Agile methods have created different new challenges in the field of risk management. In modern software application development projects, security has become a significant part of the product. Software development projects are very complex and can quickly go off track if something went wrong thus, risk management is an integral part of the software application development process. Software security and risk management are not just something a business might do if even if time and resources are available. Risk management must be introduced at the planning stage and must be evaluated and assessed throughout the whole development cycle.

Agile software development methods are focused on delivering the possible maximum benefit to the business. Using existing models together with some new ideas, application developers can come up with a solution to manage the risks even before the problem starts.

Agile Risk Management

The agile risk management approach is based on frequent feedback and iteration. The development team together with the product owners are working together to help keep the project moving and achieve the goals that will deliver the highest value first. In this approach, the high-level goals of the project and constraints are defined in the planning stage and the progress is tracked against these factors and is adjusted depending on the situation to ensure completion and success.

Agile project plans are revisited and adjusted frequently. This means that a usable software system should also be available at the same time. The combination of frequently iterating the plan and having continuous working software means that completion can happen earlier than the deadline even if the plan changes dramatically. If something goes wrong in an agile project, the developers can still deliver a software system that has the highest priority features that have the highest value possible for the business.

It is also important to note that the team members can’t be part of the agile workforce unless they acknowledge that the project will always face uncertainties during the process. Rather than taking comfort in a plan, they take comfort in the fact that they can adapt to these changes and still be successful.  A challenge in adopting the agile method is to get everyone in the team and the business side to get involved and agree that agile planning is the more reasonable approach to software development. This means establishing agile practices for iterative planning is part of the project.

The Five Steps of Agile Project Management

1. Identify

   Identifying the risks is the most basic step in agile project management. Risk can have two-dimensional influences: The first dimension is a simple assessment of factors that can either be Helpful or Harmful for the project and the second dimension is the identification of the source of the Risk that can either be External or Internal.

   Identifying these a two-dimensional assessment together provides the classic SWOT Analysis of the project: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It is important to understand these factors that even though we may have no control over the threats, we can develop processes to manage or minimize the effects on the software development project.

2. Classify

   After identifying the risks, it needs to be categorized according to the likelihood and level of impact it may have on the project. These categories may or may not be prescriptive, but these can be divided into factors like scope, impact, resources, solution, budget, timeline, and privacy and security. Although scope and resources are primarily relevant to the software development team, these can have a significant impact on the other categories that may affect the overall outcome of the project.

3. Quantify

   How do businesses go about measuring the risks? Impact and probability can help measure the risks effects and other factors. The impact of risk is a measure of its effect on the project. It can range from minimal, where the consequences would be very small up to extreme where effects will surely affect the success of the project. Risks on a minimal range can be solved faster than the higher-level ones. Although these levels of risks cannot hinder the success of the project, these can turn into a more difficult one if left unnoticed.

   If there is a very high probability of a certain risk, then it should have the attention of the team. Conversely, if there is a very low probability of the risk being realized, then it is likely that it should receive less attention from the team. We thus need to ensure that the greatest attention is focused on the Risks with the highest occurrence probability. The following chart provides a suggested scale for assessing the probability of Risk manifestation.

4. Plan and Manage

   There are numerous techniques for risks management. Before the planning started, businesses must remember that it is not possible to eliminate all risks. Risk planning is all about contingency planning. After identifying, assessing, and quantifying the possible risks for the project, risk analysis leads to deriving a few effective risk responses.

   Risk management requires the involvement of stakeholders and software developers in interactive ways, as experience is the best means for managing these risks. Risk management should also be integrated with the decision-making processes to manage the projects more effectively, as risk management reveals the different rationales for making appropriate decisions.

5. Act and Fail and Act again

   The act is simply that. It is the actual implementation of the defined risk management and mitigation strategies. Well, it’s not that simple. Human nature is such that we tend to put off the things that aren’t challenging and fun, interesting or that might be just boring or just plain hard work. This is project suicide when it comes to risk management. While it is imperative that high-risk items will be dealt with first, deferring performance testing up to the last stage of the project and finding out that some features are not achievable in the remaining time frame can be the death of the project.

   “What this teaches us, is that although failure can be painful and although we as people we have developed an aversion to it, it actually can allow us to unlock the great potential” – Dr. Anna Powers  The “Fail Early” phrase is becoming very popular in the world of venture capital. What do potato chips, Post-It Notes, pacemakers, penicillin, and Silly Putty all have in common? They were all created by making mistakes. In fact, in each case, the inventor was attempting to create something completely different and thought that he had failed with the final product. Of course, as decades have gone by and profits have been made, the benefit of hindsight tells us that these so-called failures were actually triumphs. It’s like that old adage about Thomas Edison and the light bulb: When questioned on his many failures, he retorted that he hadn’t failed 10,000 times, but succeeded in finding 10,000 methods that wouldn’t work. – Forbes.

   It might sound crazy at first but in the essence of agile risk management, it means figuring out as early as possible during the process if a certain solution will succeed or not.  These findings are essentially the go-no-go for your project. If success is not possible, either stop what you’re doing and do the next possible step and move on to something else. This could also be a good opportunity to rethink the project and come at it from a different angle. Either way, do the gnarly, risky, and difficult stuff upfront.

   Failure has the added benefit that it helps you define different boundaries of the system and sets team expectations as to what is possible and realistic and what is impossible and unrealistic. It could even bring light unrealistic success criteria KPIs and can even change the definition of project success. When this happens, the project will live under a revised and more realistic set of approaches to managing stakeholder expectations. It may also stimulate commitments like a larger budget or easier access to key people.

   As obvious and as simple as this may sound, it is amazing how often such high critical risk items are left until the final stages of the software development project. Over the years, this is one of the biggest reasons for project failure. Do the risky stuff first, fail early, and do it again.

6. Repeat

   This part of the agile risk management process is very lightweight and very quick to perform. As discussed above, identifying the risks is the most basic step, and implementing appropriate risk planning and mitigation strategies for each risk identified is essential to the success of projects, may it be related to software development or not. Done properly, it is a continuous virtuous circle of processes to constantly identify, manage and minimize the risks in different projects.

   For software application development, an agile plan will only work if the code is adaptable enough. This means technical practices should also be established to make it possible to deploy a system frequently and evolve the code to meet the changing software requirements easily.

The field of software development is diverse. Software development isn’t all about the code. In fact, coding is a part of the overall development project lifecycle. Irrespective of what kind of software application product is being developed, outsourcing or not, there are a series of phases or processes that are carried out during the software application development. Companies, including outsourcing firms, have between four and six phases for their projects.

The typical software development phases would be as follows.

1. Project initiation

   The initiation phase is the approval process of the project details.  Generally, it is when the project manager is defined and when it commences. Later on in the next phases, the project manager’s effort along with other responsible individuals for the project will define the overall schedule and other project-related needs.

2. Systems engineering

   In this phase, the work begins by establishing the different requirements for all necessary system elements and then allocating some to a subset of these requirements to develop the software. This system is essential when software must be compatible with other elements such as databases, hardware, and people. Systems engineering also includes the gathering of requirements at the system level with a small amount of top-level design and analysis.

3. Requirements analysis and definition.

   This phase begins by analyzing what exactly must be done to complete the project. After project initiation, the software development starts with the identification of the requirements noted in the systems engineering phase and ends with the formal verification of the developed software in line with those requirements. The requirements gathering process is focused specifically on what type of software is being developed. To understand the nature of the programs to be built, the software engineer needs to understand the information domain for the software, as well as what are the required functions, different behavior, performance, and interfacing. It is in this phase that the requirements are formally documented so it can serve as a solid foundation for software engineering. This phase also defines the functionality and the performance of the proposed program and system.

   Generally, it is the requirement analyst’s duty to take care of the requirements in any software development project.  Based on the different types and levels of software requirements, the analyst prepares the document with different specifications for both onsite and offshore before and after the project transfer.

4. Levels and Types of Requirements

   • Functional:

     These are the requirements that specify how the software system should perform, how the data in the program can be manipulated.

   • Non-Functional:

     These are the requirements supporting the primary and functional requirements. Non-functional characteristics like software quality can define the product output.

   • User Requirements:

     These are the requirements that define what the software system must-do for the users or the market to perform their different tasks and objectives. Sometimes multiple user-level requirements exist to satisfy more than one business requirement.

   • Interface:

     These are what define data or information flow from the software to different external devices available like fax, printer, shared resources, and other software applications that are connected outside the main software product.

   • Performance:

     They are requirements that deal with system performance such as how the system should react in different instances and how should it respond to user interactions.

   • Data:

     These requirements deal with the manipulation of data and where it should be stored etc.

   • Security requirements:

     These requirements are the most important when the project is being sent overseas or offshore where security risks are very high. These requirements deal with all the possible security issues in the project

   Requirements validation and management come next. This is the last step in the process of requirements development wherein the identified requirements are validated to ensure that they are clear, complete, and are written correctly for customer satisfaction. This step may lead to the iteration of the other steps in the software development process if there are gaps, defects, and other issues. One of the validation mechanisms that can be conducted is peer evaluation of the document that contains requirement specifications. Peer evaluation is known to have the highest priority in the detection of possible software gaps and defects.

   Requirements management is the tracking of the requirements from the start to the deployment of the project.  It is composed of a different set of activities that will assist the project team to identify, track and control requirements and changes at any time throughout the software development project. This also involves an analysis of the requested changes, approving or disapproving the changes needed, and implementation of those changes. Requirements management also takes care of keeping and tracking consistent project plans and status in the ongoing software development process.

5. Design and Development.

   The design and development phase represents the “how” phase. It is the longest phase of the project and is the most expensive when it comes to cost. This is where most of the project expenses are allocated. The product architecture is developed, and this is also when the design is broken down into detailed information until the software modules can be specified and the coding process begins. Details on computer programming languages, environments, packages, machines, distributed architecture layering, application architecture, platform, memory size, algorithms, global type definitions, data structures, interfaces, and many other engineering details are all established in this phase.

   During the design phase, S/W Design Interface Analysis, S/W Design Evaluation, Software Design Traceability Analysis, and Test Plan Evaluation are also carried out. Depending on the design method being implemented, the design model comprises a data design, an architectural design, component-level design, and an interface design. Data objects are translated into data structures that reside within the software itself.

   At a higher level of concept, data design may lead to the definition of a database architecture or a data warehouse.  In software applications, the data architecture will have a profound influence on the software architecture that will process the data objects and structures.  At the program component level, data structure design and the associated algorithms are required.

6. Testing and Integration

   Software testing has been identified as the basic form to identify defects for the majority of software projects. In general, software testing is a one-step software process that is often viewed as destructive rather than constructive because of its nature. Software testing is also done as a defined process of software system execution to determine its compliance with the specifications noted during the first few phases.

   The testing phase starts with creating different test cases to demolish the built software system. Once the coding has been done, the program testing begins. The software testing process focuses on its logical internals, assuring that all possible statements have been tested, the functional externals are uncovering errors, and ensuring that the defined data inputs will produce actual results that meet with required results. After the first phase of testing is done, the product is integrated into its operating environment. The phase typically ends when the users or clients sign off on the user acceptance or agreement results.

   Any software engineering project can be tested in two different ways. The first testing is to check whether each software function is fully operational, while at the same time searching for errors in each different function. One good example of this is black-box testing. Second testing is where the internal operations of defined functions are tested. This is the most commonly known example of white box testing.

   Unit testing begins at concentrating on each unit, function, or component of the software system. Then the spiral progresses outwards to integration testing where the design and software architecture are tested and investigated carefully. Moving more outwards of the software system spiral is the validation testing that concentrates on the validation of the different requirements against the software requirements that is being constructed.  Finally, the system testing where the software is built is tested together with the other components like hardware peripherals and shared resources that can be connected to the software once it's ready for launch.

7. Deployment and Maintenance

   The deployment and maintenance phase is the installation of the software product into the different production environments available. The software project is officially over at this point and the finished product enters the software maintenance period. The software will undergo different changes after it is delivered to the customer, so the software support and maintenance re-applies each time of the preceding phases of the existing program rather than a new one.

   In some outsourcing environments, each phase starts with the same processes and ends with the implementation of that phase in an outsourcing environment. When the total software application is developed and tested by the offshore team, the application is then deployed into a package and is finally sent to the client’s location for final testing. Field testing is usually done by the client’s personnel and the feedback is obtained and sent back to the service provider's personnel from the client for next processing.

   It is very important to choose the right software application development partner when it comes to outsourcing. Businesses must make sure that the partner they are working for offers maintenance and support services to avoid future conflicts in the product should the need arise.

How much does it cost to develop a mobile application? How much will it cost to outsource it?  Quite often business owners find themselves trying to answer these two questions.

The advantages of a mobile application are clear, however, these advantages come with a cost to pay. The cost of application development is mostly based on different variables such as platform, complexity, and features. Different target audiences and the different markets expect different features in the applications; which changes the cost to pay for the development. Understanding the needs and expectations of the target market before launching the application means business owners can avoid unnecessary costs.  On the other hand, it is also a fact that application development is an investment where different requirements and preferences will determine the exact cost of investment and final price of the product. For example, a mobile application that is completely standalone and one that requires a back-end server built and an application wouldn't cost the same amount.

Each mobile application development process involves different factors that collectively influence the final product cost. Mobile application development cost breakdown comes down to:

Mobile Platform: IOS or Android, or Both

The most popular mobile applications in application stores are either based on Android or IOS operating systems.  Android and Apple application users are basically two different target market groups, business owners can choose to build an application compliant with both, which will increase the cost.

Android stands forward in Asia, and Australia while the IOS platform is mostly used in the United States and Western Europe. Aside from location, the behavior of the target market should also be considered in choosing what mobile platform to use.  For example, if developing a paid mobile application, the IOS platform would be a better choice, as a study shows that Android users are not as willing to pay as IOS users for applications. Typically, businesses tend to start with the IOS platform and then enlarge the number of users by making either a different stand-alone or hybrid application version for Android.

Design

Design determines the application’s functionality, which helps have more users. Success in graphic design steals the heart of users. Beauty is not for free. We advise you not to economize your application by sacrificing the beauty of the design. Invest in your icon and interface elements like tabs, buttons, etc. for a long-term win.

User experience is the king in application design, as people love effortless applications. UX design determines the engagement and conversions of your efforts and investment in application development.

Mobile application design is another business even for designers. Be sure to contact a designer who knows the requirements and guidelines of mobile applications. You may need to pay more, but just be willing to pay this amount for developing a successful application with a perfect UX design that will make you earn money.

Application Development Stages Cost

Having a ballpark reference for how much the different stages of a mobile application development allows companies to allocate the cost properly.

The pre-research stage can be considered as the cheapest stage among the application development stages. According to Clutch – B2bB analytics company, 51% of businesses spent up to $5,000 in the pre-research stage, 22% of them went above the spent up to $10,000 and 14% spent around $10,000 to $25,000. For the design stage, 32% of businesses spent less than $5,000, but only 9% spent over $50,000 on the mobile application design. Most business owners stay within more than $5,000 but less than $50,000 budget.  The actual development of the application is the major stage in the process. This is where all the coding happens to create every required feature the product is supposed to have. 9% of the respondents spent below $5,000 in developing the code while 33% spent within the $5,000 - $50,000 budget range.

Finally, for the application deployment stage, 30% of the business owners who participated in the survey spent less than $5,000 for application testing and launch it in the marketing while the other 31% remained within the $5,000 - $10,000 budget range. The rest of the respondents went over the $10,000 threshold to complete the mobile application testing and deployment stage.

Testing and Deployment stage

Each type of mobile application has different product development cost associated with it due to different level of the application’s feature and complexity. Features like built-in user analytics, backend server maintenance, and support, CMS support, shopping cart or social media sharing, and networking features can significantly affect the final cost of the product.

Application Maintenance Cost

With all the costs due to developing a mobile application, businesses usually skip the application maintenance cost. Although it can significantly lower the total project cost, leaving the mobile application after the launch, without support and maintenance is not a smart move. To keep the application attractive and useful to the market for the long term, application maintenance costs should be considered carefully.

The basic application maintenance includes hosting and monitoring, engagement and marketing, and updates and licenses. These are all necessary items to keep the mobile application valuable to the user and keeping these also means additional costs per year as maintenance and support is not a one-time thing.

“Like with any other software product, mobile applications cost has a maintenance component. The industry average accepted cost to maintain software is roughly 15-20% of its original development cost. The maintaining process cost can be broken down to the cost of hosting, monitoring, engagement, marketing, updates, and licenses.”

Business Apps

Hosting and Monitoring

To calculate a mobile application backend data hosting cost, parameters such as backend (API) requests, bandwidth per MAU, and bandwidth per user are taken into consideration.  Mobile application monitoring is as essential as the back-end hosting for it to succeed. To monitor a mobile application’s performance, different mobile analytics platforms are available for both businesses and developers to use. Each mobile application product developed will have its unique market and user behavior, there it is not possible to come up with an estimated monitoring cost but contacting possible partners and prospects in the industry can surely provide a benchmark range for the cost.

Engagement & Marketing

“Regardless of the features integrated into the app, you must make people understand that you can help them and that you are there whenever they need your services. There are various techniques that make mobile marketing vital for any brand”

App Samurai

A mobile application marketing cost can include different activities to engage the mobile application userbase. Mobiles and mobile applications, by their nature, allow businesses to create a long-term and solid relationship between themselves and their customers. There is no one-size-fits-all in mobile application marketing.  Effective mobile marketing will need additional costs for testing, and the best strategy may or may not be that costly.

Application Updates and Licenses

Application updates play an important part to keep the mobile application valuable to the user base.  Each mobile application released on an application store, either for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, or other platforms not mentioned will always have updates released.

It is a fact that launching a perfect mobile application is not possible. Subsequent application updates, may it be for performance or user engagement are great tools for the user base to keep patronizing the application. An actual mobile application update release in the application store can take around one hour or two but the time that it takes to develop this update significantly varies and is hardly dependent on the mobile application features and complexity.

Cost of Hiring Application Developer

Outsourcing mobile application development is also very popular not just because of lower cost but because of the quality as well. Once the business decides to hire a mobile application developer(s), the question of how much it will cost them comes up naturally.

"So according to the Indeed.com data, to hire a US-based mobile application development company to need to pay $107,000 / year, which is $10,000 more than the number we established in January of 2016 – $97,000. After converting from a local currency to USD, we see Canada and Australia following the US with $82,000 and $80,000 respectively. In countries like India, it is way cheaper to hire an application development professional – only $4,400 a year, which is explained by the difference in North America, Europe, Australia, and India economies."

• Indeed

The cheaper cost of outsourcing is really tempting especially after the high-cost breakdown, but of course, the price tag and lower cost shouldn’t be the ultimate deciding factor for a business to hire a mobile application development team. It is also important to take note of the company’s feedback from previous clients, level of expertise, and communication strategy as well.

Given that both Android and iOS platforms have a user base engagement adoption and engagement rate, it is a smart strategy for businesses to develop a hybrid or a stand-alone mobile application for both platforms simultaneously. The right software development outsourcing companies can make business ideas become a reality. 

Businesses are becoming more competitive every day.  Most of the world’s businesses never stop improving not just their services but how they managed their workforce as well. But how do businesses utilize staff augmentation to deliver project goals?

The industry’s most successful businesses are utilizing staff augmentation to control both planned and sudden changes to the business. Any kind of staffing for businesses, whether managed or augmented is highly complex. Getting the right number of individuals with the right skill set base for both temporary and long term is surely a process that’s complicated enough to give the human resource team a headache.

When to Consider Staff Augmentation?

When should a business consider staff augmentation for a software project? Although different situations can give different answers, most staff augmentation development projects fall into one of the following categories of consideration:

1. The business is unable to retain or hire enough skilled staff to meet its normal workloads.

   Since the 1990s, the United States economy created a scarcity of competent and skilled technical staff to handle software development projects. For corporations that were installing large software suites, the situation was aggravated by the demand for IT staff with this proficiency. Other businesses also have a recurring problem of retaining a qualified workforce for a variety of reasons. In these cases, a temporary staff is brought in to fill the existing gaps. They can be viewed as contractors, used until the project completion, or until permanent employees are hired.

2. IT projects need skilled staff for a specific part of the project.

   For large-scale software system development projects, the IT department might need more coders, testers, and designers more than what it currently has. Rather than hiring full-time permanent staff that will entail higher costs, businesses can use contractors to fill in the gaps. Similarly, many businesses used different outside service partners and providers to assist with their software development projects. Unlike the first case, which had an indefinite period, this use of staff augmentation is for a definite period.

3. The business seeks flexibility in staffing.

   Some industries and companies have a history of boom-and-bust staffing. As the businesses and country’s economic conditions change, major projects are cut to adjust, and staff levels are reduced to make the ends meet. To avoid having to occasionally dismiss employees, businesses tend to keep a core team and use contractors when needed during high times. Although they are paying more daily for the contractual staff, they avoid the higher expense, stress, and pain of severing full-time and long-term employees.

4. IT sector requires specialized knowledge and skill set.

   The field of Information Technology is divided into different industries. Each needs its own staff with specific knowledge and skill set. In most cases, there will be a shortage of staff with the desired skills. While full-time outsourcing is an option, hiring through staff augmentation who will work together with the in-house team will provide knowledge transfer and on-the-job training as well. A primary advantage of this method is the fact that short-term staff augmentation results in a long-term upgrading of the in-house team’s skills.

5. The business wants to retain everyday control of all staff.

   Outsourcing is undeniably successful for businesses, but it is also a fact that there are still some businesses that are not compatible nor comfortable with the complete transfer of tasks and responsibilities. For these situations, staff augmentation can fill the gaps in staffing and expertise levels, without going through a complicated cultural shift. The primary advantage to staff augmentation is the flexibility it gives the businesses and the in-house IT department. Due to the ad hoc and short-term nature of hiring contractors, the team can move on quickly with the project, bringing on additional skilled staff for specific projects and removing them once the project is complete. This flexibility advantage extends to the actual hiring decisions.

Although staff augmentation is an outsourcing method, it has the highest cost among the other outsourcing options. Although this does not affect limited-length projects such as the provision of specialized skills during the project’s critical phase, the use of contractors for semi-permanent staff augmentation can become a challenge.

Benefits of Staff Augmentation

• Avoiding Recruitment and Training Costs

  The recruitment process can be extremely costly. Sourcing skilled applicants, screening the right candidates, and finally hiring and training new employees can be a daunting task for the recruitment team. It is more than what it looks more specifically for hiring in the IT industry as the candidates need to be highly technical and experienced at the same time. Providing other benefits and training to these new employees can harm the business’ budget even more, especially if these employees later realize that they don’t fit for the job or much worst, decide not to stay during the training period. Staff augmentation gives businesses the opportunity to bypass this tedious hiring and training process, saving both the cost, uncertainty, and effort put into the hiring process.

• Filling Specialized Roles with Required Skill Set

  The demand for specialized skill sets is increasing as fast as the IT industry is evolving. To stay competitive businesses, need to meet this demand that may be required for one specific project or business need, but not necessarily for the whole business itself. Staff augmentation provides a way for businesses and IT teams to fill these gaps without the commitment to engage the new members of the team and to utilize the same skill set again in future projects. Staff augmentation method can end as soon as the project is completed or if the company needs it. This can save businesses from an intensive recruitment process and make it possible for them to get the help needed temporarily at a much lower cost.

• Expanding Industry into Foreign Markets

  No owner starts their own business without looking to expand. Setting up the business’ next location whether in the same country or overseas can be a daunting task, especially if the future of the business in the next area is still unclear. Staff augmentation offers businesses the opportunity to have local contract workers familiar with the foreign location to assist with different legal matters in setting up the business as well as other potential problems that may arise when starting to operate in a new business location. Additionally, there is no commitment to pay for the existing employees’ travel costs for nor there is a need to disrupt local operations as the hired contractors will take care of what’s needed to be done for the expansion to be completed.

• Retaining Overall Control over Projects

  As mentioned above, outsourcing may be the cheapest and best way to handle different IT projects, but it doesn’t mean that it’s for everyone. There will be some businesses that would still want full control of the project regardless of the team composition. All outsourcing projects can be risky, although most are successful, there is still a handful that ends in failure. Staff augmentation can fulfill the company’s need to maintain full control over the projects compared to complete outsourcing.

  Staff augmentation also allows the interaction between the contracted staff and the internal employees as they work together to complete different projects. This is one biggest advantages of this method as communicating directly within the working team is easier and solving the problem could be faster if there are issues that need to be addressed. This can save time, while also making current employees feel more valued and less threatened by external aid.

• Scaling the Team to the Current Project Needs

  While being short-staffed can be problematic, being overstaffed can also be a tough situation for the recruitment team. Having to lay off full-time and talented employees can be emotionally taxing for all the parties involved and can tarnish a company’s reputation if employees come to feel that they are not as valued as they thought they would be. Staff augmentation gives businesses the opportunity to temporarily add team members to ramp up the project production and end contract as soon as the required variables are met or when the project is completed. The boundaries, expectations, hiring, and project duration are already set from the get-go, avoiding unnecessary conflicts should the contract end earlier than anticipated. Businesses, as well as contractors, need not worry about emotional stress that can be brought by dismissal as there’s no commitment and expectations set.

  Staff augmentation can solve many staffing problems, but at the same time, it also raises several concerns. Utilizing staff augmentation can help you meet business demands efficiently without a negative impact on your internal staff or company reputation. This may or may not be the right outsourcing method for your current project, but it can surely be one of the best options available.

  Different outsourcing companies offer both managed services and staff augmentation to meet the different needs of businesses both locally and internationally. With both benefits and concerns, staff augmentation brings, business owners, need to carefully consider what they really need for the project to succeed.

Both offshoring and outsourcing started as a cost-cutting measure, but businesses that know how to create real and sustainable value routinely use these two sourcing strategies for far more strategic ends-to gain capabilities and strengths that they don't have or can’t have in-house, or to strengthen the existing ones that they already have.

Outsourcing began small. Firstly focused on finding a cheaper alternative for manpower, outsourcing has grown from telemarketing and data entry to more complicated and skilled functions like digital marketing, account, human resource and IT functions like support and software development. More than 70% of the companies outsource a business process or a specific function to a third-party contractor. From its early introduction in the manufacturing industry to becoming a universal strategy with as many uses and definitions, industries will always have a business function that can be outsourced.

“About 50% of executives state that reducing costs is the top reason for outsourcing”, which includes those that sent their IT offshore. As with manufacturing outsourcing, the offshoring of IT and application development services has developed its own set of risks and hidden costs as well as falling short on providing expertise in areas lacking in the client organization.

Michael Corbett, The Outsourcing Revolution.

Software Development Projects for Outsourcing

In this new world, developers no longer need to design a unique algorithm for each problem. Most work focuses, instead, on generating datasets that reflect desired behavior and managing the training process. Pete Warden from Google’s TensorFlow team pointed this out as far back as 2014:

“I used to be a coder,” he wrote. “Now I teach computers to write their own programs.” 

Forbes

• Application Development

  Outsourcing application development can be done from different perspectives. Businesses can choose to outsource the whole project from planning to maintenance stage or to outsource certain phases like low-level coding, system architecture design, software quality assurance testing, up to development and implementation of additional features to the existing application. While most businesses choose to outsource the project from the start, there are still cases where minor to major modifications of existing applications are required to meet certain business requirements.

  For this type of software development project, it is usually not enough for the outsourcing service provider or partner to just deliver the developed software or finish product but also to give the clients the support and maintenance services after the main product is launch the market.

• Systems Integration

  Integration refers to the summing up of different activities in order to achieve a vital goal. Systems Integration refers to the linking of current applications or mechanisms to a shared architecture to achieve the intended functionality.

  In order to implement this, outsourcing service providers must be well-equipped with the technical expertise, industry knowledge, and experience to meet the client’s request. These functions are not usually found within the in-house team. Therefore, system integration is usually done by a third-party contractor. This is done to maintain the business’ edge in the highly competitive market.

• Database management

  Good database management plays a significant role in the success of the business. Smart companies store and treat their database with utmost care and security at different locations as it is needed for critical tasks. Outsourcing service providers streamline this task by implementing a database management system and process at the user’s location. Database outsourcing packages also offer services like data cleansing and migration on top of the basic services like data storage and retrieval.

Benefits of Outsourcing Software Development

During recent years software development outsourcing has been adopted by more and more companies. Most of them state that this is only to reduce costs, and some say that this is due to the technical expertise. According to a survey, the cost reduction is the major factor which is influencing a lot, for this, it can be observed that the average annual salary for an engineer in the USA is $70,000 during the year 2004, compared with $13,580 for an engineer in India.

• Cost

  Lower cost is the most recognizable benefit of software development outsourcing. But is cheaper cost the only major benefit to the companies or are there any more benefits?

  When software development is outsourced, the business doesn’t need to through the tedious and costly recruitment process of hiring and training highly skilled individuals for the project. The work will be handed over to the team of developers who are already experts and experienced in that trade

• Scalability

  Outsourcing providers offer businesses the flexibility to increase or decrease the project resources depending on the demand of the project. This flexibility doesn’t come with fixed costs or additional investments.

  During peak business seasons, some applications may require more updates and support more than others. It's impractical for businesses to consider purchasing new technology to handle consumer demand and training junior developers to perform minor applications updates. However, outsourcing these functions to software development companies eliminates these obstacles. A software development partner already has a team of developers who are already fully trained to handle these kinds of situations and are prepared to solve more complicated problems should the need arise.

• Risk Management and Operational Capacity

  Most software development companies have their own system and tools to manage the risks that can happen throughout the application development cycle.  Contracting an outsourcing partner to maintain established software and applications systems and transfers can efficiently manage the risk of fluctuating resources and operation capacity that can occur at any time throughout the software development process.

  Even though outsourcing software development risks have increased over time, many businesses continue to manage their relationships with their outsourcing partners at arm's length.

  Companies like the toy manufacturer Hasbro accomplish this by viewing their external relations as strategic partners tightly integrated with their domestic operations or overseas subsidiaries. That's a major reason why Hasbro was largely unaffected by the toy industry's lead paint crisis in 2007. Among its sourcing safeguards, the company prequalifies and continually monitors its overseas factories to ensure that quality management systems are in place. The risk of a quality issue arising can't be totally eliminated, of course. The key is to limit potential problems and act quickly when one occurs to keep it from happening over and over again. - Forbes

• Increase Internal Focus on Core Business

  Most businesses do not consider the recruitment process and managing a team of software developers among their revenue drivers and core competencies. Leaving these compound activities to an outsourcing partner removes a major distraction and frees up time in the calendar that the business owner can spend on more critical tasks at the heart of the main business such as research and planning, product innovation and development, and more activities that give the business its competitive advantage.

  This has been the major benefit for many of the businesses that outsource application development nowadays. Some companies have included policies where third-party contractors can be hired temporarily if the required skills cannot be produced in-house. As software application development requires intensive experience and highly skilled workers, the majority of the companies choose to outsource.

• Additional Financial Benefits

  In addition to the lower cost of getting an outsourcing partner to perform the software development job, outsourcing can shield the business from different payouts and high overhead including in-house employee benefits, government taxes, service and maintenance fees for infrastructure/facilities, and legal or administrative support for government regulations.

• Technical Expertise and Quality

  Software development outsourcing can provide businesses with top-of-the-line technical expertise that is not currently in their current technology portfolio. This plays a significant role in developing a new service or application product.

  Outsourcing software development also highlights the quality of work. The majority of the businesses that have tried outsourcing these services can attest to the fact that the quality of the software application product produced is incomparably good compared to the works done by the in-house IT team.  Many of these businesses mentioned that they can collaborate with the offshore developments partners and can perform the development 24 hours round the clock because of the time difference. For instance, in a business with different locations, for example in the United States and Asia, the offshore development team stops the work while the team in-house can continue to start where the other team left off. This also means that quality is never compromised as there will always be enough allotted time to complete, test, and adjust projects whenever needed.

  Improving the quality of the code not only generates higher value, but it also helps to protect the business investment in the light of new requirements that may arise in the future.

• Exposure Process Expertise

  Having an outsourcing partner for software development naturally, expose businesses to the best practices of the software development cycle and project management. These best practices are tested and proven by not just the current outsourcing partner but of the software development industry in general. Outsourcing software development gives businesses a new light in terms of processes that might not even have been explored.

  Scaling the remote team with the goal of developing a more solid solution and including ample time for thorough product testing will greatly increase product stability and lead to a much better user experience.

Hybrid Mobile Application Development

When the first handheld mobile phone was introduced, nobody expected that the mobile development industry will be as competitive as it is now. Basic phone functions like calling and sending messages are no longer enough to satisfy the needs of mobile users – thus the development of smartphones. The release of the first iPhone in 2007 marks a new revolution not just for mobile but for the development of applications for these devices. It didn’t take long before the new Operating Systems like Android and Windows divided the already competitive and fast-evolving market.

The division of Operating Systems (OS) led to the development of different applications for each platform, which in turn requires a lot of time that most of the companies, whether big or small, do not have. Since smartphones have become so important, enterprises want to have their apps available for as many people as possible. This only means the development of, at least, one iOS and one Android app with the same content. As a solution, hybrid mobile applications that take advantage of the latest version of HTML 5 as a cross-platform app were created.

The mobile market of offers is expanding and becoming more competitive and expensive every day. Mobile app sales statistics indicate that year after year gadget users switch default services to alternative ones. The built-in mobile task manager is replaced with a new To-Do-List app in town, the default mail client is substituted with the new and fresh Mailbox app and Evernote is now preferred to the standard note editor.

“What situations may call for a hybrid approach? Let’s say the customer requires a straightforward newsfeed that contains nothing but text and images. With this task in mind, the developer is right to choose the cross-platform approach. But if after a while the customer wants the app to store a large amount of data or process sound or graphics, the task becomes more complex. The developer now has to write native code for each specific platform, and the app that was once fully cross-platform goes hybrid.”

Business of Apps

Advantages of Hybrid Mobile Apps

1. User Experience

   Mobile applications make people’s lives easier and more convenient. However, in the case when a mobile application takes a lot of time to give out responses, anyone would not feel like using it. This is one of the major challenges that native mobile app developers will have to face. For example, if a mobile application is associated with large images, it would obviously take some time for the network to load those images. Hybrid mobile apps are in a position to help users stay away from this hassle. It can deliver a seamless and fast mobile app experience to the users.

   A consistent user application experience across multiple mobile platforms is one of the main reasons behind hybrid applications’ popularity. Users can expect the applications to be instantly responsive on different devices and deliver a glitch-free experience. Hybrid apps core idea is the “information is just a tap away”. While it displays data faster and adjusts to different device screen configurations immediately, it also resolves the concerns of the fluctuating data streaming capabilities. Being lightweight, the hybrid application user interface (UI) can also load the large sizes of high-definition graphics and content quickly.

   Like native apps, hybrid apps can also be installed on the device and can be launched just like any other mobile application. These native attributes make hybrid apps virtually indistinguishable from native app. It is a popular fallacy that behind every icon on the user’s desktop there is a native app. Many people even don’t realize that popular ―native mobile applications like LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Twitter are actually hybrid applications. It provides a good look and seamless experience to its users.

2. Multiple Device Integration

   Installing and downloading a new mobile app can be a challenge to users. However, a large percentage of these users still continue to use mobile applications after downloading. As per 2013 statistics, smartphone users are downloading an average of 80 million mobile applications per month. However, this doesn’t mean that all the people who download apps keep on using them. Hybrid mobile application development is in a position to keep the app users away from the frustration associated with this.

   Hybrid applications offer full device access, including ―native-only features in mobile apps, like the use of an address book, microphone, and camera. Like native apps, hybrid apps leverage the device’s internal programming system through an overlay which helps to enable seamless synchronization with other compatible apps. This reduces the integration issues for developers. In turn, the hybrid apps work well with the device’s native applications such as camera, messaging, GPS, etc. to ensure a smooth user experience. As a result, the hybrid mobile apps would work perfectly well with messaging, cameras, GPS, and other device information in order to provide the best possible user experience. This can contribute towards enhanced customer satisfaction at the end of the day.

   While not usually a requirement for business applications, some companies needed the wide consumer distribution feature offered by the apps store both for Android, Windows, and IOS. For these companies, hybrid applications are the best option. One mobile web application combined with a hybrid mobile framework lets businesses easily create the applications ―native apps and hybrid for distribution in every major mobile app store for a new generation of users.

3. Cost-Effective Cross-Platform Development

   For businesses that prefer the native applications look and feel, without the high development costs, the hybrid mobile application is the best choice. Hybrid development is cheaper as some solutions are quicker to create with HTML and JS than with Objective-C or Java. While it is not as simple as the mobile web application, building a cross-platform hybrid mobile app is considerably cheaper than building a cross-platform native app.

   The resources and costs need to develop a hybrid app are easily accessible by the organization. Hybrid application development is consists of building a mobile web application and then wrapping these apps in platform-specific native wrappers. It also utilizes web technology in order to build applications that make resources easily available to develop an application. This process lets businesses develop cross-platform hybrid apps using their current web development skills in the market.

   A hybrid application also gets the task done sooner than any native or web mobile app. In the fiercely competitive digital era where ‘time to market’ has become critical than ever, cost efficiency plays a vital role in helping enterprises build and get their product to the market in no time. With a set of libraries and various development frameworks such as PhoneGap and Xamarin, hybrid application developers can accelerate the development process and submit the app to various app stores to save both time and cost.

4. Simple Maintenance

   Unlike a web application, a hybrid application is designed to make use of all the features available or soon to be available on different mobile devices. Though native apps also utilize all the device features, maintaining the application alone is already quite a challenge both for users and developers alike. Developers have to roll out new updates in the form of new versions and users are required to update the app every time a new version is launched. A hybrid application bypasses versioning and makes app maintenance as simple as updating a web page, that too in real-time. This level of flexibility further simplifies the scalability needs of any business that plans to maximize the benefits of a hybrid mobile app.

5. Offline Use and Support

   Just like native mobile applications, hybrid mobile applications also use the API of the device in order to store some useful information offline. With the continuous increase in the cost of mobile data plans, this can be a prominent benefit that could be delivered to customers who prefer to save money that is meant to be spent on data. Some mobile users have poor connectivity with their mobile devices, and the offline usage capabilities associated with hybrid mobile applications can impress them, as well. As a result, they will be able to use the mobile app without the frustrations the come with online-only mobile applications.

   There’s no clear winner between the two mobile application development approaches. Both native and hybrid mobile applications are ways to fulfill the different needs and preferences of different mobile users and developers. In reality, none of them can be thought of as a perfect solution as they both have their advantages over the other. With the many benefits a hybrid mobile application can bring, it is no wonder why more businesses are leaning towards choosing to invest in this development project compared to the native mobile application development.

   The only thing solid is that when you build mobile apps, it might take a little more investment (in time and money) but the end product is well worthwhile. With all the advantages of the hybrid mobile application we mentioned above, all you need is a bright idea and a good mobile application development company to bring your ideas to life.

For the past few years, mobile network operators and manufacturers manage and control the mobile application development industry. The arrival of new platforms and mobile phone models changed the application development process. The development of mobile applications has generated more interest in both independent and big players in the industry, freelance developers and start-ups.  The constant improvement of hardware related to mobile computing e.g. larger wireless network bandwidth better computing power clearly enhanced and improved the capabilities of mobile devices thus the challenges in the development process are already expected.

According to a Deloitte study (via Time), Americans across all age groups, on average, check their phones 46 times per day. I have three screens of icons, so let's say I see the side screens every third time I am in the apps. Even for a company whose app got relegated to my side screens, I am viewing their app icon nearly 5,600 times a year! That kind of advertising is priceless, so make sure your creative team comes up with a unique, eye-catching app icon – Forbes.

Major software application development companies, such as Google and Apple, are constantly disturbing the fairly safe and established actors of the mobile application development business. These newcomers, together with the big players in the industry, have caused significant structural and multi-cultural changes in the mobile application development field by enforcing and imposing their own rules in the future of the mobile application development industry. The implications of these constant changes do not only concern the mobile phone manufacturers and mobile network operators. The change in the development structure also brings both additional opportunities and constraints for current and new mobile application developers. Because of this, there’s been a demanding need for developers to assess their options while making sure that they are making the most of the advantages of these current trends.

Development tools in Mobile Application Development

The software development kit (SDK) is the center of every development platform. It enables third-party developers to deliver mobile applications running on a specific platform. Software development kits usually include libraries, handset emulators, and debuggers.

Existing popular platforms such as Android and IOS, have taken different approaches when it comes to sharing their SDK with application developers. Some have chosen to restrict access as much as possible, whereas others have chosen to disclose the entire source code of their SDK and OS. SDK approaches can be presented into two main models:

• The Cathedral Model. Popular application development players in the industry, mostly representing roughly half of the customers, chose the proprietary path. Good examples are Apple, Microsoft, and RIM. Linux, Google, and Nokia represent the other half that chose to use open source technology in their development process.

Proprietary platforms all keep the source code of their SDK and OS are hidden from any outsider. The only difference is their level of control over what developers can install on the platform. Apple, for example, has almost unlimited control over third-party applications since all applications pass through an approval before they can be released on the platform. RIM and Microsoft, on the other hand, are more lenient. Advantages of closed technology for the platform provider include being to sell and control your platform, thus increasing the value in return.

• The Bazaar Model. In contrast, open-source technology platforms grant developers full access to all or parts of the source code of their OS and SDKs. Among the three open-source platforms, Linux seems to offer the most freedom to its developers, followed by Google who, for example, denies access to Bluetooth and Instant Messaging APIs for security reasons in their current SDK release. Benefits of open source technology platforms include being able to reduce both development and maintenance costs by taking advantage of the pool of open source developers. Reduced development costs can lead up to reduced platform price and therefore possibly increased number of consumers, without compromising the quality of the application.

Mobile Operating Systems: Android

Android appears to be the best-selling mobile operating system and it is developed by no other than Google itself. According to Gartner (2016), Android achieved 84% of the global share in terms of selling during the first quarter of 2016. At the core of the Android, the system is Linux's other libraries and application frameworks. The first version of the operating system Android 1.0 was released in 2008.  Since then, Google has regularly released an upgraded version of the system to keep up with the trends and ever-changing mobile platforms. According to Statista (2016), Google Play Store has over 2 million applications available to download every day and is continuously growing.

The Android operating system is made of different layers - Linux Kernel sitting at the lowest layer, and Dalvik Virtual Machine on top together with other system libraries. Higher layers contain application frameworks and user application layers.

Android applications are develop using Android Software Development Kit (SDK) with Java being its default programming language for application development. C and C++ programmers also can build android applications using a tool called Native Development Kit (NDK1). Programmers write Java source codes for an application, then the source codes are converted or compiled to Java Bytecodes, then the Bytecodes are cross-compiled to a Dex File afterwards. The APK Builder is then use to package the finished Dex file, Resource file and other files into one whole APK file. This APK file is the application file installed in mobile phones.

Mobile Operating Systems: IOS

IOS is developed and solely used by Apple Inc. in its mobile devices.  Originally developed in 2007, for a smartphone, Apple then decided to customize its existing Mac Operating System for the company’s flagship mobile phones.

Using the native application development model, it appeared to be convenient for Mac application developers to build mobile-friendly applications for Apple devices. Initially, the operating system was named as iPhone OS, but Apple renamed it iOS after the release of version 4. The iOS Kernel is called XNU which was developed by Apple in 2003. XNU is part of Darwin which is an open-source Unix-based operating system also developed by Apple last 2000. By June 2016, the number of available applications in Apple’s App Store has reached 2 million but it's still way lesser than Android applications (Statista 2016).

The underlying IOS architecture can be classified into four different layers. The Core Operating System layer sits at the bottom of the architecture while the core services are defined at the second layer from the bottom. There is also Media Services layer that contains audio and video frameworks with graphics that sit at the third layer next to the Core Services. Cocoa Touch which contains the key technologies for building applications is at the topmost layer of the iOS architecture.

The required programming languages for iOS development are Swift and Objective-c. It is also possible to develop iOS applications with C and C++. Once the mobile application development is completed, the application goes through an approval process for the iOS system. Apple released its initial Software Development Kit (SDK) for iOS in 2008. By the release of Xcode 3.1, it became the default development platform for iOS SDK. Xcode could be used free of charge but test deployment to a device or publishing the application to the Apple App Store requires an annual subscription cost. Once the application is published in the App Store, Apple receives thirty percent of the sales revenue.

Mobile Operating Systems: Windows 10

Windows 10 Mobile architecture is also divided into different layers. The Kernel is obtained from the Windows Operating System and it has been modified to work both for computers and mobile devices.

This layer manages networking, security, storage, application frameworks, and core hardware communications. The layer above is the programming and service system framework layer. This layer provides the application developers with all the required frameworks and libraries to build the mobile applications. The topmost layer contains the system applications that come with the operating system and user applications that are downloaded and installed by the user (Windows 2015).

Microsoft introduces Universal Windows Platform (UWP) which allows developers to build and run software on different Windows 10 platforms such as a mobile, tablet, PC, and Xbox. Microsoft Visual Studio uses an emulator for testing. Once the development is finished, the respective application packages could be created for the compatible windows devices ie. mobile, PC or Xbox.  Several programming languages support the development of the Universal Windows Platform (UWP). Supported languages could be grouped in the following order: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, XAML and C# XAML, DirectX, and C++. Among the supported languages, group a and b support cross-platform development with the help of Cordova and Xamarin (Hissibini 2015).

Over the past few years, we have observed that a relatively stable market for mobile application development. It has evolved in three distinct directions. First, there seems to be a strong trend towards portal centralization. Second, there is an increased number of actors providing open source technology. Third, platforms are moving towards a higher level of integration. Whichever it is, the trend for mobile application development is expected to be continuously competitive for years to come.