Is There a Communication Gap While Working with Remote Outsourcing Teams?

This year a remote work has become more than just an opportunity. The situation with COVID-19 and the total isolation of the entire planet has made remote work a necessity.

Outsourcing: The benefits for businesses

Based on this, we’ve got the fact that lots of business owners began to outsource their IT projects to remote teams. Initially, it was quite a challenge for most of them. Choosing a decent IT company to outsource software development tasks is tough, especially for those who decided to go down that road for the first time. Once decided, however, businesses eventually realized that they hit the nail on the head with IT outsourcing. Let's have a look at the stats below to see how exactly enterprises can capitalize on a remote IT team.

So, the stats perfectly show that organizations find it quite advantageous to collaborate with remote IT teams. In these unprecedented times, the importance of outsourcing cannot be overstated. That is why over 50 percent of employers think that increased productivity is the core advantage while working with third-party software developers. With this, only 18 percent mention the improved documentation and increased time zone coverage factors to be of any importance. (Source)

Given all the benefits, IT outsourcing is not necessarily that efficient in every single case. Many customers feel like unplugging from the outsourced IT company they deal with, having few to none timely feedback, and lacking smooth interaction between in-house and overseas teams.

Why communication is important for outsourcing

Communication is a key driver to success for any business or industry, with outsourced software development being no exception. So, it’s no wonder that Buffer reveals collaboration/communication issues to be one of three core concerns while working with remote teams.

So, how business owners can avoid the problem of poor communication when selecting an outsourced IT services company? Oftentimes, the issue takes place when it comes to dealing with newcomers to the IT outsourcing market. While trying to jump on the outsourced software development bandwagon, lots of IT startups usually have no idea on how to enable robust communication with their customers.

The only way out is to find a trusted IT company that can ensure seamless interaction at every stage of the software development process. A team of seasoned professionals with a good deal of successfully implemented projects for overseas customers under the belt can make a huge difference, especially when compared to IT newbies.

8 tips on how to enable robust business communication

So, good communication skills are badly needed for both internal and external purposes. Being on the same page is a good way to go for efficient communication. To help you avoid a poor interaction experience with outsourced teams, here’re some findings you should consider. We’ve broken down the tips that work both ways, and can be useful for your in-house team as well as for your outsourced IT firm.

So, try checking these out before opting for a software development company worth dealing with.

Creating a dedicated place for group communication is a good way out. Modern technologies offer many group chats for employees. In this way, your managers and IT company members will not feel isolated from each other. You may use Slack board or Snapchat etc. Here you can create many channels for communication from #Projects to #SoftwareDevolopment and talk to each other every day.

Involve both sides in regularly scheduled meetings. You can create an organized forum for collaboration and communication between all the stakeholders. E-mail is good, but there is nothing more efficient than voice and face-to-face contact. That can be easily done via video conferencing platforms, such as Zoom or Google Hangouts.

Agreeing on the best work-hours. If remote outsourced teams are in the same time zone, then you shouldn’t worry about it. But in the case of a large time difference, you should define the overlap time – a few hours of the day when both parties can work together. This will give both parties enough time to attend the meeting and continue their work without any flaws and obstacles.

Meeting language competencies. Smooth communication is not possible with a bad command of English. For most IT companies this is not an issue anymore, as they provide special English classes for their employees on a regular basis. Still, it can be the case with smaller firms that are new to the international IT services market. You can easily find it from the very first contact, so just make sure to talk to your would-be software development team before hiring them.

Set your project goals and define reporting requirements. Provide any necessary information to help your outsourced team figure out what to do and create realistic expectations for their work. Set yourself and your team up for success by clearly outlining both the challenges and the reasons behind them. Both of you have to clearly realize what your final business goal is, and how to achieve it. This means defining the scope, timing and results for each task or project your team is working on.

It will definitely improve your communication efficiency throughout an entire project. In the meanwhile, a daily activity report can make it easier to keep track of a step-by-step software development process. This way, you can keep the tabs on any issues that might otherwise go unnoticed in a remote setting. It is recommended to use some special templates or Timenotes for daily reporting activities.

Using diagrams and infographics to provide a complete understanding of the processes. During video conferences, you can use facial expressions and gestures to explain something to our teammates during the meeting. While working with a remote team, data visualization can greatly contribute to a better understanding of software development processes.

So, ask them to visualize the workflow with the help of insightful diagrams, flowcharts, and other means. Visual tools are designed to be easy to understand, and they can be a great way to convey complex processes or ideas. There is a lot of online software products that help visualize the results.

Sharing your company culture. Building healthy business relationships with an outsourcing IT company is crucial. Make yourself clear about what you expect from them in terms of soft skills. Make sure if you and your outsourcing partner share the same corporate values. Such a collaborative, ‘open door’ policy adds much to the overall communication between your teams.

Establishing trust and transparency across teams. Building trust can be tough when it comes to dealing with outsourcing software development firms. Your in-house managers may have some concerns about how well the IT project’s things are getting done. For instance, they have to be sure if all the app features and UI/UX design elements go in line with your technical requirements.

To enable this level of trust and transparency between teams is only possible through successful communication efforts.

To sum everything up, communicating with an outsourcing IT company is not all sunshine and roses for a business owner. However, if two sides are experienced enough to know how to build a robust interaction, everything will be quite fine with your IT project.

So, to benefit from great communication and have your IT project done in time, you need a software development team that has extensive expertise in providing outsourced IT services. Do not hesitate to contact us to leverage our top-notch software development solutions along with great communication skills.