication challenges within the team, you need to stimulate team members to have one-on-one video sessions whenever possible. These should not be formal, but they still need to be focused on work and oriented around knowledge sharing in a casual way.

Structuring a United Development Culture

Here are the four simple rules our teams follow in order to make remote work easier:

1. Overcommunicate decisions and procedures
2. Minimize the onboarding friction
3. Clearly define terminology
4. Create reporting guidelines 

Now, let us discuss each of them more thoroughly:

1. Overcommunicate Decisions and Procedures

When members of a distributed agile team make decisions, they need to communicate those decisions thoroughly. That sounds a bit obvious, but it is very easy to forget. Important decisions are often made in informal conversations; they are brainstormed between individuals or discussed spontaneously on calls between individuals. In contrast to this, small decisions are often dismissed as unimportant, especially if we focus on another part of the conversation. 

When working in a remote culture, everything, even the minute details, need to be communicated until the whole team starts moving in the same flow.

It is easy to lose meaning or essential information if you announce important decisions via email. Everyone in your dispersed teams needs to understand the decisions, the reasons behind each decision, and how they will be implemented. Team members that are working on outdated information can lead to major setbacks, hitting a blockade, and then re-communicating the whole process costs the team more time than accuracy sharing information in the first place.

2. Minimize the Onboarding Friction

You can tame the “first-day-friction” by utilizing a good onboarding procedure. Remote team members should feel at home right off the bat, which helps build cohesion between team members of different cultures. 

3. Clearly Define Terminology

While working with remote teams, clear standards around simple terminology like “complete” and “done” help manage expectations and ease communication. A clear definition of task completion eliminates ambivalence in work. For example, when sending a release that involves work from multiple teams, make sure to make it clear what “complete” means in this particular context: (a) the code needs to be written, (b) pull request created, (c) code needs to be reviewed and tested, (d) and finally integrated into the main codebase.

4. Create Guidelines for Reporting

Distributing the development process means that not everyone is online and ready for work when problems come up. We recommend setting systems and guidelines for troubleshooting, but reports and issue tracking. You will not believe how much easier such systems and guidelines make it for anyone on the team to track down and resolve issues. Code reviews and automated tests should be part of this process as it enables the remote team to make changes and validate them so they will not have any unexpected side effects.

Maximize the Mutual Online Time

The golden hours for remote agile teams are when most of the team members are online at the same time. This is the perfect time for stand-ups, coordination meetings, or one-on-one calls.

For teams that work in different time zones, a stand-up meeting is an excellent opportunity to share their issues, obstacles, or decisions. Having the stand-ups via video calls makes it easy to coordinate and catch-up with the flow, so everyone is up and running as soon as the meeting is done.

Instruct the project manager to closely monitor the entire team’s engagement during the stand-up. If there is an undue tension, or communication is becoming unfocused and counter-productive, your team members will quickly disengage.

Stand-ups do not have to be strictly daily meetings. You can have them a few times per week and use the other days for informal communication. Thus, a stand-up does not have to be just a morning routine, but you can organize it at the most convenient time for everyone that forms part of your remote agile teams. 

We all need to adapt and learn how to work within remote teams, communicate efficiently, and grow a cohesive culture. Many large companies have successfully implemented distributed agile workflows long before the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing them to cut costs and work more efficiently. On the other hand, remote work is very easy to implement for small teams that have previously worked together in a common office. Such teams can significantly benefit from the advantages of working remotely.

Stay tuned for Part Two, where we will talk to Bookmark‘s Project Manager about her hands-on experience with managing a remote team.

Sources:

• agilemanifesto.org/
• agilealliance.org/resources/experience-reports/remotely-agile/
• blog.stormid.com/distributed-agile-working/

The post Remote Work and Agile Teams are Here to Stay appeared first on Cosmic Development.

Websites and online forums thrive with numerous opinions on when is the perfect timing for a company to begin outsourcing IT services. If you are considering this option, you probably started an online search for the pros and cons of outsourcing. If that’s what brought you here, you are in the right place. Get ready to get inside information from a company offering outsourcing services for more than 10 years. Read our hands-on experience in addition to an ebook that will guide you on how to get started.

We are a Canadian IT company specializing in providing IT solutions and staff augmentation to other brands, and we discovered the numerous advantages of outsourcing IT services a long time ago. In this article, we’d like to share our practices to help you decide if outsourcing is the right choice for your organization.

First, let’s elaborate on the questions that probably started spinning around in your head from the moment when you began thinking about outsourcing. “Is it safe?”, “Why do companies use outsourcing?” or “Will outsourcing make you more good or harm?”. To help you clarify your ideas and thoughts on outsourcing, we decided to provide you with answers to the questions most often asked. Here we cover some of the fundamental questions that many ask before outsourcing IT services.

Basic Benefits of Outsourcing IT services

There are numerous reasons why you should begin outsourcing IT services today. Companies use outsourcing to cut costs, save on resources, operations, and increase the company revenue without hiring more employees. We have already covered the basic benefits of outsourcing in this blog post. As there are numerous reasons why you should begin outsourcing tech today, here is a summary of what is discussed in our ebook:

• Obtaining a high-quality product for a lower price
• Saving time by avoiding to figure everything out by yourself
• Finding employees that are valuable, trustworthy, and dedicated to growing your business

Outsourcing will not only help you save money and time, but it will also aid you with cutting down the exact amount of expenses on the needed resources. Alongside the overall cost-saving process, companies may also save on salaries, employee benefits, and training costs. Furthermore, outsourcing may prove helpful in terms of company rearrangements by adjusting the business model. Hiring different talents and experts from various industries on a global level might help you bring freshness to the current team and provide new perspectives for the company itself.

Hire a Dedicated Team for Your Brand

When hiring a remote team, note that the process may vary from one software house to another. Therefore, we offer you our simplified approach in five easy-to-use steps:  

1. State your preference in terms of needs, timespan, and budget  
2. Search along with initial selection (pre-vetting) 
3. Decide who will be invited for a final evaluation
4. Pick the right fit 
5. Sign one simple agreement and get started

Discover the three stages for finding a reliable software house and our five simple steps for hiring a dedicated team for your brand by downloading our ebook.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Outsourcing IT Services and Hiring a Dedicated Team for Your Business appeared first on Cosmic Development.

When preparing for an IT project estimation, you need to take into consideration a lot of factors that will help you build a dedicated team for your specific project. Throughout the process of estimating your most significant IT project, you will realize that outsourcing is the best option for profitability by getting the same quality for a lower price. Moreover, IT outsourcing is a great way to find the appropriate employees who are trustworthy and who will help you build your brand.

If you are considering outsourcing an IT development team, one problem you are certainly facing at the beginning is how to prepare your idea for an exact estimation. This article will guide you through the process of preparing and conducting an IT project estimation for your business. Read carefully the step-by-step procedure below:

Define Your Vision

The first thing you will need to do is outline your idea. Illustrate your vision. What kind of problems have you recognized? What is the solution you are offering? Maybe you are rolling out a cutting-edge product. Or to put it broadly – you may have a general vision to change the world. What is your solution, and what does it do?

Whichever this is, it is essential to tell your software development company what this is and to share your way of thinking. 

Provide Accurate Brief

Your software development partners will need some basic information. It is the pitch description of your project, your needs, and your visioned path. Describe the performances of your IT Project in the most manageable formula – as well as your visioned workflow. 

Explain the Specifications

At this point, you need to start getting technical. But remember, there is no need to go very deep into the matter. Things are getting technical here, but there is no need to get too deep into the subject. Your job is to remain on the surface. You can be concise, but leave specifics to the software development team.

Set Collaboration Goals and Expectations

To put it simply, what do you want to accomplish and in what time?

Consider your business goals and the tangible objectives that have been bestowed. This differs from the goals concerning your cause. In this occurrence, you should also keep in mind whether your project fits your determined future concept.

These must be reasonable, in terms verified by both the developers’ team and your company. The best method to do this is by setting universally-agreed metrics. Grant specifics, such as website visits, click-through rates, check out rates, bounce rates. Sometimes goals are driven by impulses, such as trends or a competitor’s product. That, too, can be sufficient to help with your outline as well.

Scope Your IT Project 

We are going to contemplate and look ‘deep within’ for this one. That is because here is where the IT project will do some fundamental soul searching. The scale of the project, what is to be done, where will it feature, how will it feature, who will be involved – this all needs classification.

Here are some inquiries to kick-start the thinking process:

• Is this a mobile application, or is it PC-based? 
• Is it maybe an embedded system?
• What functionalities will it have? For example: (CMS, built-in search engine, navigation)
• Will it need a particular infrastructure?
• What about the Data Security, how rigorous will it need to be?

Go over everything in details, leave no stone unturned.

Set Time Frames 

You must be aware that some projects take more time than others, primarily if you want them to be done right. The deadline has a direct influence on the project’s outcome, how it will be done, and the varieties of features you would like to incorporate in it.

As a rule of thumb, understanding that limited speed means limited quality is essential. This has more dramatic consequences when considering the budget too! But we will get to that in a second.

One thing is for sure: nothing ever takes five minutes, nor does it cost five dollars.

Communicate the State of the IT Project

As we stated earlier, depending on the design and circumstance, you may be building something from scratch. Make sure to let your new developers know the current growth of your project, as any actual information will surely be of some help. Maybe you have already created an entire, or half-finished model? In that case, let them know either way and make sure to share any essential information with them.

Most significant to note is that if you have created something like this already, albeit unsuccessfully, make sure to communicate this as well. Communicating outstanding issues that have occurred in the past is essential.

Get to Know Your Dedicated Team

Meet the crew! And make sure everyone follows you. Precise comprehension equals progress.

Your IT project should be built on excellent communication, succeeding expectations, and navigating among stakeholders. In projects as seasoned as those in IT development, make sure to avoid costly misunderstandings!

Have you communicated and established the parameters? Have you made sure they are understood to the finest detail by the development team?

Remember: to create – you must communicate. 

Estimate the Budget 

We would not like to lie to you. The budget is a big deal.

Do you know how much is your organization ready to spend? Keep this in consideration of your expectations.

Let us put it simply: the higher the budget, the broader the possibilities reach. Functionalities need time to be tested, whereas new features will also require development funding. Finances play a crucial role in the final quality. Bugs and glitches are best approached with room in the resources to deal with this problem.

Mock-ups & Wireframes 

Details are unquestionably helpful – as are the specifics. Sometimes a basic idea is a framework for perfection – make sure to bestow any introductory thoughts and plans with your development team. A reliable software house will provide professional, compact, and non-judgmental feedback to your project.

Make a Checklist

Think of this as a soothing reminder, preferably than a ‘make it or break it’ list. From our experience, it would be an astonishment if you had ready-made answers to all these points. The essential thing is to know what is to be understood and what there is to be asked. By doing so, it will assist you to recognize the competency of your next IT development team.

1. Do you have a concept? Start with identifying a problem, solution on how to overcome that specific problem, and a concept of providing the solution.
2. Be precise, but not too formal. 
3. Explore your idea. Ask yourself lots of questions.  
4. Have confidence. 
5. Set parameters. What metrics will determine your success? 
6. Be realistic. Time and money are substantial circumstances with substantial consequences. 
7. Details. Share as many of them as you can. 
8. Accomplish. Go for it, and be confident. 

As fundamental as these intents are, it is normal not to have answers to all of them. Just make sure to have them in mind. 

To discover more information about how to prepare for an IT project estimation for your business, you may need help from our experts. If that is the situation, please click here for a free consultation with our professionals.

The post How to Prepare for Your IT Project Estimation appeared first on Cosmic Development.

Have you ever thought about IT outsourcing or relocating some other business processes into a foreign country? Well, if you haven’t – now is the time! Even though it seems that we are still relatively far from setting up the real galactic enterprises (our Cosmic crew can hardly wait for that to happen), humankind did manage to make the 21st-century world interconnected better than ever before. The new technologies made it all unbelievably accessible and efficient, and that means doing business on a global level has never been easier. The companies are no longer limited to local markets nor local resources, so why not use those new circumstances?

Practically, no matter what type of business you are dealing with, you can set it up wherever you seem fit – from your own neighborhood to the most distant place you can imagine. Cosmic Development as a Canadian IT support services company has chosen Serbia and Macedonia to set up its operational centers, and here are the top 5 reasons why.

• Excellent pool of professionals
• Communication and cultural affinity
• Ease of doing business
• Great logistics
• Outstanding value

(In Addition to IT Outsourcing) Serbia and Macedonia Have Much More to Offer

Beside strictly business-related reasons why Serbia and Macedonia remain our first choice for relocating our operational centers there, there are other exciting details about these two countries and their people.

For instance, did you know that seven Serbian-American scientists and engineers have participated in the construction of Apollo spaceships and helped to put a man on the Moon? Moreover, the well-known message “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” spoken by Jack Swigert to the NASA Mission Control Center during the Apollo 13 spaceflight, was in fact received by one of those seven Serbs, now retired NASA engineer David Vuich. Furthermore, brilliant minds and world-famous scientists and inventors such as Nikola Tesla, Mihajlo Pupin, and Milutin Milanković, were also Serbs.  

A pioneer of performance art and one of the most influential figures of contemporary art, Marina Abramović, was born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia. She has been using her own body as both art subject and object since the early 1970s but truly gained worldwide fame in the 2000s, especially after her now-legendary retrospective exhibition/performance in The Museum of Modern Art, titled The Artist Is Present. Right next to Marina, stand the pleiad of giants like Emir Kusturica, movie director and two times winner of Palme d’Or at Cannes, Volter Bogdanić, a three-time Pulitzer prize winner, Karl Malden, the first Serbian Oscar winner, Vlade Divac, one of the first Europeans to play a vital role in the NBA and, of course, Novak Djoković, the world’s best tennis player.

Plus, officially the Best Major European Festival, and one of the world’s leading music festivals in general, takes place in Serbia! Every summer the Exit Festival gathers hundreds of thousands of young people from all over the world at the Petrovaradin Fortress in Novi Sad, Serbia, for almost two decades. During all these years almost nearly every major music artist has performed there, but the biggest celebration is yet to come next year when EXIT 2.0 will mark 20th anniversary of the world-renowned Serbian festival.

On the other hand, Macedonia offers breathtaking landscapes and restful place just outside their capital city. Besides the beautiful Vodno mountain that rises right next to Skopje and serves as a daily haven from the hustle and bustle of the city, less than 12 miles from Skopje lies a canyon called Matka with Vrelo, one of the deepest underwater caves in the world. The assumed depth of the cave is more than 1,650 feet (500 meters), but only 787.4 feet (240 meters) of it has been explored so far. One more exciting spot in the northern part of Macedonia is called Kokino. It’s considered to be the fourth oldest astronomic observatory in the world, along with Abu Simbel in Egypt, the famous Stonehenge in Great Britain, and spectacular Angkor Wat in Cambodia. This Macedonian Bronze Age archaeological site is situated less than 20 miles (about 30 km) from the town of Kumanovo.

Another natural beauty in Macedonia is the town Ohrid, which lies in the south-western part of the country. Ohrid is one of the oldest settlements in Europe, and it bears the nickname “Jerusalem of the Balkans” due to the disposal of a large number of churches and monasteries in such small territory. Moreover, Ohrid lies on a beautiful lake, which is three million years old and is one of the oldest and deepest lakes in Europe. The beauty of the town combined with the lake that mirrors the buildings proclaimed Ohrid as one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites.

All these and many other astonishing Macedonian sites, as well as the city of Skopje, deserve more considerable international attention. So, it wouldn’t hurt to remind that Mother Theresa of Calcutta, the world celebrated humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was actually born in the capital of Macedonia. The Memorial House of Mother Teresa is one of the most visited sites in the city.  

Sources:

forbes.com/best-countries-for-business/list/

forbes.com/places/serbia/d

doingbusiness.org/en/rankings

pentalog.com/blog/IT-ranking-world-top-developers/

eserbia.org/sapeople/science/129-apollo-11-american-serbs-team

serbia.com/10-famous-serbs-world/

exitfest.org/en/

unesco.org/en/list/99/

macedonia-timeless.com/eng/things_to_do/senses/sight/caves/vrelo-cave/

medium.com/@TheGentleman/25-things-you-didn-t-know-about-republic-of-macedonia-999ac8725b3c

The post Top 5 Reasons for IT Outsourcing to Serbia and Macedonia appeared first on Cosmic Development.

Outsourcing is becoming a standard business model for various size companies, from startups to corporations. No matter how big or small your enterprise is, this highly productive and very profitable practice of relocating some of the business functions and processes to a third-party service provider will ensure a whole set of benefits.

Top 5 reasons to outsource are:

• Focus on Core Activities
• Increase Efficiency
• Control Cost
• Increase Reach
• Get Advantage of the Time Zone Differences

Focus on Core Activities (While Outsourcing Other Processes)

The primary benefit of this practice is portrayed in the process of contracting an outside party or business to perform specific procedures and tasks instead of the company. When estimating the need and importance of outsourcing, successful companies realize that it brings significant advantages that affect their performance positively. Below are given the five most important economic benefits of outsourcing that your company may get.

When rapid growth periods occur in a company, business owners and top management may find themselves faced with a lack of employees who will take care of the back office operations. In such a case, companies may have to sacrifice their human and financial resources at the expense of the core activities that brought success to them. 

Increase Efficiency With Outsourcing

To avoid such sacrifice, you may want to use outsourcing to delegate those activities to an outside company while you focus on the core activities that will result in business improvement and profit.

Goal-oriented companies decide to outsource when they want to increase their business’ efficiency. An outside company that has a more significant experience may bring numerous advantages for your business. Therefore, companies who are wondering, “How does outsourcing increase efficiency?” need to get the right partner that has expertise and knowledge of the domain and the outsourcing projects.

For example, if a mobile app will improve your relationship with customers and grow sales, you don’t need to go through the trouble of creating a whole new app development team, but outsource a reliable one that will meet your needs quickly and efficiently. That way, you will increase not only the business’ efficiency but also the productivity of your entire company. 

Control Your Costs Through Outsourcing

Outsourcing is also recommended when companies want to save money and control their costs more effectively. Companies who choose to outsource their operations as a way of reducing overall expenses have better chances to release capital for further investments in other areas of their businesses. 

Your company may more easily take control of its business capital when it has chosen to outsource to different projects. For instance, instead of paying monthly salaries for full-time employees, you may want to decide to outsource a team instead and achieve even better results for less cost. That way, your company will save funds that can later use for developing the business and the company’s brand. 

Increase Reach And Gain Access With Outsourcing

A particularly important benefit of outsourcing for small to midsize businesses is that companies may gain access to capabilities and facilities that they cannot afford otherwise and even increase the company’s reach by investing their money in other resources. Plus, they may also refer to outsourcing as a tool for recruiting skilled and educated resources in their respective business areas. 

That means you and your business are no longer limited to the facilities and employees in your own country. You can outsource and get other companies to find the right workforce and create custom-made teams that transcend the boundaries of the local business ecosystem. 

Get Advantage of the Time Zone Differences

Apart from other benefits that come as a result of choosing to outsource as part of a business strategy, companies may also take advantage of the time zone. In other words, this practice may benefit a company in terms of hiring people from another time zone that will get the work done while the company’s office is closed.

If you want your business to operate round the clock, you should use this advantage and outsource a team that performs while your headquarters is not fully functional. 

What tasks should you outsource?

Depending on your business needs, there is a broad variety of services you may want to consider outsourcing – from IT services such are software development, mobile, and web applications, E-commerce and other IT solutions, to digital marketing and sales, and administration including human resources, accounting, customer related services, and other operations you might need, with no organizational hassle.

Sources:

thebalancesmb.com/top-outsourcing-advantages-2533765

flatworldsolutions.com/articles/benefits-of-outsourcing.php

allbusiness.com/outsourcing-can-help-business-19749-1.html

businessnewsdaily.com/4280-outsourcing-benefits-small-business.html

smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-outsourcing-small-businesses-23334.html

ceoworld.biz/2018/01/05/4-ways-that-outsourcing-can-benefit-your-business/

nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/advantages-and-disadvantages-outsourcing

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