Conclusions drawn from the influence of wood drying stress and strain!

All enterprises share several common points of continuous improvement, which boil down to strengthening competitiveness. As can be seen from the analysis on this page, outsourcing has already made a considerable contribution in this respect.

The respondents come from 25 different industries, including consumer products, industrial products, finance and financial management, healthcare, etc. The proportion of enterprises using IT outsourcing is relatively high (up to 72%), and 31% stated that they will continue to increase the proportion of use in the future.

95% of respondents stated that they will require an RFP (request for proposal). Simply put, this is a document issued by business owners for external bidding, requiring bidders to provide proposals. It is much more complex than a simple bidding (since the annual income of the respondents' enterprises exceeds 1 billion US dollars, there are more requirements). In addition, 89% of respondents responded that they will give priority to using existing outsourcing providers, because tacit understanding and trust have been established. This reflects the characteristic of the ToB market: it is difficult to enter, but once you break into it, it is not easy to be eliminated. This is true not only for large enterprises, but also for small and medium-sized enterprises.

In addition to customers' positive impressions of outsourcing, there are of course also points of dissatisfaction:

1. Outsourcing providers are not proactive enough － 46%

2. Fail to provide sufficient innovation － 33%

3. Frequent replacement of outsourcing business personnel － 29%

21% of business owners also use the killer move of "I can replace you" as a bargaining chip in negotiations with providers.

Overall, the entire outsourcing market is growing, and customers' doubts about outsourcing are gradually decreasing.

Doubts about poor service quality: decreased from 48% to 20%

Unqualified resource supply: decreased from 36% to 23%

Doubts about response speed: decreased from 34% to 24%

We have drawn the following conclusion: trustworthy (quality) and cost-saving (cost) are the two most important factors for enterprises when considering outsourcing services.

The dream and reality of quality and cost in software outsourcing

So, has the current situation of domestic software outsourcing reached this level?

Let's look at the chart below: the Y-axis represents quality, the X-axis represents time, and the area of the bubble represents cost. The general public perception is that the longer the time spent and the higher the cost, the better the quality of the product obtained. R&D time can be shortened through high cost, and quality can be improved through time.

However, the dream is always beautiful, but the reality is cruel. Opaque quotations, unclear processes, and the lack of service spirit of outsourcing companies (because the probability of re-purchase for software outsourcing for small and medium-sized enterprises is low) have created the chaotic situation of outsourcing in reality, which is why the complaint "I was completely ripped off by outsourcing" keeps emerging.

But people are beautiful because they have dreams. Even though they are clearly aware of the current situation and surrounded by all kinds of cruel realities, business owners' dreams (expectations) are still very high. Because every product is a business owner's dream and a treasure of entrepreneurs.

From a technical perspective, it is not a problem to meet the technical development needs of most end customers. Therefore, the focus of enterprises is how to reduce costs while ensuring quality. Jiniu can rely on technology drive to reduce manual involvement, cut down implementation errors caused by communication links and human factors, so as to reduce costs while ensuring quality.

Different models of IT outsourcing service providers

IT outsourcing providers are mainly divided into three models: technology VC, crowdsourcing platforms and traditional outsourcing companies. Each of the three models has its own advantages and disadvantages, and each has its own market.

Technology VC: It charges no fee or only a small part of the fee, but gets remuneration by holding a part of the enterprise's shares. For entrepreneurs lacking capital, this is an option worth considering. Therefore, it is suitable for small-scale or start-up enterprises that have not yet obtained financing, and for projects with small-scale software development and potential for high-speed growth. Otherwise, the shares obtained by the outsourcing service provider cannot be exited, which will restrict the healthy development of this type of service.

Crowdsourcing platforms: They are like "Zhu Bajie" (a well-known Chinese crowdsourcing platform) that gathers outsourcing services. There are all kinds of individuals and enterprises providing outsourcing services on the platform. It is suitable for start-up to small-scale enterprises. The advantage lies in the large number of choices and abundant resources. Demanders can widely contact providers with different technical backgrounds, and it is also convenient to compare prices. However, since the essence of the platform is "matching", if there is a quality problem with the outsourcing, the employer can basically only negotiate directly with the outsourcing provider, and the crowdsourcing platform generally does not intervene. Even if some newly established crowdsourcing platforms intervene to control quality, it is still difficult to guarantee the quality of the final output. Crowdsourcing platforms are suitable for situations where the demander has a certain understanding of technical development and the project scale is not large.

Outsourcing companies: The employer docks directly with the outsourcing provider. From pre-consultation, product sorting, to technical implementation, all are responsible by the outsourcing provider. For employers, this type of outsourcing service can guarantee quality. In comparison, the labor cost of such outsourcing companies is relatively high, and they are relatively suitable for companies with a certain scale (and budget) that are not proficient in software development. However, there are a large number of such companies, so it is relatively difficult to identify them.

Conclusion:

Under the wave of informatization, the demand for software development has shifted from the Internet industry to traditional industries, and the market size of outsourcing will only expand in the future. Although there are already many service providers on the market and the competition is quite fierce, there are still many problems waiting to be solved in this field, and "solving problems" is the essence of enterprise services.

At present, large and small software outsourcing services at home and abroad cannot achieve transparency. This is not a problem of irresponsible service providers, but that different trades are separated like mountains, and it is difficult for laymen to understand the issue of the quality of outsourced software. In order to solve the problem of "insufficient transparency", some crowdsourcing platforms have launched functions such as progress confirmation, code management, and even automatic bug catching. But these are measures taken to make up for the fact that crowdsourcing platforms are difficult to take responsibility for "quality management", and they are not based on the starting point of serving customers in person. Of course, you get what you pay for. If you have a budget and require good service and quality, an outsourcing company is a relatively good choice.

Another phenomenon in the outsourcing industry is "treating the symptoms rather than the root cause". In fact, many outsourcing demands do not have high technical implementation thresholds, but why is the final output unsatisfactory, or why does it not work after launch? The problem lies in that entrepreneurs themselves are not clear about what they want, but it cannot be ruled out that some outsourcing enterprises, for the sake of "maximizing interests", do not give suggestions that can help entrepreneurs reduce the development scope, or even give up the idea of outsourcing. This short-sighted business philosophy cannot help customers succeed, and thus it is difficult to build a corporate brand. In other words, it is difficult to gain "trust".

Ultimately, most enterprise services need to grow with customers for a long time to be truly called "serving customers". Can a software outsourcing enterprise not only support customers from 0 to 1, but also help customers grow from 1 to 100, or even to a higher level? Most outsourcing service providers can achieve from 0 to 1, but when the traffic pressure brought by the rapid growth of the enterprise comes, traditional outsourcing service providers with little Internet gene can hardly handle it properly. Different from the "visible" front-end design and interaction, customers often easily ignore the invisible but extremely important back-end architecture. This architecture is like the foundation and framework of a building. No matter how beautiful and gorgeous the appearance is, a building that collapses when a strong wind blows is absolutely uninhabitable.