Software Factories: the Smartest Way to Outsource Software Development
Modern tech-savvy companies that lack updated technology and software capabilities will struggle to find success. A software factory has the objective of creating software to meet diverse organizational outsourcing demands. Read on to see what a software factory is, the benefits it offers, and why we believe turning to them, and us, for your software development outsourcing demands is the way forward.
IT Outsourcing is a challenge
Software development, is vital, as it is the process of creating and maintaining applications and frameworks that help increase business productivity. But, taking care of an organization’s software development is complicated, leading many businesses to outsource for assistance. In fact, according to Fortune:
Almost 30% of companies outsourced
IT services, and 78% are satisfied.
Software development outsourcing can be very beneficial, but significant risks and challenges are involved. Most companies have likely already evolved from Waterfall approaches to more modern, DevOps-based techniques. Here at MJV, we believe a more mature software development approach is via the software factory method.
Companies across all industries need to consider becoming a software factories as it is a means of getting quality software to market sooner.
Struggling to find the right talent for your project? Download our ebook and learn the MJV Way to escape the talent shortage in IT.
What is a Software Factory?
A Software Factory is an organized approach to software development that provides software design and development teams with a repeatable, well-defined pathway to creating and updating software.
A software factory brings together the best and most innovative approaches to software development to accelerate digital transformation, resulting in more resilient processes for delivering applications to production.
There are some vital characteristics that software factories supply, they:
- Release software on a regular, faster cadence;
- Continuously refining development processes;
- Utilizing cloud native technologies to remove infrastructure toil through automation and self-service.
Rooted in DevOps and agile software development methods, the foundations of a software factory are its tools, services, repositories, and practices used to deliver software. This typically is comprised of proprietary processes and components. This package offers templates and code that can be easily arranged and processed to create a program quickly while minimizing the amount of original code needed.
With the foundations in place, teams can plan, build, and deploy software more predictably.
Software factories roll out high-quality products and features using lean code. The principals rely on reducing the amount of interaction from developers so they can focus on higher-level technical challenges within the organization; challenges like: maintaining an automated framework and ensuring secure company data.
7 Benefits of Software Factories:
With software factories, developers benefit from a more organized and structured approach, allowing entire organizations to reap the rewards of faster software delivery and higher quality coding.
One of the main advantages software factories provide is the acceleration of software delivery, enabling:
1. Increased quality
Standardizing app development practices at scale, focusing on utilizing proven methods and reusing code, reduces defects.
2. Enhanced productivity
Clearly understood methods, process automation, and reusable code increase developer productivity.
3. Improved application release cadence
The process of creating and testing new application code is accelerated.
4. Ensured consistency
Standardizing processes ensures consistency across projects and lowers training and maintenance costs.
5. Establish a valuable catalog of software and code:
Documenting reusable code and patterns in cookbooks helps your organization take better advantage of knowledge gained from previous projects.
6. Provide a foundation for DevSecOps
A software factory offers valuable when integrating security into the software development process, resulting in more secure software.
7. Create a framework for change
Establishing a software factory builds more collaborative teams and catalyzes the required changes to organizational culture for digital transformation.
What to Consider Before Investing in a Software Factory?
When implementing a software factory model, several practical considerations exist. The first step to consider in creating a software factory are to understand your starting point by answering the three following questions:
- How do your teams work together?
- How mature are your DevOps or DevSecOps capabilities?
- Can your company culture support the necessary changes?
The better you can define and answer the above questions, the easier it will be to align your resources.
OK, so we have a grip on what and how a software factory can be so impactful but does staff augmentation fit into the IT framework?
What is IT Staff Augmentation?
When organizations seek outside help in completing important IT projects, they often consider staff augmentation.
Staff augmentation is an outsourcing model that uses temporary workers to fill short-term job positions within your company. With staff augmentation, you invest in engineering resources while maintaining control over your team.
Benefits of IT Staff Augmentation
Staff augmentation is a powerful tool for any organization; it uses outside personnel temporarily to augment your organization’s capacity.
Staff augmentation is most beneficial for project-based businesses that are in a state of constant flux. With IT staff augmentation, organizations can use outsourced talent on an as-needed basis while managing workers directly.
The main benefits of Staff Augmentation include:
Expand Your Software Team
Your business can significantly grow when you find the perfect software development structure and team. The positive impact that a software factory can offer your business is frankly rather astonishing; from the: increased quality, enhanced productivity, and ensured consistency, to name just three, the benefits are clearly vast. But to achieve these rewards, the right team requires recruitment, and arranging that perfect software development group isn’t a simple task. It’s a process that requires consideration and experience.
MJV can be of aid.
Our extensive knowledge of the area, our ability to put together that team you need to overcome talent shortages, and the fact we have the right tech stack for your needs can be a real game changer.
Plus, with our ability to provide resources Offshore & Nearshore, along with the generous discounts available with factories in Latin America, we can provide you with the staff augmentation that makes sense for everyone involved.
Finally, our ability to provide 12-hour work dedicated teams without handover gaps that provide excellent UX/UI development capacities based on a model and culture of Agile Change Management separates us from the competition. For more on our outsourcing model, click here.
If your company is interested in becoming a software factory and would like our expertise, contact us for a free consultation.
When it comes to outsourcing and staff augmentation:
You really can’t go it alone.
