In more recent times, software outsourcing has become an integral component of a company’s IT Strategy. Companies are increasingly considering software development outsourcing to reduce costs and eliminate risks. We have compiled a list of key trends which are increasingly relevant in the outsourcing marketplace globally.
The Shift in Outsourcing Relations: Strategic Partners in Digital Transformation
Today, software outsourcing has become one of the most fundamental services of companies from Asian countries. With countless benefits, from cost reduction, access to top tech talents, and high production speed, this service has turned into an inseparable part of the client’s working routine. As a result, the outsourcing vendors’ role in the high-tech field has gradually shifted from simple providing development to top-level decisions on many important issues such as software architecture or full-cycle product development.
With such entrustment, software outsourcing companies are no longer considered ‘agencies for developers hiring’. From an IT talent connector, many vendors have turned into full-on strategic partners for entrepreneurs, aiming at long-term partnerships, shared risks, and business alignment.
This new trend of collaborative partnership is much more human-oriented. It focuses on cooperation and implementation quality, the process simplification but not the price. With such a strategic vision to help the reliable partner understand well their client’s processes, you can believe in the higher quality of the final product.
Business Process Automation Taking the Center Stage
In 2021, companies, governments, and other organizations have put in place systems to automate tasks and processes: forecasting and supply chain technologies; systems for enterprise resource planning, customer relationship
management, and HR; product and customer databases. Now these systems are becoming interconnected through common standards for exchanging data and representing business processes in bits and bytes. What’s more, this information can be combined in new ways to automate an increasing array of broader activities, from inventory management to customer service. The rate of adoption disappoints the advocates of these technologies, but as the price of digital tags falls, they could very well reduce the costs of managing distribution and increase revenues by helping companies to manage supply more effectively.
Companies still have substantial headroom to automate many repetitive tasks that aren’t yet mediated by computers—particularly in sectors and regions where IT marches at a slower pace—and to interlink “islands of automation” and so give managers and customers the ability to do new things. Automation is a good investment as it not only lowers costs but also helps users to get what they want more quickly and easily, though it may not be a good idea if it gives them unpleasant experiences. The trick is to strike the right the balance between raising margins and making customers happy.
2021 would continue to see companies looking to digitally transform and streamlining operations using process automation would inevitably be a good starting point to enable this transition.
The Rise of No-Code and Low-Code Development Platforms
In 2021, no-code development platforms would continue to take the center stage in the application development industry with companies joining the bandwagon and encouraging citizen developers to fast-track their digital transformation initiatives.
Accelerated by the effects of the ongoing pandemic, there has been significant adoption across companies of various industries and sectors, so much so that some of the fiercest skeptics acknowledge that the no-code has perhaps matured at the right time. Recent articles and reports by Diginomika and Enterprise Talk go on to reinforce the impetus which the pandemic, fueled by the skeletal workforce and the acceleration of digital transformation, has provided to companies looking to adopt the no-code revolution.
Another report attempts to elucidate the reasons behind the meteoric rise behind the adoption of no-code platforms. The report outlines how the average enterprise stack have never been more complex and the need to build a digitally connected business has never been greater. Internal teams build disproportionate amounts of time building and maintaining internal tools and managing the compounding technical debt. Recent research shows that a whooping 72% of IT leaders project backlogs prevent them from undertaking strategic projects, while 6 out of 10 CIO’s are expecting skills shortages from allowing organizations to keep pace with
time.
All these recent trends indicate why the no-code platforms have
seen an exponential rise last quarter. This revolution is fast bridging
the digital divide and empowering IT teams and citizen developers
with the tools, they need to fast-track their digital transformation
journey.
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML): Optimized Stacks
After years of evolution, AI and ML are having a significant impact in the business world today. Consider, for instance, how AI helps utilities forecast electricity demand, or how it allows automakers to create self-driving cars. Various developments are encouraging this new wave of AI, including increased computation power and the availability of more sophisticated algorithms and models. Perhaps most important, data volume is exploding, with network devices collecting billions of gigabytes every day.
AI has various subsets including machine control, machine learning, deep learning, and the neural network that have individually grown exponentially in the last couple of years. We have seen the rising trend in the development of apps and websites is the chatbot. AI chatbots have replaced human assistance and customer service. They have reduced human involvement in almost everything and thus made it less prone to errors. 2021 will bring more programming languages, development skills, machine learning, chatbots, accurate customer preferences, customer behavior analysis, and lesser human resource engagement. AI will make every task automatic with reliability and speed.
According to the market research firm Tractica, the global AI software market is expected to experience revenues increasing from around 9.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2018 to an expected 118.6 billion by 2025. These numbers tell us that AI software solutions aren’t just a ‘trend’ anymore, in fact, it is a dominant force in the technological world of today. AI has reached healthcare, finance, education, transportation with augmented analytics, automated testing, automated code generation, and automated solution development.
These are just a few of the top trends in software development and software outsourcing for 2021.
To see our full list of 2021 trends in software development and outsourcing, download a copy of our free ebook, The Ultimate Guide to Building a Virtual Software Product Engineering Team, HERE.