The 3 Most Common Mobile App Development Partnerships
As SideLabs continues to partner with our clients for mobile app development services, we speak to many new companies who are struggling with an important decision. How do we partner with a mobile app development company?
This isn’t an easy question to answer, and most of the time, we find it isn’t as simple as one choice or the other.
So we decided to write about the most common mobile app development partnerships we have seen between firms and enterprises. We find it helps build transparency as many are looking for the right option, and it helps educate those who may not be in the know.
We’ll be taking a look at the 3 most common types of partnerships:
Staff Augmentation
Outsourcing
Strategic Partnership
Staff Augmentation and Mobile App Development
Staff augmentation is seen as the most introductory form of building a mobile app development partnership between a firm and a company. In its basic form, staff augmentation borrows resources from the mobile app development firm and integrates it within company resources. Whether you’re looking for designers, developers, QA staff or product managers, staff aug is merely expanding the company’s team with the resources of another.
While some firms may gawk at staff augmentation. It is not all bad. Staff aug often carries the connotation of “mindless coders in seats” doing as they’re told. However, we understand that staff augmentation has many benefits for a company.
It helps build trust in a newly formed partnership.
It is cost and time effective for the client
It provides a boost in output capacity when needed.
While staff augmentation is a great short-term solution. We do not recommend it as a long term viable solution for our clients and enterprises. For clients, the ongoing cost of staff augmentation can outweigh hiring internally. Additionally, depending on your agreement with your app development firm, they may be entitled to switch resources as their leisure. Which means you’re footing the bill for context switching.
Hint: that is not something we do at SideLabs.
Outsourcing and Mobile App Development
The ever so “terrible word”, outsourcing has gotten a bad rep as of late due to increased global competition, aggressive sales tactics, and a general lack of respect for client objectives.
However, in its original form, outsourcing is a project based partnership between a client and a mobile app development company. Generally, the entire project from strategy to delivery is handled by the mobile app development company, with a subject matter expert or product owner as the point person for the client.
There are many advantages to partnering on a project with a mobile app development company:
It helps the client get to market quicker
It allows for research and delivery of new software, while the in-house team is engaged on existing core projects
It allows the client to quickly ramp up and deliver on a new technology they may not have the relevant skills for.
Outsourcing with the right partner can yield these phenomenal results, and is often the beginning of a long term trusted partnership.
Strategic Partnership and Mobile App Development
The last of the mobile app development partnerships that firms engage in is the most fruitful for both parties. The strategic partnership is a deeper level of engagement that not only involves product development, but also consulting, training, and team building as well.
This partnership model works best for organizations who have a long-term mobile first strategy, or their industry is becoming mobile first, and they’re in need of digital transformation.
In this partnership, the firm and the client work together to determine digital objectives, identify market opportunities, create a strategy and go-to-market plan. They work together to conduct market research, build flagship products, and continuously innovate together. Lastly, the firm also helps in refining business objectives, technology succession, and talent building.
There are many benefits to a strategic partnership model including:
Leapfrogging to the front of technology adoption in the industry
Using technology as a competitive advantage
Getting new products to market quicker
Future-proofing their in-house talent team
Being first to market
The strategic partnership model is not right for every company, or even every app development firm. It requires a significant investment and a commitment from the executive level that technology and mobile products are going to be core to the company’s competitive strategy.
Conclusion
When it comes to determining what kind of partnership model is right for you, look no further than your immediate and long-term objectives, as they will guide you towards the right partnership model. You may find the best approach is one of the above, or a combination. It’s best to look at your strengths and shortcomings as an organization, identify your points of advantage, and where you can use assistance. Talk to firms. While most will offer a combination of the three partnerships, the relationship, pricing model, and understanding of your needs will also influence the final decision.