IT outsourcing isn’t something extraordinary for many businesses today. However, entrepreneurs still have doubts about building their Internet-of-Things (IoT) products overseas. In fact, outsourcing IoT development is just another domain IT vendors offer to businesses, so any anxiety about having access to talents experienced in IoT software development is pointless.
Actually, 80% of companies don’t have enough IoT technology expertise to fully capitalize on their business opportunities, which means they have to look for external help. Such a heavy reliance on third-party expertise suggests that businesses can count on outsourcing companies concerning almost any aspect of their IoT projects.
Don’t fall the prey to prejudices and rumors, outsourcing IoT development is real and it’s actually a must. In this blog post, the JatApp team will explain to you why outsourcing IoT development isn’t a step into the void but a competitive advantage you need to take a hold of.
You can outsource anything
When we highlighted that outsourcing IoT development means that IT vendors can work on any component of your project we didn’t exaggerate. We are going to discuss the most prominent aspects of IoT development to assure you that your concerns about the accessibility of outsourcing IoT development are no more than a false prediction.
Hardware manufacturing
That’s not what software development agencies can do, but outsourcing hardware manufacturing for your IoT solution makes sense as any other aspect of the project. There are several reasons that you need to remember.
First, bringing manufacturing costs down is the most prominent factor. Even though you’re going to build several products, investing in your own manufacturing infrastructure is way too expensive. The scale of your business doesn’t matter: constructing a manufacturing site for a product line of connected devices literally means barking up the wrong tree.
Second, the timeliness of your product delivery matters a lot. Having your manufacturing infrastructure within no time is hardly possible, so you may lose all your market opportunities before your manufacturing process sets up. On the other hand, disruptions within your supply chain are also possible, but they are not as expensive and time-consuming as creating a manufacturing site from scratch.
The third reason is behind the research and development (R&D) capacity you may lack. The matter is that inventing your own IoT hardware requires relatable talent in-house that is expensive and requires time. In such a way, outsourcing R&D to the same group of experts every time you need a new IoT solution is more reasonable than having such a team full time and paying salary each month.
Overall, we even can’t find any sound reason why manufacturing your IoT hardware on your own is more reasonable than outsourcing it to a third party. Perhaps, you need to be fussy like Jai Fai, a well-known street food chef from Bangkok who doesn’t let anyone meddle with her cooking business.
App development
With IoT application development, you can appear in a different situation: you’ve got a full-fledged network but your team lacks expertise in software development. And that’s where IT outsourcing companies can help.
For example, JatApp’s client from Switzerland asked our team to develop web/ native mobile applications and an admin panel for their electric vehicles charging stations monitoring platform. The client offers a network of charging stations to businesses across Europe, which is why observing the performance and connectivity status of each charging point is essential for the customer.
The JatApp team managed to develop the app for electric vehicle drivers, businesses, and the charging stations provider. Every user group has their own set of features that enable them to monitor the status of charging stations, and in case any of the charging points doesn’t work, take a relatable action.
Solution’s user interface
User interface/User experience (UI/UX) design
You may have a super talented tech team that is professional, but you may still lack people who are no stranger to creating intuitive and convenient user interfaces. That’s why outsourcing UI/UX design is a credible way to pull up your socks in the respect of your product’s usability.
One of JatApp clients had a concept of IoT solution that required a delicate touch of modern and easy-to-understand UI/UX design. The client developed a building energy management system, which means that the user interface was expected to be as simple as possible and include a variety of unobvious yet important features at the same time.
Our UI/UX designer came up with a complete UI kit that reflects the core idea of the solution and is pleasing to the eye. A deep business analysis prompted creation of features that not only improve the user experience but also demonstrate an attention to details that make the solution stand out of the competition with similar energy efficiency IoT solutions.
System dashboard
Cloud support
Finding a DevOps specialist who does really know what they are doing (no irony intended) is hard, while hiring one that specializes in IoT cloud platforms is a far-fetched goal. Instead, delegating your IoT cloud support and device management to an outsourcing partner who takes care of recruitment and onboarding is a way to go for many businesses today. Solution that is as simple as a pie. Unlike the job DevOps experts do.
We told you it’s not easy
Software quality assurance and testing
IoT solutions have to meet high quality standards as well as any other digital product. Again, you need software quality assurance (QA) and testing from time to time, while hiring the whole testing team in-house isn’t reasonable unless you have several products running.
JatApp worked on the customer’s product, an autonomous platform for powerbank rental, and the project had challenges with hardware testing. Because of delivery delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the JatApp team had to soldier on and create a digital emulator to run all the tests. When the hardware arrived, the product release was successful, since the tests done with the emulator were 100% accurate.
Connected power banks and charging station
Data security
Security of IoT devices is always grimming for many businesses as exposure of users’ privacy places companies in a difficult ethical spot. Of course, it’s natural that businesses have a knowledge and skills gap in building a robust security for their IoT products, which is why outsourcing this aspect of IoT development is natural.
Seeking help from external IT professionals in this respect has the same reasons: foreign vendors can find talents with necessary expertise. For example, you can get access to the best talents in the world from Ukraine, which ranks first as a country with the top-level digital security knowledge base.
Data analytics
Speaking of data analytics, first of all we need to emphasize that many IoT solutions involve artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data analysis to process information gathered with smart sensors and other connected devices. Since data science is a relatively new field which requires deep knowledge, it’s also common that businesses don’t have relevant talents and don’t see much practical sense to hire data analysts full time.
Under these circumstances, filling skill gaps with talents across the world is a practice that is as common as outsourcing any other aspect of IoT development. Overall, you can see that outsourcing IoT development has no boundaries and you can delegate any tasks to an external software development service agency today.
Why you should outsource your IoT project to JatApp
We’ve already proved that outsourcing IoT development is as ordinary as outsourcing any other IT project. For that reason, the same benefits of outsourcing apply: cost savings, access to expertise, and speeding up the product delivery.
JatApp can provide you with all these benefits, regardless of your IoT project status. Our teams can easily integrate into your ongoing project, or you can come up to JatApp with just an intention to build an IoT product.
In case you need a brand-new product, JatApp, as a full-cycle development company, will help you through entire software development lifecycle (SDLC) that involves the following stages:
- Project requirements analysis
- Scope, time, and cost estimation
- Product discovery
- Requirements specification and creation of project roadmap
- UX prototyping
- UI prototyping
- Architecture design
- Establishment of development environment
- Code writing
- Code review
- Testing
- Code deployment
- Regression testing
- Project documenting
- Handling intellectual property rights and code
- Support, if you need to.
Needless to say, you can count on continuous cooperation with us if you intend to scale your business after gaining first revenue or getting new funding.
SDLC model we use in JatApp
On top of that, we need to note that the above mentioned procedure applies to cases when we provide project outsourcing or dedicated development team services. In addition to these engagement models, JatApp can offer extension of your team with our professionals or just manage a separate service like UI/UX design, quality assurance, support, and so on. If you need more information about our outsourcing engagement models, you can read our dedicated article.
All sorts of talent in one company
IoT development requires different roles to get involved in the project. That is why outsourcing some responsibilities to an IT agency is possible and actually inevitable as having that many tech professionals in one office isn’t a wise business decision.
Instead, you can hire lacking talents overseas without any hurdles. JatApp has all tech expertise you need for your IoT project, as we have been developing IoT solutions since 2015 and have access to the largest talent pool in Eastern Europe.
If you don’t want to run your business like Jai Fai we’ve mentioned in this article, tell us about your project. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
