Why You Should Outsource Your Mobile App Development (to Romania)
Outsourcing: yay or nay?
While it might sound like the clickbait title of a YouTube tutorial, it’s a question that many entrepreneurs and business owners ask themselves when it comes to mobile app development. Should I handle the development of my app in-house? Should I outsource it? Which is the right choice for me? And last but not least, How do I pick the right product partner to work with?
The easiest way to explain outsourcing is with real-life examples we use in our daily lives without even realizing it. We outsource our cleaning duties to a cleaning company or dry cleaning business. We outsource certain chores or repairs to a repairman, carpenter, electrician, and so on. We even outsource our cooking and grocery shopping and have all the items delivered to our door. Nowadays, we don’t even have to see our delivery person face to face and opt for contactless delivery.
Why outsourcing?
Why do we delegate tasks and chores in our daily lives? Simple: to save time, time that we want to spend on other things that are more important to us. In business, outsourcing works the same way. We delegate certain tasks and projects to other people and use our time to focus on different objectives, like meeting with potential or existing clients, strategizing, and growing a business.
In some cases, you’ll have a project in the pipeline that’s not exactly the main focus of your business. You might not have the budget to hire someone new, or an entire team, to work on this project, so you look for a development partner that can take on the heavy work. It’s the same when it comes to mobile app development services. You might have a great idea for a mobile app, but don’t have enough expertise or manpower in your team to get the job done on time.
The solution? Outsourcing your mobile app development to a team of experts like X2 Mobile. As an experienced mobile app development agency, this is our bread and butter, and we’re here to help busy business owners focus on growing their business, while we work on delivering a great mobile app to support their goals.
The 3 types of outsourcing
Outsourcing works in different ways, and businesses have three main options to consider when looking to work with a product partner. Below we’ll go over what the three types of outsourcing entail.
Nearshore means outsourcing to countries located close to the client, with similar time zones. For instance, a nearshore location for the United States would be Mexico.
Offshore refers to outsourcing to far-away countries with considerable time zone differences. In this case, an offshore location for the United States would be India.
Onshore is outsourcing to service providers located in the same country as the client.
So, depending on your location and overall business goals, you might prefer to work with someone in your own country, with people that you can meet face to face now and then, or outsource to teams located in other countries or even other continents.
What are some of the factors to consider when deciding between these three types of outsourcing?
Costs - if cost-saving is crucial to you, and you don’t have a big budget to dedicate to a new mobile app, you will place more importance on price than on location or time zone. In this case, you’ll usually end up going with offshore outsourcing as the most cost-effective option.
Convenience & collaboration - if collaboration and convenience are important to you, and budget is not a critical factor, you can narrow down your options to product partners located in neighboring countries, aka nearshore. That way, you’ll share a similar schedule and be able to communicate whenever there is a need for it.
Efficient communication - if communication and availability are important factors for you, then you might want to look for experts located in your country who speak the same language. If you want to establish a close rapport, onshore outsourcing offers the possibility to meet face to face to brainstorm, problem-solve, or strategize.
What are the benefits of outsourcing?
While it can be fun and challenging to build your next mobile product in-house, it’s not always the most cost-effective or time-effective option. Outsourcing allows you to have a dedicated team working on your mobile app development full-time, without creating an entirely new department within your own company to that end. It also unlocks various other benefits, and below you will find the one we consider to be the most important:
Outsourcing lets you grow rapidly
Regardless of the industry or type of business you're running, you would benefit greatly from having more staff on hand, even if you can’t afford to hire and support full-time employees. Outsourcing works as an extension of your in-house team, and most importantly, it gives you more freedom. You can put the brakes on a project and end the collaboration if you need to, without putting people out of work. That works both ways: if you need more people on a certain project, you can make it happen, and fast. Ultimately, working like this will help you complete projects quicker and be able to speed up overall growth.
Outsourcing helps you retain flexibility
When outsourcing your mobile app development, you can start, pause, or stop whenever you want (while respecting the terms of your contract, of course). If you need more people on board during a busy season or the holidays, you can get help from an outside team. If you’re having a slow month, you can put certain tasks on hold. Outsourcing allows you to be flexible and have extra help at the ready, whenever you need it.
Outsourcing gives you access to top talent
We all know how hard it can be to recruit top talent for your company, and how long it can take. Outsourcing breaks down recruiting barriers, giving you access to talent all across the world who can work for you remotely. Agencies can attract top talent to ensure customer satisfaction and competitive results for clients, and as their client, you will also benefit from this. Not to mention the fact that you’ll avoid all the hassle of the recruitment process. By outsourcing, you can benefit from top skills and expertise that you might not have otherwise been able to attract in-house.
Hard at work in our downtown Cluj-Napoca office
Outsourcing helps you maintain company focus
Developing a new mobile product from scratch is no easy task, and it can be extremely costly and time-consuming to do it in-house. As a business owner or entrepreneur, you won’t have the bandwidth to grow your business while also working on developing new products. By outsourcing your mobile app development needs, you will have more time to focus on bringing in new clients, keeping existing clients satisfied, while an experienced agency works to build the product you need.
Outsourcing allows you to fail fast and minimize your losses
Building an in-house team or department to develop a new mobile product will greatly increase your costs and effort. Unfortunately, sometimes all that effort won’t pay off. If your product ends up failing, it will have a massive impact on your business, and you’ll be tasked with deciding the fate of an entire department. Working with certified product partners helps you minimize your risks and losses and survive a worst-case scenario without having to put anyone out of work.
Why should you outsource to Romania?
Now that we’ve gone over the main benefits of outsourcing, let’s talk about why you should outsource your mobile app development to Romania. As a company based in Cluj-Napoca, we might be biased, but there are several objective reasons why many international companies choose to outsource their product development to our country.
Romanian companies are ideal providers of nearshore and offshore software outsourcing services, both in terms of custom software development and maintenance and support. It might not be the most cost-effective outsourcing destination at the moment, but it offers several advantages that make it worthwhile. An ideal location in the heart of Europe, tech-savviness, stellar people skills, mastery of international languages - these are just some of the benefits of outsourcing to Romania.
The language barrier is sometimes overlooked when businesses scout for a product partner, and unfortunately it’s a factor that can impact the success of the collaboration tremendously. Something that sets our country apart is that most people in Romania are fluent in English, which makes communication with international clients seamless and effective. At the same time, the culture, vibe, and overall business mindset is very similar to what you might experience in the U.S., which is an important factor when it comes to client relationships.
Romania joined the European Union in 2007, which broke down barriers and made it a lot easier and safer for international businesses to work with Romanian companies. Clients in the tech industry value stability and long-term relationships, and most Romanian companies maintain dedicated teams for each client. That’s also our experience at X2 Mobile, as we usually partner with clients for many years. One of our clients, Classlink, has been working with us for more than eight years now - not that we’re counting.
Investors have been keeping a close eye on the IT market in Romania, noticing its progress. As a result, capital investment in Romanian tech companies is also on the rise, as you can see below in a chart from the State of European Tech Report 2020.
What’s more, Romania ranks 32nd in A.T. Kearney’s Global Services Location Index (GSLI) 2021, placing it higher than the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Ireland, Finland, or Australia, among others. The index ranks the most attractive offshore destinations, taking into account four main criteria: financial attractiveness, people skills and availability, business environment, and digital resonance.
Why outsource to Cluj-Napoca (and X2 Mobile)?
You’re now starting to understand why Romania is a desirable destination for technology investors and software development outsourcing. Now we’re going to go over a few reasons why Cluj-Napoca should be at the top of your list of Romanian cities to zoom in on. We’ve been calling this city home for many years now, and we’ve got insider knowledge of what makes it a great market for mobile app development outsourcing.
Convenience and accessibility
Cluj-Napoca offers just a one-hour time difference from Central Europe and just two hours time difference from GMT. The city’s international airport easily connects you to every part of Europe and the world, so geographically, you couldn't find a better place.
Top-tier talent
Home to a prestigious Technical University that attracts students from all across the country and even abroad, Cluj-Napoca provides access to a large pool of skilled software engineers who are used to collaborating and working in international teams.
Cost versus quality
Romania is not the cheapest country for software development services; however, it offers high-quality services and access to junior, mid-level, and senior-level developers. You might not afford to hire an in-house senior developer to work on your product, but by outsourcing to Cluj-Napoca, you can work with one without breaking your budget.
Long-term professional relationships
At X2 Mobile, each new person who joins our team will most likely be with us in the long run. We take good care of everyone, and we enjoy communication and transparency; as a result, our average employee retention is roughly four years. This long-term mentality ensures we have a well-knit team that works together seamlessly. Moreover, it reduces the know-how loss that happens when someone leaves the team. This is true of most software development companies in the city.
Team fun in Cluj-Napoca
Future growth and retention prospects
The IT market in Cluj-Napoca continues to grow every year, as more students move into the city every autumn. More than 22,000 students enroll at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca each year, most of them majoring in Engineering and Computer Software. The high density of top talent in the city attracts companies from across the globe. Flutter, Endava, Bosch, Chili Piper, and Cognizant Softvision are just a few companies that have established a presence in Cluj-Napoca.
Before you go…
This article lists all the reasons we think outsourcing is a cost-effective and time-effective option when it comes to product development. Now, we’ll let you think it over and choose the right strategy for your next mobile product.
If you’re still not convinced that Romania is the best choice for you, but you’d like to learn more about this market, feel free to reach out to us at X2 Mobile. Our team of dedicated developers and designers is ready to make your product idea a reality.