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How to Build SaaS Products with Remote Workers

Building SaaS products with the help of Remote Workers

When you start a business, there are a number of things one has to take care of.

Handling the processes, observing them, initiating new processes, bringing new ideas to the table and what not!  In times like these, an extra hand can be your knight in shining armor. 

Outsourcing can be that extra help for you.

With almost one out of two companies in the US outsourcing one function or the other, the global outsourcing market has risen by ten-folds since 2015. This simply means that outsourcing works. The question of concern is what exactly should and can a business outsource to kick-off big?

Factors to examine before you outsource SaaS products development

 One Metric Which Matters (OMWM)

In case of most SaaS companies, prevalent OMWMs are SLAs, uptime, recency of usage, the relevancy of features, amongst many others. The point of identifying your OMWM is straight-forward, you will never outsource any tasks that contribute to this metric.

Understand your skillset, and manage time to apply     those skills

In the words of a renowned founder, “it depends on your expertise. The stuff you don’t like or aren’t good at, are the things you should outsource usually”. If you are a developer, outsource functions which don’t directly affect the development process. The point here is, the things you aren’t good at, or don’t like, are the things that will affect the efficiency of your business as a whole. As opposed to which, when you outsource such functions, you can concentrate on what you’re great at, while ensuring the other functions are still getting the expert attention they deserve.

 Identify low ROI pieces of your current team

Not all teams are created equal. Some work well, while others struggle to drive results and productivity. An important factor that should be kept in mind is to not necessarily outsource anything which you can augment. Recognize the strengths and weaknesses of your resources, and utilize them to guide your decision that will skyrocket your output.

Recommended Reading: Cost to Build a SaaS Product

Most Commonly Outsourced Functions

Even when the guidelines have been laid out, making critical business decisions is never a cake-walk. In marketing, social proof is regarded as a great motivator for making purchase decisions. The same principle can be applied to determine which role of your business you need to outsource. Let us look at some of the regularly outsourced functions among successful SaaS companies, and make an informed decision,

 Bookkeeping and Accounting

While accounting is unquestionably not something you can neglect, nevertheless,  it isn’t generally a business function that contributes to your bottom line. 

All such factors make accounting the perfect suitor for testing the waters of outsourcing.

In most cases, outsourcing accounts have actually brought in positive ROIs. In fact, statistics reveal businesses that outsourced accounting observed a 3x return on investment.  

Even if that is the absolute best-case scenario, outsourcing your bookkeeping will at least ensure you never run into tax troubles and can concentrate on the core competencies of your business.

Branding and Business Strategy

While many founders and business coaches swear by keeping the core business strategy and innovation in house, there is no reason that it should not be outsourced. 

Speaking of the difficulties that you may have to face, finding the right team to turn your company into a brand can be a headache. Even if your vision is crystal clear, the outsourcing company could still have some doubts.

This problem can be effectively addressed by working with a company that offers it on a regular basis. It will be relatively easier for such companies to realize your vision. 

Content & Graphics

While integral to effective marketing, creating content and graphics is time-consuming and if you’re not used to it, the task can be arduous. Add to that the frustration one may experience if the content/graphics don’t drive the kind of results you had imagined.

In such scenarios, it’s always best to hire managers and outsource the high volume workload (the actual design and copywriting). Your content manager will always have an exclusively aligned mission with you. They’ll brainstorm and come up with fresh ideas inspired by your directions.

Another consideration here is that all the reasons that make creating designs and content in-house a challenge are also the reasons which will make finding the right content provider/designer(s) a challenge. Hence, it is best to stay off Fiverr and work with an agency. To drive the best outcomes, it is advisable to work with a few designers/writers and find the one whose style resonates with your goals and stick with them.

 Outreach

Networking, whether it is for link-building or for prospecting, is a critical factor when it comes to attaining success online. Although, with your inboxes being bombarded with thousands of work emails, outreach can become quite challenging and time-consuming. Certainly, email marketing SaaS products are efficient, but even they require a dedicated and proactive resource if you wish to drive quantifiable outcomes. No wonder, outsourcing your outreach operations will add to your breath of relief.

 SEO

Just like outreach, Search Engine Optimization is a complex undertaking that requires time and patience to show results. When marketing is not a part of the solution you are providing as a business, it is best to let the pros take care of it. As mentioned earlier, you can still maintain absolute control over the sales. It’s just the lead generation and prospecting tasks like SEO, email marketing, and inside sales that are to be effectively outsourced for improved efficiency and output.

·         Legal

This one is a bit obvious. Legal matters demand specialized qualifications and knowledge and errors in legal matters can prove to be expensive (to say the least). For this reason, it is best to leave your legal and compliance matters to someone that knows the law inside out (A.K.A., a lawyer).

Hiring and HR

These tasks might pose an unexpected challenge to some. In fact, challenges related to hiring are the reason many businesses start considering outsourcing. While no HR firm can assist in building a vibrant and positive company culture, they can assuredly aid you to find capable employees that subsequently will contribute to a positive & vibrant culture. The rest relies on you and how you prepare and train your team to heighten productivity and employee satisfaction.

Now, What Not to Outsource?

With consultants and incubation centers gaining traction, many business functions that were traditionally kept in-house, such as,  accounting and business strategy are now being effectively outsourced to accelerate success. But, then you must realize where to draw the line. Obviously, no business can outsource all of its functions. And before you decide what to outsource, it’s better to know what not to.

Sales

While outsourcing sales can be highly beneficial in some industries, the case of SaaS products is different. Unlike generic products, most SaaS products require a well-trained salesman that thoroughly knows the ins and outs of the product. This, nonetheless, does not mean that you will have to start cold-calling prospects. Instead, one can start by outsourcing the part of prospecting and lead generation, whereas close the final sales in-house. This way, you can harness the benefits of outsourcing the most tiresome part of the sales process.

Customer Support

Just like sales, while outsourcing support may work for bigger brands, it is not a good strategy for growing SaaS businesses. The reasons are quite a few, firstly, when you possess complete control of the support staff, it is easier to concentrate on other vital business functions, such as building fortified and personalized relationships with customers. Moreover, an in-house customer service representative will be backed by your product knowledge and may prove to be more effective at resolving customer queries than an outsourced resource. Besides, once you associate with your users directly, you are not only helping them, but also collecting relevant feedback.

Recommended Reading: Build a SaaS Product by Outsourcing

Second, Utilizing AI can effectively minimize customer queries. You can take this a step further by instead of investing in an external support team, invest in instructional videos that facilitates customers to make the most of your product. A crucial benefit of this is that these videos would stay relevant regardless of the magnitude of your growth, and therefore, are a one-time investment with potential lifetime returns.

To sum up, it’s good to keep customer interactions in-house. Your customers are the reason behind your success so far, and it is a clever move to keep them in proximity.

Benefits of Outsourcing SaaS products

 Outsourcing lowers overheads

SaaS companies often launch with limited budgets and resources, which can make developing their minimum viable product (MVP) a significant challenge. By collaborating with an outsourcing firm, businesses can create a minimum viable product without consuming their entire budgets, or decreasing their features to the point where the incentive for customers drops.

A prime model of a SaaS company that outsourced its app and web development activities to begin testing its MVP is Slack. Outsourcing enabled the company to roll out a prototype and test its collaboration software without posing significant financial risks. The strategy obviously paid-off as the company now boasts millions of users around the world with a current valuation of almost $10 billion.

Effective and Efficient development process

Hiring new talent in-house can be a costly and sluggish process. Moreover, it can take even longer to build up a team that colludes well together. A significant benefit of opting for an outsourcing partner during the development process of SaaS products is access to an array of technical expertise.

Rather than hiring a team of in-house developers, which costs a lot of time and money is to opt for a partner. The outsourcing partner can take on specific aspects of the project, such as product management, UX/UI design, testing, and cross-platform development.

Try and pick a team that has already worked on SaaS products or services similar to yours. Someone who has taken on similar SaaS projects and can lead the process with helpful advice every step of the way. For instance, the outsourced team can assist with decisions about important SaaS features, such as chatbot integrations and payment systems. They can also contribute directly to the aspects of the site or software that can be created with existing technology and which aspects need to be designed from scratch.

  It helps you tackle market demands faster

The ability to adapt and scale promptly is crucial for SaaS businesses. According to a McKinsey report - If a software company grows by a factor of 20 percent per year, then there is a 92 percent probability that it will cease to exist in the future. Even if a software company expands by 60 percent every year, the probability of it surpassing 1 billion in revenue is still only 50 percent.

Continuous ramifications are critical for SaaS companies because the market demands them. Not to mention, SaaS companies must constantly develop and deploy new extensions to compete with the plethora of new players entering the market. 

Outsourcing provides affordable talent

Not only is it time-consuming and expensive for SaaS companies to recruit in-house, but also increasingly complex to secure competent programmers that possess the relevant skillset and technical know-how necessary to fulfill the ever-changing technology requirements.

From security and compliance demands, to data management and automation, SaaS team members must be able to manage a variety of responsibilities, many of which may fall outside of their job role. 

Most importantly, when team members are stretched too thin for too long, it hurts the company's bottom-line productivity levels thereby affecting morale. Working with a faithful and reliable outsourcing partner allows SaaS businesses to fill key roles with the fitting talent. Not to mention, it can help keep existing employees content and minimize employee attrition.

In addition, with the help of an outsourcing development team, companies can also design extra features and extend their services, considering hourly rates are lower. Outsourcing development in the U.S. can cost anywhere between $50 to $150 per hour, while outsourcing to developers in India can cost between $10 to $25 per hour.

Concluding View

To sum it all up, while outsourcing can definitely be a big decision. It is also the one that can transform the entire graph of your business. However, due diligence is required to ensure your decision doesn’t backfire.

Outsourcing services like development, customer service, and HR typically reduce a significant amount of overhead which would’ve cost significantly higher if performed in-house. Typically, outsourcing services diminish the expense by a factor of 10x, consequently increasing margins and profit. Countries in the west, especially India, serve as reliable outsourcing partners considering the vast number of young talent they possess. 

EngineerBabu offers the process, tools, and culture perfectly in place to manage such services efficiently. Having collaborated with 100+ companies in the domain, we carry solid domain expertise in effectively undertaking the development process. Feel free to reach out to us for a complimentary consultation, our team would be glad to assist you.

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Choose a team of remote workers to build your next software as a service. SaaS products are the future, for example - Slack, Mailchimp, and Shopify. Hiring remote web developers is the best way to build a budget-friendly SaaS product.

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How to hire web developers for remote jobs? Here's the detailed answer. Unlike an in-house team, hiring website developers to work remotely is easy and budget-friendly. Visit: https://engineerbabu.com/blog/hire-developers-for-remote-jobs

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Remote Jobs for Web Developers to Work Remotely

Are you looking to hire dedicated web developers for remote jobs? Whoa! You are on the right page.

Ask any start-up or any new-gen- entrepreneur the toughest part of his job is “Hiring a right remote candidate”!

Though, any organization whether doing online or offline business hire a remote worker. It is a cultural shift and every business is embracing this change. According to a study, the US spends $80,000 USD and Australia spends $70,000 AUD, and still unable to find accurate people who can complete the work with quality and perfection.

Companies that are making remote workforce

A report by Gallup stated that employees in the USA who regularly work remotely increased from 39% to 43% of the workforce between 2012 and 2016. If we dive deep into the study, it claimed that in 2016, 57 percent of employees working in computer/information systems spent some of their time working remotely.

Many successful businesses including GitHub, Buffer, Zapier, etc are running by fully-remote teams that launch chart-topper products and services which are built-in and marketed from home offices, coffee shops and co-working spaces around the world.

In addition to this, a cyber-security company Crowdstrick which is also named as “great place to work” by Fortune, its 400 employees out of 800 work remotely. This a prime example of how modern age and well-established companies are welcoming the remote working practices.

How remote jobs are beneficial for employers?

Many (many) people seem to think that ‘working from home’ or the remote working amounts to flutter down on the sofa, watching television or playing video games all day, with maybe an hour or two of ‘work’ thrown in the mix. Good luck finding that gig (lol).

But the truth is that most remote workers tend to put in long and extended hours and take fewer breaks than conventional office employees. With zero commute and fewer distractions — which eventually lead to more focus and productivity, it’s easy to see why. Some of the key benefits of hiring developers for remote jobs are listed below:

Talent Pool: Hiring remotely always allows employers to choose ‘the best out of the best’. Some businesses or entrepreneurs are able to hire people from anywhere in the world, while others require someone to be in a particular location or time zone. Talent from a different location is always better than local staff. He/she will give new a twist to the workflow.

Cost-saving: A talented employee who works from home doesn’t require any office space, computing equipment, coffee, and covering of commute. This money can be utilized to boost up the salary which will obviously increase the productivity of every developer.

Innovative ideas: Remote developers have working experience with various companies around the planet and deal with multiple clients at any one time. This provides them with multitasking exposure, which gives a clear path to new and innovative ideas. Remote developers are more inspired, enthusiastic and motivated about their work and give more input as compared to in-office employees.

Higher retention: It has been observed that remote workers have a higher job satisfaction ratio and they enjoy a perfect social –work-life balance. They have lower down the stress levels and live a healthier lifestyle. This is the reason why work from home (WFM) employees takes leaves less often. It will be really surprising to see after hiring your first remote employee that working with such an employee is quite easy. Moreover, you will certainly feel a sense of efficiency and reliability while getting your work done.

Increased productivity: It actually sounds weird but yes remote workers are much more productive than in-house developers who regularly work at 9-5. After continuously observing these groups for a period of 9 months, a study generated the following statistics which were released by the researchers. - Remote employees worked for more days (less number of sick days and leaves) - 5% more calls completed by the remote workers - Fewer breaks during the whole work.

Time zone coverage: Having a developer who works in rotational hours or of different time zone can improve the development process and support team because of instant work.

Various ways where you can hire developers for remote jobs

To begin with, we should discuss a choice between freelance remote developers or a dedicated team of developers. This is a very complex question but it streamlines the process of hiring. Depending upon the size of the project, the budget and a certain skill set is decided. Let us dive deeper into that. A project can classify into two parameters:

Small

Medium / Large

A small sized project required limited freelancers (one or two) to accomplish a small project or a particular task, which also indulges a Project Manager who will look after the code quality, time and proper communication with the team. In the case with larger projects with a need for ongoing support engaging a dedicated remote team is the best solution. Those normally are managed by their own (Project Manager) PM team, so they share additional your time on management tasks and communication efforts. To get more clarification refer to this chart:

Freelance Developers:

Project Size - Small

Budget - Limited

Project Manager Availability -  Yes

Skill Requirement - Short Term

Dedicated Team:

Project Size - Medium/Large

Budget - Modified

Project Manager Availability - No

Skill Requirement -  Ongoing

Recommended Reading: How to Hire a Dedicated PHP Developer

Now I think you have decided which hiring model suits you well, so the next question arises where to find a developer for remote jobs? There is a huge list of sources where you can hire a developer or team to carry out your project.

1. Freelancing Platforms: The freelancing platforms provide a wide range of remote developers. Millions of businesses and job seekers registered themselves on various freelancing portals in order to undertake remote jobs.

Upwork: This is the well-known remote job offering platform. It provides job opportunities for both – an independent freelancer and small startups (Agencies). But it has its own pros and cons. Basically; Upwork works as a mediator between both parties and charges some money. Some of the clients experienced that chasing an independent freelancer is a challenging task. They usually go for an agency in order to check these hurdles.

Freelancer: Another very famous podium where a job seeker can bid on various projects posted by the job provider or “the client”. It is worth mentioning here though its database is low as compared to Upwork. But recent times its user suggested that it doesn’t provide quality of the job and secure payments.

People Per Hour: People Per Hour is another marketplace connecting businesses and freelancers. People Per Hour is a freelance job board where clients post work requirements and freelancers find the jobs. This only for the clients who are interested in hiring developers only on an hourly basis. It doesn’t allow the client to hire developers for remote jobs monthly, yearly or per task. These limitations of People Per Hour drive the client towards other options present in the market.

2. Industrial- specific Forums: In the fasten society and the era of information technology, the majority of the software development solution providers offer quite informative software development blogs either on their websites or on public resources like Medium, Hackernoon, etc. Additionally, you can search the best software service provider on industry define platforms which gives more information about the company and help you get in touch with it.

Clutch: Clutch.co is a B2B marketing platform empowering premier brands to identify, understand and motivate their customers. It gives unbiased reviews and ratings to the businesses. More than 7000 IT-field companies registered themselves. The benefit of Clutch is that it only index verified companies and publishes verified clients’ reviews and feedback which helps to make a proper decision.

GoodFirms: One more in the list of remote hiring platforms. It provides a direct communication of job seekers with thousands of expert professionals within the software development industry all over the world. GoodFirms, just as the name suggests itself, is a dedicated community and contains the list of well-performing IT companies as well as a software solutions provider in the world.

3. Direct Hiring: Direct hiring means a situation where a company that intends to hire a candidate offers them the job directly. The direct hiring process doesn’t require any third – party elevation. There are many promotional blogs available in the public domain which gives a simple idea about the benefit of remote hiring. Here are some sources which will help you to find out the best developers for remote jobs.

Social Media: A very popular and prominent source to find out the remote developers who can work from home or any co-office space. You can easily find them on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. You can visit their websites and can see their previous work experience and discuss them about the same.

LinkedIn: It is specially designed for corporate. This is a type of social media that promotes talent and company in a very easy and professional manner. The LinkedIn profile shows the employee’s authenticity and works history with the skill and work experience in relevant technology.

Some myths about hiring Developers for Remote Jobs

As remote working and hiring are becoming more and more popular it simultaneously gives birth to the misconception about remote jobs and their working style. Here are some very common myths we heard off:

They work 24/7: It is a very common myth that the remote worker is always on “ON MODE”. Employees like working remotely because it gives them the freedom and flexibility to make their own work schedule but it doesn’t mean that they are available 24/7 to give services and support.

Difficult to communicate: Well partially it is true! Because are not available for group meetings and discussion every time but connecting them via video conferencing might be a good option. This will also help both parties to build a virtual relation. Another concern is that they aren’t communicators. But the fact is English is a universal language. Every professional is trained in speaking, writing and understands it very well.

Less productive: This is a very common misconception that the remote developers are lazy and they do not put much effort into the job. But this is wrong. The remote employees make their own work schedule. A recent study finds that remote employees are much more productive than in-office employees because they use less time to commutate and take shorter breaks. The remaining time is saved for the additional work.

Besides all the challenges here for the company are developing a consistent hiring the framework to get the best talent across the world, regardless of location; working on fostering the right culture; making meetings better and focusing on accountability.

Recommended Reading: Best Way to Hire a Node JS Developer

There is not a single reason left for you to limit the talent pool to a particular area. There is a wide range of tools available that assist you in collaborating with your remote workers for better communication. You can take advantage of these kinds of technology and enjoy these advantages of hiring developers for remote jobs.

Why hire offshore developers only from India?

According to Wikipedia, India is the 2nd largest country to provide freelancers. Over15 million people work remotely in IT and programming. India is the biggest market for hiring a developer for remote jobs. The proven record of performing well in the IT industry, Indian companies also open the doors for the world to work with their developers. There is no doubt that Indian developers are highly skilled and par excellent communicators, but they are also available at reasonable rates as compared to others.

India is a land of diversity. Its culture changes from place to place so the workforce too. When it comes to comparison of two IT hubs in India (Bangalore and Indore) Indore seems very reliable. Like if we talk about the work- employee culture Bangloreian IT engineer’s tendency to switch the job in every 7 months (on average) but IT engineers from Indore stick to the company for long.

EngineerBabu, a 10 years old startup from Indore achieving new heights. All developers of EngineerBabu are pre-scanned and hand-picked. We believe that every company should get benefit from extending the product team remotely and we provide a great opportunity to try scaling remotely with our trial! Let’s discuss the remote hiring process now!

Visit our blog for more information and feel free to request a demonstration of our hiring process.

I am very open for any suggestion, questions or feedback write to mayak@engineerbabu.com

Enjoyed the blog? Feel free to share it everywhere.

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How to build a SaaS Product by Outsourcing?

Software as a Service aka SaaS is a technology involving licensing access to cloud-based software. Cloud-based solutions reduce the size and memory requirements of consumer devices. From branding and business strategy to content, SEO, graphics, accounting and hiring, everything can rely upon SaaS products.

Cloud-based solutions have come up as a solution and expected to stay and evolve. There are popular applications behind the introduction of SaaS to consumers as well as working professionals. There is going to be an increasing interest in this type of software because of companies like Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Slack, Google Apps, etc.

SaaS has now become one of the fastest growing in the industry. According to MarketWatch, by 2024, Saas is expected to reach a market size of $185.8 billion.

SaaS developments often constitute of integral components that result in success

The offshore SaaS development process is now smoother than ever with implementation of Agile development methodology and qualified product developers, . With adequate resources available, one can use Agile development methodology to implement a communication and result oriented strategy. With a team-based approach to SaaS product development, you get access to additional benefits of flexibility and speed.

Why do you need to outsource the development of your SaaS product?

In the SaaS industry, a product-market fit has to be achieved in order to stay ahead of competitors. It is because, the industry is rapidly maturing and SaaS companies are saturating the market with an ever-increasing competition. Did you know that SaaS initial public offerings (IPOs) have more than doubled over the past 12 years?

Consequently, the market demands need to be met while being cost effective and lean. Although, most companies do not have the necessary infrastructure to take on these massive projects. One of the major problems involved in the development of SaaS products is, the bulky amount of resources and time taken to build a piece of software from the ground up.

On an average, it can take upto 18 months to build a custom software from its concept to the finished product! Naturally, this would mean that you must have a highly specialised group of employees: software engineers. It can take up a lot of your time to figure out your teams’ needs.

Also Read: How Recooty SaaS Solution for Hiring Acquired 1,50,000+ B2B Customers in 90 Days!

The development of SaaS products is different in many respects from the development of the other traditional products or softwares. There’s a magnificent volume and scale to which the product is required to be developed. Also keep in mind, that the landscape of the technology is an on-going process.

This is when software outsourcing comes into the picture as the most popular solution for SaaS challenge. Working with an outsourced development team provides a number of benefits to SaaS companies. Both during the MVP stage and growth stage. Besides, outsourcing the development of your SaaS products give you multiple benefits.

Pros of Outsourcing Your SaaS Product Development from EngineerBabu

1. Complete Flexibility Even After Development:

In the midst of a major software development project, most employees don’t have time to think ahead to next month, much less next year. Making sure that their team is prepared for the next steps once the software is brought to market, becomes the primary responsibility of the management.

Definitely, you can hire a highly experienced permanent staff to assist you in the development of your SaaS project. But it will be rendered useless when they’re no longer required full-time. Why not hire a team that takes care of the process and even guides you with the project after it has been completed?

2. Learn From Those Who Know The Best:

If you’re new to this, you will have to understand everything from the beginning- the entire development cycle, customer needs, technology trends, etc. Rather than going through this process, you can benefit from the experience of others.

3. Make The Project Completion Process Faster:

Typically, on-boarding a full-time in-house staff will require giving them the necessary training on-the-job. If you outsource the entire development project to one company, it will help in significantly saving the time.

While these companies are already experienced enough in their domains, you will get an opportunity to instead focus on the usability and functionality of your project. Rather than the hassle of hiring, devote this time to other channels like marketing, sales, etc.

4. Lowers Down The Cost

All SaaS ventures operate on a given budget that focus on reducing the initial development costs. It seeks to maximise the return from the finalised software. With such limitations, it becomes inconvenient for companies to look for an efficient staff to build their MVPs.

To curb this and make your process go smoother and faster, you can hire an outsourcing company that will take care of either the MVP, or end-to-end development at one go. Depending on your limitations, you can even decide if you wish to bring in experts for the leading roles and responsibilities.

To Sum Up…

In the development of any software product or service, the most crucial resources are time, money and energy. SaaS software or products those applications that will only witness a rise in the coming years.

There are various tools and applications available in the market today for efficient project management overseas. With Skype, Google Hangouts, Jira and various others, you can easily manage the offshore development of your SaaS product.

At EngineerBabu, we integrate tools like Basecamp, Everhour, Time Doctor, Skype and Whatsapp Web for communication. These tools help us to divide the tasks into meaningful and easy to achieve goals for our team members. With our vast experience, we can effectively manage your outsourced product.

Have an idea? Share it with us and get the development process started. Drop an email to us at mayank@engineerbabu.com. If you don’t like waiting, click here now.

Also Read:

How Much Does Mobile App Development Cost?

6 Reasons Why WordPress Is Best For Your Business Website (#5 is most important)

How To Set Up An Offshore Development Center In India?

Best Freelance Content Writers in India [Updated List]

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Learn with us, what do you need to build a saas product by outsourcing? Companies are gradually shifting towards SaaS. And to develop a budget-friendly software as a service, hiring a remote team is the best option.

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Here are the best customer retention strategies that generate more leads and increase repeat sales. These 12 tips work infallible, using remarketing as a tool and generate guaranteed repeat purchase for your products as well as business.

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12 Best Customer Retention Strategies to Increase Repeat Sales

At every stage of your business, you’re required to brainstorm for identifying best customer retention strategies that is compatible to your consumer group.

What’s better than acquiring a new customer?

It may seem like a trick question, but the answer is fairly straightforward – Retaining an existing customer.

In his book, The Loyalty Effect, marketing guru, Fred Reichheld states that “a 5% improvement in customer retention rates yield between 25 to 100 times increase in profits across a wide range of industries.” Marketing automation is one sure shot way for remarketing and maintaining customer relations.

Entrepreneurs swear by this and it’s time you should too! It is also a well-proven fact that keeping customers is far less expensive than acquiring a new customer.

While there’s certainly an allure which comes with acquiring new customers, but it is customer retention which will continually result in a greater ROI. Most importantly – it costs 20-25 times less too!

Before we delve any further into the best practices, let’s acquire a better understanding of what is exactly, customer retention.

What is meant by customer retention?

Customer retention is a bunch of activities a business leverages to increase the number of repeat customers, and consequently, increase the profitability of each existing user.

You must  ensure the customers you spent so much marketing and sales cost to acquire stay with you and continue to get value from your products. Thus, customer retention strategies empower you to both provide and extract more value from your existing customer base.

In short, the acquisition creates a basic foundation of customers while your retention strategy helps build customer relationships and most importantly maximize revenue for each one.

But how do you create a customer retention strategy that keeps your current customers engaged and happy?

We’ve broken down twelve customer retention strategies that the biggest tech goliaths and brands are currently utilized to inspire loyalty. From prioritizing personalization to leveraging convenience, below are some simplistic elements which any customer success team and marketer can take and test today.

Listed below are some of the best customer retention strategies which can help your business.

Workflow automation & follow-up emails.

Clues for customer reviews.

Encourage customers to promote their purchase (loyalty program).

Product Recommendations.

Personalizations & Automation.

Personalize email campaign & push notifications.

Refer a friend- offer incentives for shares

Segmentation: know your customer’s mind

Measure customer lifetime value

Abandoned cart notification (email & push).

Empower customers with convenience

AI enabled pop-up (you can give offers, encourage customers for reviews, loyalty, product recommendations, new arrivals).

1. Workflow Automation & Follow-up emails for Customer Loyalty  

Email marketing is undoubtedly one of the best ways to drive repeat purchases. It is estimated that people check their emails more than 15 times per day and unlike social media and search engines, they aren’t governed by some fickle algorithms. Hence, your email is certain to be viewed by the customer instead of getting buried by some algorithm. But, it is easier said than done – An average customer receives at most 200 promotional emails every day. So, how do you differentiate yours from the competition?

The trick lies in personalization. BUT DON’T SPAM. 

How often you should hit your customers with deals, offers, and updates is hotly debated. Although two and four times per month seems to be the “sweet spot” for most industries (five for eCommerce).

Although, if a customer has just purchased, don’t hesitate in following up regarding their recent purchase. There’s nothing spammy about following up.

The major highlight of email follow-ups is that you can automate them. There are numerous email automation tools out there. In particular, post-purchase emails and autoresponders are an awesome way to bring dormant customers back into the fold.

For instance, wait a week after the initial purchase before following up with an incentive for your customers to leave feedback on site.

It doesn’t matter how you re-engage but make sure you’re keeping your brand on the top of mind for your customer list. The best part – You can easily automate this.

2. Read Customer Reviews for Retargeting Efficiently

It is critical for retaining customers to constantly reiterate your product to meet the customers’ requirement. What better way to know what customers want than asking them in the first place!

No-brainer, right?

To figure out how to grab the attention of customers in the future, look no further than your existing customer feedback. Your customers will give you tips about what’s great about your product and what is something that requires change.

That’s why many companies employ ratings and reviews software to derive insights about their prod

For instance, PowerReviews, provide brands and retailers with the detailed information through review content analysis. Similarly, another tool Product Pulse enlists the top-performing products, but also find the terms and commonly used adjectives in the customer reviews to figure out what’s actually working and causing returns.

3. Customer Loyalty Programs

Consumers today support brands as a part of their own identity.

Sometimes a brand inspires loyalty not through marketing tactics and systems, but through what they stand for.

If you’ve haven’t watched Simon Sinek’s TED talk “Start with Why,” you should. In case you already know a thing or two about the importance of having a mission then you must work hard to implement it.

Everyone wishes to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Thus, framing your product or business as representing a sort of community is a smart move for establishing a stronger sense of brand loyalty.

There couldn’t be a better example to understand brand loyalty than Apple. The tech giant has uniquely positioned itself to create an ever-increasing customer base, by associating themselves to a vision, vis-à-vis, “Challenging the status quo.” In addition, they’ve complemented this loyalty by establishing their own ecosystem, and it is hard to get out of it.

Referral systems can also be an effective way for customer retention when done well. The key is to focus on strong incentives to get people invested in your brand. Besides, don’t forget to empower and encourage your customers to become flag-bearers for your brand in the process.

4. Product Recommendation is a Sales Plan!

Product recommendations accounts for 1/3rd of ecommerce sales.

The takeaway?

Upselling is real and helps increases customers lifetime value. Never miss out on it.

If you want your customers to purchase from your site again, offer a suggestion to make that happen. Amazon’s recommendation engine is a wonderful example of how you can drive repeat purchases based on customers buying patterns.

You can also include product recommendations as part of your follow-up email campaigns.

Important Note: Upselling is a great way to increase revenue and you don’t necessarily need a full-blown recommendation engine to suggest products. Instead what you can do is simply suggest customers check out your latest offers and frame them as recommendations.

5. Personalization & Automation

Personalizing outgoing emails can go a long way in connecting with your customer and retaining the already existing ones. Sometimes, the greatest form of advertising isn’t your own. In fact, customers are more likely to value opinions coming from friends, family, and other consumers more than ads or branded content.

This newer category of advertising is what is termed as social proof advertising. Utilizing testimonials and customer stories from renowned consumers can go a long way to show prospective customers the value of your product.

Give your buyers a VIP treatment. You can devise an exclusive promotional campaign targeting your past buyers. Making your past customers feel special by “only for you” offers and deals will make them feel special and valuable. You’ll be surprised how a little favoritism can go a long way in customer retention.

For example, “for your eyes, only” email deals make being part of your list even more valuable while also encouraging another purchase.

According to a recent Statista Report, more than 60% of customers trust online reviews and witnessing popular individuals and brands use your product actually makes others want to do it more – thus, FOMO is a really good marketing and retention tactic.

6. Push Notifications

Push notifications help in registering the product in the mind of your consumer. According to Jeff Weiner (co-founder LinkedIn), a customer needs to see your product at least seven times in order to create an impression.

Hence, push notifications are a great tool of reminding customers about your brand, new deals, offers, product updates, price drop, etc. They don’t cost much to implement and are normally easy to integrate with your platform. Thus, utilizing it to drive repeat purchases is something you should include in your customer retention strategy.

7. Referral programs

Another great customer retention strategy that has gained tremendous popularity in recent years is the referral programs. Our focus here is on creating a clever referral program where customers are encouraged from the moment, they purchase to refer a friend. This can be achieved only when the rewards are worth it. Thus, you need to come up with a clever referral program which not only incentivizes customers to refer your product but at the same time maintains the bottom-line of your business.

When done well, referral systems can be really effective for retention. The key is to focus on strong incentives to get people invested.

One study concluded that customers acquired by word-of-mouth referrals spend approximately 200% more than the average customer. Another critical aspect to keep in mind is that, once you have a consumer, you don’t want to pay to acquire that customer again as if they were brand new.

8. Segmentation

People crave to have personal connections with the brands they buy from.

There is no “right” way to create that connection, but one way is through supporting a cause. Your specific retention strategy should focus on the needs of your shoppers. Once you’ve figured out that aspect you should please them with campaigns you know they’ll love.

For example, Bombas, an up-and-coming apparel startup designs luxury socks, and for every pair bought of their website, they donate one pair to the homeless. It might seem like a lot for a startup, but last year Bombas surpassed $50 Million in revenue.

Thus, getting inside the mind of your ideal customer persona is crucial to scale up your venture and to retain customers.

Simple interactions do a lot better than you likely think.

Take for instance, how many businesses post a shoutout for their customers, which for most, might seem entirely random or even without a direct mention to a brand.

9. Measure Customers lifetime value

If you don’t realize it till now, then let me make myself very clear – Your customers are your biggest asset.

Customer Lifetime Value is one of the key indicators that depict the worth of your customers over a period.

CLV is especially critical for business which is subscription-based. For instance, if you sell online courses and charge a monthly fee, you’re not really concerned about new customers, but the lifetime value of each customer who purchases from you today.

It takes a lot of resources to get a customer and as an entrepreneur, you’ll likely be curious to know the value each of your customers is bringing to your business. This is called the customer’s equity. Some of your customers might add more value than others. Some always come around to buy. These repeated buyers should be your focus group or VIP customers.

These VIP customers are the same group who will refer others to your business through word of mouth.

The value you place on your customers helps you predict revenue and determine your budget for providing engaging content.

There are numerous tools online that can come in handy to estimate CLV. Utilize them for your benefit.

10. Abandoned Cart Notification

In this day and age, where three-fourths of all shoppers abandon their carts, a quick email reminder can provide the much-needed push. In terms of customer retention strategies, cart abandonment notification can have the most considerable impact amongst all the customer retention strategies. Introduce creative and innovative techniques to deliver these notifications such as the one implemented by MeUndies. On their platform, if a friend adds a product to the cart but hasn’t yet completed checkout, you can send an email reminder to remind your friend about it. MeUndies has found an innovative and creative way to utilize their current customer base to reduce cart abandonment, also including social proof in the process.

The key is to focus on providing strong incentives to keep people invested. Besides, don’t forget to empower and encourage your customers to become promoters for your brand in the process.

11. Empower customers with convenience

Great businesses are built on the foundation of ‘convenience.’ Take, for example, the eCommerce goliath Amazon – The business is practically founded on the principles of convenience.

Another great example is Starbucks, In the early days, Starbucks founders Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegel, and Gordon Bowker focused on sounds and the smells to entice customers into their shops which proved to be a successful initiative.

In their bid to expand further, they decided to further innovate. One of their most innovative customer retention moves was the ‘Mobile Order & Pay feature.’ Thanks to this new feature, busy customers can order their coffee even before they arrive at the shop.

The simplest lesson to learn here is – Make your products and services as accessible as possible. Recognize the needs and behaviors of your regulars and create tools and systems to empower them. Whether that be an app or other traditional methods, it’s up to you.

12. Don’t underestimate the power of a simple, ‘Thank You’

Every business or organization around the world is working to satisfy their customers. But only a handful are focused on delighting them. The contemporary customer today doesn’t want to be ‘satisfied,’ he needs to feel ‘delighted’ by your product.

Companies like Zappos, Nordstrom, and Wufoo does a great job of going the extra mile to delight their consumers. They are known for acknowledging their customers via a handwritten snail mail. They have long ago understood that old-school, handwritten thank-you notes are a low-cost, high-impact customer retention strategy.

These small gestures may not cost significant overhead but will greatly benefit your bottom-line. Handwritten notes are still a rare throwback to old-fashioned, personal customer service which used to be quite common in the twentieth century. Bring them back out of their grave as they stand out as a delightful gesture which makes customers feel special and cared for.

The relationship-building is undoubtedly well worth the relatively minimal investment.

Wrapping Up

Customer retention may not be easy. There are numerous tactics – but no shortcuts. One simply cannot ‘hack’ building relationships. Identical to relationships, businesses should also be nurtured with care and affection. It takes time to build a lasting bond with your customers but once you’ve hit the sweet spot it will be smooth sailing ahead.

The tactics above hopefully gave you some fresh ideas for approaching retention, but, keep in mind, they’re not a cure-all.

Your product and your service will do most of the heavy lifting in keeping customers faithful to your brand. There are simply no shortcuts for that.

To know various other ways to maximize your sales and build strong customer market, talk to us  straight away or leave us an email at mayank@engineerbabu.com

.

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A Detailed Guide to CSS Transitions and Animations

Every one of us gets awestruck when we look at the exquisitely designed websites of tech biggies, like Apple or Microsoft, or of automobile companies like Tesla or Mercedes. The X-factor that makes these websites stands out, is oftentimes the appealing animations and effects that make us look again and again. So, how do they make the websites so amazingly interactive? Ever gaped about how the animations on these websites actually work? Do you wish to design a similarly elegant and interactive website for your business too? If yes, then look no further. Read along as this is a detailed excerpt covering the basics of CSS transitions and CSS animations that could immensely help you in achieving the same for your business website. If you have just ventured into the domain of front-end development, or are looking to expand your understanding about the same, then continue reading this blog, because by the end of it you'll get a comprehensive understanding of CSS. CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is the pretty part of web-applications you get to notice. While CSS styles the web application, HTML or Hypertext Markup Language structures it.  Animations play a critical role in improving the experience of users as they assist in providing improved visual feedback and helps in making interactions with the website striking. CSS 3 has an abundance of in-built properties that substantially help in animating elements, and that too across all the major browsers. But - With great power, comes greater responsibility. Animations need to be used wisely, or you could end up creating a page that is more distracting than interactive. The entire purpose of animations is to serve as an aid, rather than a hindrance while using web applications. According to a Google report, almost 50% of the overall web traffic comes through mobile devices. Hence, any business needs to create mobile-friendly animations.  It is also imperative to have a basic understanding of CSS (preferably CSS 3), HTML and somewhat of jQuery. jQuery is a Javascript library that assists developers in playing with elements of the website. The technical jargon for this is - DOM manipulation. As your target audience might vary, it is possible that you might be using more than one kind of web browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer), and thus need to cater to all of them. You can also check for the browser support for animations here. CSS animations have 3 significant aspects to it:

Transforms

Transitions

Keyframes

PART A: TRANSFORMS

Transforms helps to change your web elements in all kinds of wonderful ways - from moving the element to re-sizing it, from rotating the element to tilting it. And the best part - You can alter anything and everything without changing the document flow. There are four significant aspects of transforms:

Translate

Scale

Rotate

Skew     Let’s dig a little deeper, shall we?

1. Translate

Translate changes the coordinates of the element. It is used to change the appearance of the component on a 2D plane. Translate means to simply move the element from one position to another on the webpage. You can translate an object on X-axis, Y-axis or both.

Moves the element on the X-axis

Syntax: transform: translateX(200px); or transform: translateX(-200px);

Moves the element on the Y-axis

Syntax: transform: translateY(200px); or transform: translateY(-200px);

Using shorthand

Syntax: transform: translate(x-axis, y-axis)

Example: transform: translate(200px, 200px);

Alert!

transform: translate(200px); [will only translate the element along the X-axis]

2. Scale

One can play with the size of the image, along with both the axis – X and Y. Scaling distorts the shape of the element and can degrade the quality of the element. A number greater than 1 will increase the size and a decimal less than 1 will decrease the size.

Scaling along the X-axis - transform: scaleX(3);

Scaling along the Y-axis - transform: scaleY(0.5);

Using the shorthand - for scaling along X and Y axis together -

transform: scale(3 , 0.5); or transform: scale(0.5);

3. Rotate

You can rotate the element either clockwise or counter-clockwise. The unit of measurement used is degrees. A positive value will rotate the element clockwise, and vice versa for the negative element. This rotation would also happen along X, Y and Z axis.

Understanding the rotation in CSS animations is one of the trickiest parts, and thus a lot of people fails to utilize the real potential of this feature.

Along X-axis Imagine a marshmallow getting roasted while being rotated on a bonfire. You have to visualize the elements to turn into the page along with the X-axis, and that’s what rotation will look like on X-axis. We won’t see the 3D rotation, all we would be able to see is the height of the element changing.

Syntax: transform: rotateX(45deg);

Along Y-axis Imagine a dancer on a pole. The elements will be rotating into the page along Y-axis. All you would notice is the width of the component getting changed.

Syntax: transform: rotateY(45deg);

Along Z-axis This is the best possible orientation that you would work with while using rotation, as you can see the element actually rotating. One can also modify the clockwise and counter-clockwise movement with positive and negative rotation values respectively. For this, try imagining an arrow going into the page and the element rotating with respect to that arrow.

transform: rotateZ(45deg) – clockwise rotation

transform: rotateZ(-45deg) – counterclockwise rotation

4. Skew

Skewing an element means tilting the component. It has both positive and negative values, and like rotation, it is measured in degrees (deg) too. Positive X value bends the element to the left, and vice versa for the negative X. Likewise, a positive Y value dips the element downwards, and vice versa. By default, if X or Y aren't stated in the transform, it will shift the element with respect to the X-axis.

Along X-axis

transform: skewX(45deg) or skew(45deg);

Along Y-axis

transform: skewY(80deg);

5. Combining transforms

One can also apply multiple transforms into a single transform statement. The order does matter (sometimes) as the second transform will apply on the first transform and the third will apply on the result of the first two transforms.

transform: translateX(200px) rotateX(45deg) scaleY(1.5) skewX(45deg);

All of these transforms will take effect on some user events like hover, click, focus, active, etc. To see the magic in action, you can add the transforms in these events.

.element-to-animate{

display: block

}

.element-to-animate:hover{

transform: translateX(200px) rotateX(45deg) scaleY(1.5) skewX(45deg);

}

PART B: TRANSITIONS

If you got a chance to go over the code above, you might have noticed a jerk during the state change on hover; that’s precisely what transitions are for. CSS Transitions help in making the animation fluid. One can control the CSS transitions with the help of the following properties:

transition-property

transition-duration

transition-timing-function

transition-delay

1. transition-property

These are the CSS properties that one can use transitions on. This ranges from playing with margins and paddings to background and borders. You can either apply a transition to a specific feature or to a complete list. A comprehensive list of all the properties that come under this purview can be found here. Applying transition property to a specific CSS property

transition-property: background-color;

Applying a transition to the entire list of CSS properties

transition-property: all;

2. transition-duration

The time duration for which the animation will be in play. This can easily be measured in seconds (s) or milliseconds (ms). It is advisable to use seconds as it makes them easily readable - even your fellow developers at the office won’t get annoyed by you!

transition-duration: 0.5s;

3. transition-timing-function

Who doesn’t like SPEED!  Speed is something that can make or break the user experience with your animation; therefore it is advisable to control it. The way you can accomplish it is by using transition-timing-function. Pupils at CSS 3 team were kind enough to provide us with some in-built values for speed, like ease, ease-in, ease-in-out  And in case, you wish to possess total command over the speed - Use Bezier Curves.

transition-timing-function: ease;

transition-timing-function: cubic-bezier(0.25, 0.1, 0.25, 1);

4. transition-delay

This helps in creating a pause between the event getting fired that starts the animation and the actual start of the animation. Simply put, transition-delay - delays the animation. It is measured in seconds (s) or milliseconds (ms).

transition-delay: 0.5s;

Shorthand:

transition: (property) (duration) (transition-timing-function) (transition-delay);

The order for the two time-oriented functions, i.e. duration and transition-delay matter - So stay alert!

Using Transforms and CSS Transitions Together

STATE 1: NORMAL

.element-to-animate display: block; transition: transform 1s ease 0.2s, background 1s; }

STATE 2: HOVER

.element-to-animate:hover{ background: black; transform: translateX(200px); }

For transitioning between STATE 1 and STATE 2, one can apply the transition to all the properties separately with individual timings, or if you wish to apply CSS transitions on all properties in STATE 2, then:

transition: all 1s ease 0.2s;

PART C: KEYFRAMES

The keyframes help in changing the animation from one to another at certain times. One can play with keyframes in two ways:

From – To     approach

Percentage     Approach

1. From – To Approach

In this approach, there are only 2 states during the animation - start state and end state. Syntax:

@keyframes animation_name {

            from { }

            to { }

}

To animate an element (e.g., a Car) to move horizontally from its initial position:

@keyframes drive{

from {

transform: translateX(-200);

}

to {

transform: translateX(1000px);

}

}

.car{

animation-name: drive;

animation-duration: 3s;

animation-fill-mode: forwards;

animation-delay: 2s;

animation-iteration-count: infinite;

animation-timing-function: ease-in;

animation-direction: normal;

}

2. Percentage Approach

We cannot use from-to in @keyframes as there is more than 1 state now. The percentage approach breaks down the animation into various intermediate states including a start and end state. The start state is indicated by 0%, and the end state is indicated by 100%. There can be as many intermediate states you want, but it is advised to keep the segregation of states uniform throughout. Example: 0% - 25% - 50% - 75% - 100%

@keyframes jump{

0% { transform: translateY(-50px) }

50% { transform: translateY(-100px) }

100% { transform: translateY(-50px) }

}

• Animation shorthand

One can also use this concise format to write the animations: animation: (animation-name) (animation-duration) (animation-fill-mode) (animation-timing-function) (animation-iteration-count) (animation-direction) (animation-delay); Note: The animation-delay will always come AFTER animation-duration. Apart from them - time-oriented functions and the order of other properties in shorthand doesn’t matter. Example:

.car{

animation-name: drive;

animation-duration: 3s;

animation-fill-mode: forwards;

animation-delay: 2s;

animation-iteration-count: infinite;

animation-timing-function: ease-in;

animation-direction: normal;

}

Can be re-written as:

.car{

animation: drive 3s ease-in infinite normal 2s;

}

We now have two animations – drive and jump, which we wish to add on the “car” element. We can do this through a single line code by using, “Chaining Animations.”

• What is Chaining Animations?

Playing with multiple animations is a breeze with CSS. Comma separation technique can be used to chain the animation and run one animation after the other. For example,

.car{

animation: drive 3s ease-in infinite normal 2s, jump 2s ease 4 alternate reverse;

}

Classifications of Animation Properties:

·Which Animation to use? animation-name: Name of the animation which is indicated by the keyword after @keyframes

·What to do when the animation ends? animation-fill-mode: Tells what to do with the element being animated outside the animation window.

·If you wish to repeat the animation “n” number of times, use, animation-iteration-count: It helps to repeat the animation. It can either have a number value or if you want the animation to play continuously, then use “infinite.”

·If you wish to reverse the direction of the animation, use, animation-direction: You don’t need to write a separate animation all together just to reverse the animation. You can apply this to play with the current animation, and it’s direction.

In From – To Approach:

reverse: to - from

alternate: from-to -> to-from -> from-to

alternate-reverse: to-from -> from-to -> to-from

In Percentage Approach

reverse: 100% - 0%

alternate: 0% - 100% -> 100% - 0% -> 0% - 100%

alternate-reverse: 100% - 0% ->0% - 100% ->100% - 0%

· Like SPEED? Control it using, animation-timing-function helps to control the speed with which the animation starts, behaves and ends. There are some in-built values like ease, ease-in and you can write your own using the cubic-bezier(n,n,n,n). Play with it here.

· Do you procrastinate? CSS animations can too! Using animation-delay will start the animation a few seconds/milliseconds after the event gets fired.

Wrapping Up It could be a bit complicated to get used to CSS jargon at first. But once you get used you'll realize that CSS Animations and CSS Transitions are simply marvelous.

Thanks for reading. We hope this article helped you. If it did, please give it a thumbs-up and feel free to drop your comments in case you have any queries. You can talk to us right now or visit our website for more details. Also, if you have exciting uses of CSS transitions or CSS animations that you’d like to share, we'd love to hear from you.

[engineerbabuinc]

CSS transitions are very important in enhancing the style of your HTML code. Here's the detailed guide to know how to use them along with transforms and animations.

[engineerbabuinc]

Choose India to set up an offshore development center to build tech solutions for your business. Comparing to other countries, in India it is easy to find skilled and budget-friendly IT professionals and software engineers.

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How to Set Up an Offshore Development Center in India?

Are you a technology firm looking forward to expand and focus on the global market with an offshore development center? You definitely must have come across the saying for young and ambitious people that “West is Best”.

It’s very confusing to decide whether or not to go for an offshore development center when majority of the people believe that California is the place for entrepreneurs to begin at. Especially those working in technology, seeking funding and network connections.

But are you for some reason, not able to start in the Silicon Valley?

For any business, growth and scalability are essential. If you’re an entrepreneur in IT, always take this fact as a given that you might have to expand your team in the near future. And expanding your team is a costly yet inevitable venture. The challenges of finding economically feasible options in the Valley are well known in the industry.

An offshore development center in India is the right solution for you! It completely makes sense for you to explore the options for hiring the right group of software developers and experts

Is India a Right Destination for an Offshore Development Center?

Did you know that there are 25 unicorns in India so far,  where 15 have been from 2018 alone! The list includes Zomato, Shopclues, Udaan, Swiggy, OYO, Paytm Mall, Freshworks, Billdesk, Byju’s, Ola Cabs, PolicyBazaar and more.

It’s not a secret that Indian Developers work at a fraction of salary as compared to counterparts from other parts of the world. It’s a pretty huge country with a massive young population that has IT professionals and Computer Science majors in abundance.

More than 50% of the Indian developers are working on a yearly salary of less than $10,000.

We found some really interesting stats about the average annual salary of Developers in India:

2.5 times lesser than that of developers all over the world,

5 times lesser than the average salary in the US,

4 times lesser than the average salary in the UK,     and

3 times lesser than the average salary in Germany.

How important is Customer Satisfaction in the Indian Information Technology (IT) Service Industry?

Imagine getting a cake baked for your Boss’s birthday and the baker messing up with what goes up on it. A bad code is exactly like that. You cannot risk writing a bad code. Web/app development requires immense attention in managing operations and resources. Every customer is very particular about what problems their IT solution/product would be catering to.

A lot of Indian IT firms keep customer satisfaction as their utmost priority. And it shows in the various practices they’ve implemented in their working culture. India hosts a huge pool of talented developers who offer budget-friendly solutions. While looking for somebody from India, time-zones and communication will not become an issue. Along with a tailor-made hiring process, you get 24*7 support and a highly productive team.

How efficient are Indian Developers?

The pricing is not the only deciding factor for hiring developers. Specially for setting up an offshore development center! If you want to hire, your first priority is somebody who knows how to write a good code.

There’s plenty of myths around Indian developers. But the truth is that the Indian job market for junior developer roles is incredibly crowded. They are no doubt paid lesser than the more experienced roles, but it makes them competitive for entry-level jobs.

What it takes is the right people. If you could get the right ten thousand people to move from Silicon Valley to Buffalo, Buffalo would become Silicon Valley.

–Paul Graham (Founder, Y Combinator)

A domain matters a lot when it comes to app/web development. Domain specialty increases the success rate exponentially. Teams holding expertise in developing social media websites will not deliver the same results for developing an e-commerce portal. Just look for the right team to outsource your project, and you will not be disappointed.

Introducing you to the commercial capital of Central India, Indore

The Silicon Valley of Central India 

Everybody across the globe knows that Bangalore is the Silicon Valley of India. But Indore is catching up to the startup culture at its slow, but steady speed. It is still in its development stage. So if you are planning to set up an offshore development center in Indore, this is the best time for it.

When we think of Tier-2 cities as a potential market, Indore is a little different from all the others.

According to market research platform Tracxn, Indore has 461 tech startups! This list includes WittyFeed and ShopKirana.

The latter recently got a funding worth $10 million in Series B Funding. Prior to this round, the company had raised $2.1 Mn. The fresh funds will be used to expand the company’s presence in major Tier 2 cities.

As per India’s first ever ‘Ease of Living‘ index, Indore ranks 8th on the list of Top Ten Livable Cities. Indore also stood on the position 5th in identify and culture, 8th in health, 4th in economy and employment and 7th in power supply categories. (Source)

Good Connectivity, Educational and Employment Opportunities:

Access to a good startup ecosystem, talent, presence of venture capitalists and financial institutions are a must for making a city a Startup Capital. Indore has been witnessing a massive growth in every sector- be it educational or commercial.

The Tier-2 city has great road, rail and air connectivity. City boasts of its International Airport and Super Corridor: a 250 ft wide connecting the airport to the city. This road is a budding place for MNCs and companies like TCS and Infosys. Also, the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor is nearby. Impetus, Yash Technologies, CSC and Infobeans already have a presence in Indore.

The market is dynamic and almost all inexpensive to international brands already have ventured here, which is a plus point. Force Motors, M&M, Cipla, Lupin, Glenmark, Bridgestone, Volvo, Eicher Motors, and various other brands are operating in Indore.

Also, Indore is the only city in India that has both IIM and IIT. Along with that, there’s SGSITS, NMIMS and various reputed B-schools as well.

There’s literally next to no traffic jams!

Unlike Bangalore, Indore doesn’t face the issue of traffic clogged streets and roads. It will not take you more than an hour to travel from any given point of Indore to the other!

It’s true. Indorians really do love their jobs! 

The inter-city travel is extremely convenient and affordable because of the iBus service. It’s a government-funded service and all the buses are operated by a semi-government agency AICTSL. In addition to that, several local transport startups like Ola Cabs, Uber, Jugnoo, etc also operate in the city.

How to set up an Offshore Development Center in Indore?

Building and managing a tech team is cumbersome. Founders usually end up wasting a lot of time, effort and money. Offshoring a development process simply means, relocating the part of business to some other place. There are several IT companies in India facilitating the same. However, as mentioned earlier, you have to be very careful when choosing one for your project.

EngineerBabu, Indore 

EngineerBabu is an IT services company based in Indore, specialized in building MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for startups and enterprises. With our extremely innovative, dedicated & experienced team of 50+ geeks, we have developed robust & scalable solutions that help our clients to overcome their technical hurdles, and launch amazing products and services.

In the last 5 years, we have worked with more than 700 startups, and many of them have got massive funding (including latest $30MN in Bankopen). We are a profitable startup making a $70,000 monthly recurring revenue!

Two of our clients’ products have been selected in Y-combinator and MIT DeltaV. Also, Harvard Innovation Lab Startups are also a part of our portfolio.

Our clients include reputed brands like Samsung, YourStory, FrankGreen, IBM, BankOpen, Honeywell, Uber and HSBC bank, to name a few. Profitable startups like ZoomCar, Ondoor, Justride, MaalGaadi, Thrillophilia, Tooreest, Jokaamo, etc are some others. We have developed mobile apps for several other sectors like- Grocery Delivery, EduTech, Business Networking, FinTech, Service Providers, etc. Check out our complete portfolio here.

Pros of setting up an Offshore Development Center with EngineerBabu

We are very particular about thorough assessment of all candidates to take skills assessment tests. We do this to ensure that we’re hiring the best. And when you hire our development teams, they will be 100% dedicated to you and the project. It means that you’ll be in control of the team and product, till you get the desired results.

Just decide when to reduce or increase the size of the development team. All we’ll need from you is a 30 days notice. Our team’s schedule will always be in sync with your schedule. And each employee gets assessed for english language fluency for effective communication with you and your team. No more headache about the offshore development team not being aligned to your process and workflow!

We have been featured by YourStory for having a great culture! We don’t have any designated chairs for our employees, and neither does the boss!

A beautiful office where our employees are happy. Without worrying about anything, they just focus on creating the best products for you!

We provide every team member with laptops, fiber internet, and all the necessary tools and equipment to effectively do the job.

Also, in case you need to make a visit personally, we will be taking care of all the accommodation arrangements for you. We will take care of all the legal hassles. And you don’t have to worry about signing long term contracts with us. Everything is going to be mutually discussed and agreed upon!

Events and Initiatives at EngineerBabu:

We are known for running a conventional business in very unconventional ways. We keep hosting and organizing learning Saturdays and more such events for our employees on weekends regularly. They’re even open to outsiders with nominal or no charges.

Here’s the pictures of the most recent event hosted at EngineerBabu: “Startup Weekend Indore“.

So much happens in just 54 hours! It was a great concept that helped budding entrepreneurs to know the realities of the startup world before starting up. There were winners as young as students from Class XII! A lot of innovation and good ideas came out of the that lasted for just 54 hours- One weekend! 

Do you have any prior experience working with offshore development centers based in India? Let us know how was your experience, and what could’ve made the process even smoother for you and your team.

We hope this was worth value to you in helping you decide about the pros and cons of an offshore development center in India. If there’s any further queries, you can drop a comment in the comment section below. You can also simply shoot an email to us at mayank@engineerbabu.com.

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