Successful businesses built with IT outsourcing services: Examining cases and benefits of the approach

A 2022 survey revealed that 73% of tech leaders find it challenging to recruit tech professionals and fill their open positions. In this climate, maintaining an in-house team becomes increasingly costly and inconvenient, sparking a new trend — delegating the organization’s technical tasks to third-party IT companies. It’s hardly surprising that the IT outsourcing market hit a staggering $522 billion in 2021, with predictions pointing towards a swell to $689 billion by 2027.

In this article, we’ll delve into the range of IT outsourcing services, explore why outsourcing is an efficient approach to custom software and application development, and highlight the companies already harnessing the power of IT outsourcing services.

What IT outsourcing services do startups and small businesses need?

As we delve deeper into the realm of IT services for startups, it becomes clear that numerous services are fundamental to a company’s growth and success in the digital arena. Here, we explore an array of such key services that can make the life of a startup entrepreneur easier:

Custom software development

At the heart of many startup strategies is this highly sought-after IT outsourcing service — custom software development. This process is far more than just writing code, as it involves a multitude of tasks ranging from initial analytics and UI/UX design to infrastructure building, deployment, and post-release maintenance.

Custom software development enables a precise fit for a business’s distinctive needs and visions, helping them create unique digital solutions that reflect their brand and appeal to their target audience. Utilizing an experienced IT outsourcing service provider for this task can equip startups with tailor-made software products, giving them a competitive edge in their respective markets.

IT consulting and analytics

In 2022, many startups failed due to issues like poor timing, not having the right team, creating products that were hard to use, or producing something no one wanted. Thankfully, these problems can often be avoided with help from IT consulting and analytics services supplied by third-party IT companies.

Startups can often struggle to make the right strategic decisions or predict future trends. This is where IT consulting and analytics from an outsourced team can be a good help. Such services can guide startups on what features to include in their app or website. They can also provide accurate timelines for development, and make sure products are released when needed – like before a big event or investor pitch.

By decreasing resource wastage and helping avoid missteps, IT consulting and analytics can be a worthy investment. These services from IT outsourcing companies give startups the additional support needed to successfully navigate the competitive marketplace.

UI/UX design and branding

Stepping into the digital world with your own app or website requires a significant focus on UI/UX design. This task is among IT outsourcing services that can be easily handled by an external team. A standout design doesn’t just make your product easy to use, but it can also demonstrate the viability of your concept to potential investors. Plus, a carefully constructed design can help provide accurate estimates of both the project timeline and the costs involved.

Outsourcing these design needs can help startups achieve impressive, user-friendly UI/UX designs and consistently strong branding. This doesn’t just ensure a product looks good; a quality design enhances the user experience, effectively conveys the brand’s identity, and helps validate a project’s feasibility. All of these benefits make investing in professional design services a smart move for startups.

By the way, our team can help you build a unique design for your app, branding elements, or hand-drawn illustrations. You can have a look at our full portfolio on Dribbble.

Coding and infrastructure building

Coding and Infrastructure building are key aspects of IT outsourcing services that provide the backbone for any digital product. Coding transforms designs into interactive interfaces, while a solid infrastructure ensures a product’s performance, scalability, and security.

Hiring an in-house team for these tasks can be expensive and challenging for startups, especially considering the need for a full team of developers, each with their own specific expertise. Plus, staying abreast of rapidly evolving tech trends can also be a struggle.

This makes outsourcing an excellent solution. Not only does it offer cost savings, but a competent IT outsourcing team can deliver superior coding, advise on technologies that best fit the project and budget, enhance user experience, and simplify maintenance, proving to be an invaluable asset for any organization.

QA

The importance of quality assurance (QA) in the digital product lifecycle cannot be overstressed. QA ensures that your product meets the intended design, functionality, and usability standards, significantly enhancing user satisfaction. By choosing IT outsourcing services for QA, startups can access expert testers and state-of-the-art testing tools. Such services also help prevent costly repairs and reputation damage by identifying issues early in the development process.

Data engineering

As we operate in the age of Big Data, data engineering has become a leading player in unlocking the value of data accumulation. It plays a critical role in gathering, processing, and analyzing data to generate meaningful business insights.

By leveraging IT outsourcing services, startups have access to skilled data engineers who can structure and manage a robust data infrastructure. Such a strategic setup supports data-driven decision-making and fosters a landscape for the startup to thrive and stay competitive in the market.

A practical example of how data engineering can enhance decision-making might be in a retail startup. Through advanced data collection and analysis techniques, data engineering can provide insights about customer buying behavior, peak shopping hours, popular product categories, and even predict future sales trends. And the benefits of effective usage of data go far beyond the retail sphere!

Maintenance

The role of post-release product maintenance in ensuring uninterrupted performance, robust security, and consistent user satisfaction is incredibly significant. Maintenance involves a broad spectrum of tasks like updates, bug fixing, performance optimization, and routine security checks.

Working with an in-house team vs. IT outsourcing services

Choosing the right approach for your IT needs can depend on several factors, such as the specifics of your project, the timelines, and your budget. Three common approaches include hiring an in-house team, working with freelancers, or utilizing IT outsourcing services.

An in-house team is often chosen for long-term projects that require ongoing communication and feedback. An in-house team provides the benefit of having tech experts readily available who intimately understand your product and its vision. However, assembling such a team can be costly and time-consuming.

Freelancers provide a flexible and often more affordable alternative. They can bring a wealth of specialized skills to the table, making them ideal for short-term projects or individual tasks. However, coordinating multiple freelancers can be challenging, and ensuring consistent quality may require additional effort.

An in-house team or a team of freelancers coordinated by the organization can be very expensive especially if you will need to develop a custom application or website since all the specialists required for developing a product from scratch charge a certain amount of money. Here’s the table with hourly rates that we found on Upwork.

IT outsourcing services fall somewhere in between. They offer startups the advantage of having a dedicated team without the overhead costs or recruitment challenges of an in-house team. These services are known for their flexibility, expertise, and reliability, making them suitable for both short and long-term projects and especially for custom software development. This is due to third-party teams usually having several types of experts on board, and each of them can significantly contribute to the quality of the developed product.

Each approach has its merits — in-house teams offer deep involvement and continuous development, freelancers are perfect for specialized, short-term tasks, and IT outsourcing services provide a blend of features of the other two.

Let’s have a look at successful businesses built with IT outsourcing services

Let’s think of IT outsourcing as akin to visiting a hairdresser. You might have a general sense of the style you want, but your hairdresser has the specific tools, skills, and expertise to bring that vision to life. Just as you would trust your hairdresser to give you a hairstyling that suits your persona, businesses trust external IT teams to shape their digital vision efficiently and effectively. Here we’ll review a few cases of businesses that chose an outsourcing approach when solving their tech problems.

Design and development for Slack

Among the remarkable success stories of businesses that have harnessed the power of IT outsourcing stands Slack, a cloud-based collaboration tool. Slack’s creator, Stewart Butterfield, was keen on growing the business but lacked the necessary design expertise. So, he turned to IT outsourcing services.

MetaLab, a Canadian design team, was brought on board to assist Slack in stepping up from its beta version. They took over the crucial tasks of developing the app, shaping the brand, and crafting the marketing website. Thanks to their input, Slack evolved into a powerful tool attracting 15,000 users within just two weeks of launch and raised a whopping $5 billion by July 2017. As of 2020, Slack boasts over 10 million daily users and is projected to reach around 80 million by 2025.

Backend development for GitHub

GitHub, a popular open-source website that hosts software development projects using Git, enjoys a loyal following of over 94 million developers. They rely on GitHub for their projects and to connect with fellow developers.

To set up the crucial backend of the website, the company opted for IT outsourcing services and brought in Chacon, who is now GitHub’s CIO. Through outsourcing, GitHub was able to bring on board some of the industry’s best experts to construct its robust backend.

In GitHub’s success story, IT outsourcing proves to be a strategic approach that not only ensures the highest quality standards but also optimizes resources and saves money.

Improved data management for chains of hotels and resorts

Companies may need assistance not only with developing software from scratch but also with solving specific issues, such as data management challenges. Take, for example, the Wyndham resort chain, which turned to an IT company to help them streamline their data operations. The majority of hotels in their network operate as franchises and use different systems for data management, making it difficult for loyalty members to view their stays or point accruals in real time.

By leveraging IT outsourcing services, the company managed to consolidate its data storage into a single cloud system, which made its loyalty program more efficient, reduced manual data handling by staff and minimized data loss occurrences. As a result, the company’s relationships with its customers significantly improved.

Framework migration and scalability for WaitWhile

WaitWhile, a popular cloud-based tool for managing client queues and bookings, quickly gained traction and found itself in need of rapid scaling. Despite having a well-received base app, the company’s technological proficiency was limited, leading them to turn to IT outsourcing services.

Teaming up with an external IT team, WaitWhile was able to expand and maintain its platform. They introduced new features and significantly improved user experience. By leveraging IT outsourcing services for software development, WaitWhile fast-tracked the introduction of new features and functionalities to its platform, successfully meeting burgeoning demand.

Cases for Ronas IT portfolio

By the way, our team helps businesses with all sorts of services, like app design, software development, data management, DevOps, and even support after launching a product. In this part of the article, we’re going to share some examples from our own portfolio to show how we’ve helped different businesses with their specific needs.

Building a mobile web application to monetize the database of luxury apartments

UK Retreats, a company dedicated to providing users with unique and affordable stays across the UK, sought to monetize its existing database of accommodations. To achieve this goal, they turned to IT outsourcing services and found a contractor to bring their idea to reality.

Our collaboration began with designing the product’s UI/UX by drawing inspiration from both negative and positive examples. While working with this product, we developed a filtration system that made it super easy to find suitable apartments and pay for them. As a result, the UK Retreats team received a fully functional platform that has now garnered 10,000 downloads.

Creating UI/UX design for inclusive mental health app

Mind Easy is an app dedicated to improving the mental health of individuals from diverse backgrounds and abilities. Recognizing the need to revamp their existing application, the Mind Easy team approached us for a fresh and inclusive redesign.

Our collaboration began with thorough competitor research and the creation of a new app concept. We carefully considered user flow and experimented with elements such as animation and dark mode, ultimately opting for a simpler approach that aligned with the latest guidelines set by the App Store and Google Play.

Through multiple iterations and a keen understanding of Mind Easy’s vision, we successfully redesigned the app, incorporating inclusivity and modernity. While we did not proceed with the development phase as the existing app met our client’s technical requirements, we provided a comprehensive UI kit that facilitated the implementation of the new design by their development team.

By partnering with us and utilizing our IT outsourcing services, Mind Easy was able to breathe new life into its app, ensuring a user-friendly experience that aligns with industry standards.

Developing an ecosystem of apps for a shipping service

ShipMe is an ecosystem consisting of multiple mobile and web apps designed to ease parcel delivery services. As a prominent delivery auction platform operating in Saudi Arabia, ShipMe’s objective was to connect customers with carriers through a seamless shipping service app.

In the process of delivering IT outsourcing services for ShipMe, our team elaborated the app’s workflow, taking into account the needs of various users. We developed distinct apps catering to four different roles: customers requesting delivery, individual and corporate shippers, and corporate managers.

We collaborated with the ShipMe team to create a corporate logo that reflected their brand essence as well as ensured that the interface was available in both English and Arabic, catering to a diverse user base. The result of our collaboration was a fully-functioning and user-friendly interface for ShipMe’s complex shipping service.

Wrapping up

IT outsourcing services are a cost-effective solution that allows businesses to access top talent worldwide without the need for relocation or extensive hiring. The successful examples presented in this article demonstrate the transformative power of outsourcing when approached wisely.

Whether you are a startup or an industry leader, outsourcing can take your business to new heights. It is important to identify your needs and choose a compatible vendor to fully harness the benefits of IT outsourcing services. By doing so, you can optimize your operations and achieve remarkable success.