Do you also think that some things are true? Without thinking about why? Many who are negative about offshore base their arguments on clear misunderstandings.
You are welcome! Here we offer our counterarguments to some of the most common misconceptions.
1. “We find better competence in Sweden”
Of course, there are both good and less good staff in all countries. It’s all about recruiting the right people, which is a challenge no matter where in the world you’re recruiting. Our experience has taught us how to find the right people. Perhaps you or someone you know has not been able to recruit suitable people abroad? This does not mean that we, who also work with this full-time, have problems finding competent personnel.
2. “The culture clashes are too great”
Absolutely, there are cultural differences to consider. We at Miller Development made an active choice to build our business in the Philippines. Simply because people from the Philippines speak the best English in the whole world and that we Swedes find it easy to work together with people from this country. Unlike in many other countries in Asia, it is a matter of course that in the Philippines you clearly answer “yes” or “no” if you are asked if you have understood
3. “The team is too far away”
Yep, it’s a bit between the Philippines and Sweden. This is also the reason why we have designed our processes to minimize the feeling of distance. We and our customers are simply forced to have slightly better and smoother processes in order for everything to work. Many want to have their development department in-house. But even this argument is based on misconceptions. Compare with large companies such as Nike or Apple. How many shoes or phones do they manufacture in-house? They have long since placed production in other countries, which has hardly caused them to decrease in value. Feel free to keep some expertise in-house, but there are no obstacles to outsourcing the actual production of the software.
4. “It takes too much time”
Not true! However, it is extremely time-consuming if you do not dare to trust that your team can solve the problems themselves. Which in turn leads to you yourself thinking that you need to write an overly clear specification in order for them to do it right. The agile processes have succeeded on all fronts because we in the industry have already agreed that it does not work with waterfall processes. Why would these inefficient processes work better when the team is on the other side of the world? In addition, it is about trust and long-termism. If you don’t have long-term ambitions with your team, you also don’t dare to trust them to take personal responsibility. The truth is, our clients spend less time managing our teams than they do with their internal teams.
5. “Most people fail”
Certainly, there are many examples of failed offshore ventures. But we dare to say that it is fundamentally about the fact that none of the people involved knew how to succeed. We at Miller Development have carefully worked out processes and also offer a generous money back guarantee. A guarantee that none of our customers have wanted to use so far. Simply because we put a tremendous amount of work into creating a business that will succeed in its mission. In other words, the statement that many fail has a large ounce of truth in it. However, this does not apply to offshore companies that have understood how to work to succeed.