The number of smartphone users in India is estimated to reach over 760 million in 2021. Globally, 3.8 billion users would be owning a smartphone in 2021.
This projection reminds me of a quote from an influential leader-
“If your plans don’t include mobile, your plans are not finished.”
Wendy Clark, former SVP at Coca-Cola and now CEO at DDB Worldwide
To be honest, I do not agree with the statement. Yes, for a very complex application, mobile plans may not be that good an option but it’s a rarity.
For example, I would not want to write software code on a tiny smartphone with my two thumbs. But I would still want to read my code, or of a Github repository on my phone, while I’m sipping tea with my geek friends, and discussing how to implement an intelligent recommendation engine with Tensorflow. Geek stuff.
Hope you got the idea.
Your entire business need not be on your target user’s phone, but there is always a segment of your business that can be on their smartphone. All you have to do is empathize with your users and find out what would help them.
Do businesses need to be on a smartphone?
How much time do people spend on mobile apps?
You would be amazed to know that people in India on average spend around 5-7 hours a day on their smartphones. Yes, that’s 1/3rd of our waking hours. Not sure if this is a good thing in general from the health perspective but it’s definitely something that no business can ignore in 2022.
What sort of applications do people spend their time on?
People are on the phone for their entertainment, networking, shopping, work, learning, healthcare, and banking needs. And businesses in their respective domains do not want to miss the opportunity that smartphone and the internet have opened up.
What are businesses doing to tap into the mobile opportunity?
Be it a retail & commerce business, pharma & healthcare business, or an enterprise from the education industry, everyone is hopping onto the digital transformation journey.
Examples of the solutions businesses are developing for their customers.
Human resources(HR) companies are getting into remote working, job & talent discovery platforms. Similarly, medical, pharmaceutical and healthcare enterprises are delivering telemedicine services, remote health monitoring, and care services. The hospitality and leisure industry players are attempting to replicate the offline premium experiences in their smartphone apps as well. Logistics and transportation companies are building applications to improve their operations. B2B FMCG players are transitioning into D2C brands.
The trends are similar in the automobiles, BFSI, sports, yoga, fitness, and lifestyle industry too.
Businesses must have a mobile plan if they can before it is too late. Here’s another interesting stat that supports my argument – 3 billion+ smartphone users are cumulatively downloading mobile apps 218 Billion+ times. That’s 70 apps per user.
Wow!
Now you see the opportunity, and the competition as well.
Once you are clear on whether mobile is part of your digital transformation plan, the big question that needs to be answered is “how to develop your mobile application”? Of course, not every business can afford to hire an entire development team. And so, a majority of small and large enterprises hire an IT outsourcing partner to develop their mobile application(s).
We shall now discuss why and how part of choosing an IT outsourcing company to digitally transform your business.
Why outsource mobile app development?
- Outsourcing helps you save a lot on mobile app development costs. App development could be a cost-intensive affair if you hire an in-house team. We’ve shared a detailed insight on how much it costs to develop a mobile application when you hire an in-house team, vs when you outsource. We also have discussed onshore, offshore development, and outsourcing mobile app development. Read the detailed insight on factors influencing app development cost. Also, you might be interested in knowing how to cut app development costs without sacrificing UIUX, Security, Features.
- You get to tap into the expertise of your outsourcing partner. They would have the experience of building 100s of apps and would know exactly what to build, how to build. They can take care of the app maintenance as well.
- As a bonus, if you have the right outsourcing partners, they give you crucial inputs on how you should approach your digital transformation journey – DOs and Don’ts.
- Most importantly, if the outsourcing partner is right and consultative, you won’t be burning your money on building irrelevant features. Instead, you would be developing an MVP-led mobile app using the agile development methodologies with the continuous development of new features, continuous testing of those mobile app features, and continuous integration of new features into your deployable builds.
- You get to focus on the business aspects that would be critical in the success of the app i.e., marketing, brand building, getting the operations right.
Choosing the right app development services provider is a tricky and the most critical part of outsourcing your app project. Why? 80% – 90% of mobile apps are abandoned right after a single-use. In fact, 77% of the daily active users (DAUs) abandon the app within three days of its installation.
We do agree, the numbers are scary and demotivating. But the motive behind sharing this is to understand what makes an app fail. It’s tough to believe but trust me we wrote an insight on how to build apps that would fail. Yes, we did.
On a high level, the following reasons could negatively affect the success chances of your app:
- Inadequate research on the product-market fit.
- A poor user interface, and user experience.
- Poor development practices.
- App crashes.
- Apps with poor security, or too many bugs.
- Lack of innovation
- Too late, too early to the market.
- Business & operational reasons – cash burn, poor bookkeeping, unsustainable business model, inefficient supply chain, etcetera
Your app development outsourcing partner can help you avoid the first 7 aforementioned reasons behind an app’s failure. Choosing the right outsourcing partner means you’re better equipped to take care of the 8th one.
Mobile app development is a crucial part of digitizing your enterprise or launching your new business or taking your existing business to the next level. You must not take it casually, in business we can’t afford to be lenient. So, I recommend investing sufficient time in evaluating the right outsourcing partner.
How to find the right app development outsourcing partner
We have put down a checklist to find the right app development, outsourcing partner. Do check it out.
Expertise, Experience, Design, and Development Practices
- Prior experience saves a lot of time on ‘homework’ thus reducing the turnaround time for developing the app. A proven track record of building projects on iOS and/or android will help the team members in understanding the product requirement easily.
- Cloud proficiency of your outsourcing partner is of equal importance. Wrong cloud configurations have forced businesses to shut their business, and the right cloud infrastructure has resulted in saving hundreds and thousands of dollars.
- Cross-platform app development may also be beneficial for your project in terms of cost, time, and maintenance efforts if your users are on both Android and iOS. React Native and Flutter are good cross-platform app development technologies. Read more about react-native and Flutter.
- Agile development practices, and DevSecOps are going to make things a lot breezy and swift as well during the development phase. Continuous integration, continuous testing, continuous delivery (CI/CD) are the standard norm in the development industry today. Not abiding by this should be a big red flag. Read more about CI/CD for react native applications using Fastlane.
- If your outsourcing partner offers Design thinking, UI/UX, Development, and app content as well – it’s a good thing. Because then it would be easy for the design, development, operations, and content team to interoperate. This results in faster development and less friction.
- AI, ml, data, blockchain, IoT, Edge, 5G, Beacon, and other trending technologies play a significant role in delivering a delightful user experience. The better you harness these technologies, the better the user experience you would be delivering.
References and Portfolio
We’re already in a review-driven digital world. As you would check hotel, restaurant, and product reviews, the same way you need to check reviews of your potential outsourcing vendor. Check their social profiles – especially LinkedIn. Explore their case studies for previous projects, the industry insights, and also the design, technology, and app architecture-related thoughts that they might have shared on the blog. Researching a bit about their cultural practices is also helpful.
In short, look out for their portfolio. It would speak a lot about their experience and expertise.
App Development Cost
The budget matters too. Some outsourcing companies charge $150/hour, some charge $15/hour. The range varies depending on their location and experience. You need to find an app development company that could deliver the project within your target budget. Read this article to find out the mathematics behind app development costs. It’s a comprehensive article. Highly recommended read.
Time-zone, Collaboration, and Communication Process
As we discussed, the time zone of your outsourcing partners matters. You must have overlapping working hours to work in sync with the development team. India is a great location in terms of talent availability and has a good share of overlapping working time with the USA, UK, France, Australia, and UAE.
You should outsource to people who speak your tongue or if you speak their language. This is equally important, you need to convey and receive the message right. Else, there might be unwanted gaps in communication. And misunderstanding in tech and design can lead to terrible things.
If your development team uses the same collaboration tool that your team is used to, then the engagement would be real smooth.
Maintenance and support guarantee
Depending on your future plans, you should also ask the company if they would be willing to continue maintaining the app post-development. Technology updates often require you to modify and upgrade your app as well. Trust me, maintenance is not easy. So, it’s better if you hire a maintenance team or let the development partner take care of it. Do check their app maintenance offerings.
Integrity and authenticity
Lastly, I would recommend evaluating your partners on humane levels as well. The way they communicate, how they treat you, and most importantly their past track record speaks a lot about their integrity, authenticity, honesty, and other humane values. It’s safe to work with highly transparent, empathizing, responsible, and understanding people than arrogant and careless professionals.
Wrapping up
At Codewave, we strive to meet all the aforementioned criteria. We are out here to help entrepreneurs and enterprises make an impact, leave a mark. Choosing the right outsourcing partner is as critical as choosing your life partner. Outsourcing can help you not just save cost, but it can buy you time to focus on building your business and operations while avoiding the pain associated with hiring a development team and setting the wheels in motion.
Codewave is a team of 90+ development, design, and marketing professionals who give their best to make you succeed. We’re a people-first, customer-centric, design thinking-led digital transformation company.
Check what our clients say on Clutch.
You can also reach us at hello@codewave.com or call us at +91-897-182-4910
Thanks for reading this insight. Please do subscribe to our newsletter for more updates on app development, and the latest in design, tech, and culture.
Credits: This article is written by Mala & Nishant.
Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)
How do you outsource the development of a mobile app?
You can find an IT services provider agency or a digital transformation company, with whom you can partner to get your app developed. These IT services companies usually have a lot of app development experience and are great to team up with. For example, codewave has experience of building over 350 apps including some of the leading startups in foodTech, AgTech, EdTech, and eCommerce segment.
How do I find the best outsourcing company for mobile app development?
To find the best IT outsourcing company, either you can rely on a known consultant in your network or research about top development companies in your city or in a remote location. You can also refer to b2b IT services companies discovery platforms. Codewave has been part of Clutch’s Global 1000 back to back for three consecutive years.
How much does it cost to hire a company to build an app?
Typically, as explained in our article on \”how much it costs to develop an app\”, app development projects costs between $20k to $200k and above.
How much does it cost to outsource app development in India?
If you’re developing an app and want to outsource to India, then any good IT agency here would charge you in the range $25 – $150 per hour. Depending on the features that needs to be built into an app, the development hours will vary, and so would the project cost. Usually, it is in the range $20k to $200k.
