If you’ve developed a piece of software before, you’re planning to do so in the future, or you’re in the middle of a project, it’s likely that you’ve considered outsourcing. Possibly you’re already outsourcing, you’ve outsourced in the past, or you’re still hesitant to try it. There are many different regions that you can outsource your work to, and there are many different types of outsourcing companies working in each region. I’ll be breaking it down by region, and by some points, pros, and cons that are generally common among companies in those regions. The question is, where should you outsource your development to?

You could try India.

It can be argued that some of the first partnerships in software development outsourcing were between western clients and Indian outsourcers. Here are some general pros and cons of outsourcing to India:

• When I recently did a company search for “Software Development India” on Linkedin, over 9,000 companies came up, many of them consisting of just a few employees. India has a huge, constantly changing software development outsourcing industry.
  • Pro: There is a great variety of service providers in India, and it’s not hard to shop around for what you want.
  • Con: It’s difficult to navigate through this immense market, and due to its competitive nature, often you’ll never know what kind of deal you’ll get- whether you’ll get quality work for a low price, or poor work for a high price. It can be difficult to tell the good apart from the bad, until you start working with them.
• Many smaller Indian firms are ready to take on any project: Large, small, familiar, or obscure. In India, it’s not uncommon to find small companies of 3-10 developers that will work on mobile projects, web projects, SaaS projects, game projects, virtual reality projects, and even SEO- all under one roof.
  • Pro: If you have diverse needs, you probably won’t need to work with more than a few firms.
  • Con: It’s difficult to find specialized talent to work on your projects when the market skews heavily towards generalism.
• India remains one of the cheapest places to have software developed.
  • Pro: You can get your project done for much less than you could elsewhere, and it’s not hard to find a company willing to work for a very low rate.
  • Con: Your service provider may be getting the best deal, not you. If most companies in India are able to pay their developers a few dollars per hour, and you’re paying a few dozen dollars per hour to that company- you may be spending a disproportionately high amount of money, for work that is ultimately valued at lot less.
• Read more here