The Issue with Hiring the Ultra-Cheap for Your Software Development Projects

When businesses think of off-shore development, we know that the first thought that comes to mind is the price point.

Yes, there are ultra-cheap developers and teams available — but that doesn’t always guarantee quality or the actual delivery of software that you can use.

Here are some things your business needs to be aware of when it comes to hiring on a dime and how it can impact your bottom line in the long run.

The Quality Issue

As a no-shore software development and project delivery company, we’ve experienced the quality issue first hand. We’ve seen businesses sink their budgets to the ground because no one can seem to deliver what’s expected from them.

The problem with the ultra-cheap is that they’re often competing based on price rather than actual skill. They work to undercut the market prices and make grand promises to win the contract.

Then fail to deliver. Or deliver at a sub-par or below standard.

How do we know this? Because we’ve inherited these kinds of projects before. 

When it comes to the ultra-cheap, you’re not paying for quality or actual code. What you’re paying for is a shell of what looks like software that may or may not work as intended. 

The Time Issue

When a cheap off-shore team asks for an extension, it may not seem like there’s much of an impact on your budget — until weeks turn into months and months turn into a year.

The impact of delay can be much more costly than what you actually spent on the ultra-cheap off-shore team.

What are the impacts?

A delayed deliverable can delay the execution of your business strategy. This can mean prolonged reduced productivity and inefficiencies, which can have a bullwhip effect on your production output, customer acquisition, and retainment abilities. 

The Service Delivery Issue

Maybe your ultra-cheap team managed to deliver your software at some point, but there are parts missing, which makes your software somewhat redundant.

Or they’ve finally delivered, but the market has moved on.

Delays and low-quality deliveries can compound, impacting negatively on both your bottom line and your ability to do business in general. You may have had an idea first, but the deliverable speed resulted in a competitor beating you to it.

The Architectural and Security Issue

The software may also appear to be working on the surface but breaks under a slight increase in load. Sometimes, things that are delivered by ultra-cheap teams can be a patchwork of code, strung together with gaping holes in security and architectural soundness.

When this happens, your software is equivalent to a house made of straw.

These straw houses tend to fall apart when a change is required, or if external changes such as a burst in customer usage or change in infrastructure providers happen.

Why You Should Use Us Instead

As an offshore software company, we’re not part of the ultra-cheap market. 

Why?

Because we pride ourselves in our ability to deliver high-quality software, using methodologies that ensure robust code and architecture. We don’t lowball our prices in the ultra-cheap market, because we compete based on quality and standards.

As a result, we save our customers more money in the long run.

Our pricing is affordable and fair, and we source our developers based on their quality of work, their ability to be proactive and their ability to be self-sufficient, giving your business flexibility with their skills and knowledge.

As a software development company, we are proud of our deliverables, with our pricing as a perk rather than a selling point.

And that is what makes us different from the ultra-cheap that may be dropping their prices to ultra-low levels. 

Your software, applications, feature upgrades, and additions are all part of your digital asset portfolio. Quality should be the metric to invest in. It’s much better to base your decisions around that rather than how cheaply you can get something built — because when you spend a sliver of your budget, you’re going to get only a sliver of the quality back in investment returns.

At the end of the project, it’s better to invest in something that you’ll actually keep for years to come rather than something you’ll throw out after you’ve closed off the project with an ultra-cheap team.

Co-authored by:

Dave Wesley ~ President, SRG
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Aphinya Dechalert ~ Marketing Communications, SRG
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