When it comes to software solutions, business owners don’t have many choices. They can buy an off-the-shelf tool, hire in-house software developers to create a custom solution, or outsource the project to a specialized vendor.
Our team surveyed technology leaders from around 200 companies across Switzerland, Germany, and the UK, representing industries such as finance, healthcare, and retail, to identify the options their companies most commonly choose.
It turns out, most of them combine custom software development with ready-made solutions, often partnering with external software development providers to bring their custom projects to life. Yet, not all are entirely satisfied with the outcomes.
In this article, we’ll share key findings from our survey, highlighting the top concerns technology leaders have about working with external providers. We’ll also explore how full-cycle software development, when done right, can address these challenges.
In software development outsourcing, two primary collaboration models dominate the market: dedicated teams and full-cycle software development.
With the right vendor, both models can help you deliver a successful project, but they differ significantly in terms of structure, responsibility distribution, and control over the development process.
So let’s take a closer look at each of these models.
Outsourcing your software development project using a dedicated team model gives you complete control over every aspect of the project, including the team, product backlog, daily tasks, and priorities. In other words, you integrate an external team into your workflows and manage them as if they were part of your internal workforce.
A software development vendor provides the talent, but you oversee the day-to-day operations and decision-making within the team.
The main thing to keep in mind about the dedicated development team model is that you’ll need to stay actively involved and manage the project from start to finish. You’re in the driver’s seat, so the responsibility for project success rests entirely on your shoulders.
Every software development provider has their own approach to client engagement in the dedicated team model. But here is how it works at Modeso.
Step 1: Needs assessment
We begin by conducting an Alignment Workshop with you to understand your technology staffing needs. This includes defining the necessary roles, skills, experience, seniority levels, and any other critical requirements to ensure the team we build is perfectly suited to your project.
Step 2: Team allocation
Using the requirements you’ve provided, we assemble a team of experts specifically tailored to your project. You can expect 1-2 core developers to be ready to start within the first couple of weeks.
Step 3: Candidate presentation
We provide you with a shortlist of highly qualified candidates, including their resumes and skill sets, for your review. You’ll have the opportunity to interview our developers to ensure they fit your company culture and meet your exact requirements.
Step 4: Onboarding & Integration
We ensure your dedicated team is fully briefed on your key project goals, product vision, and workflows. Each team member is integrated into your organization. We ensure a smooth transition and immediate productivity.
Step 5: Project kick-off
Once your team is fully set up and onboarded, you can officially kick off the project. We’ll coordinate your dedicated team and establish clear communication channels through a project manager and technical lead for smooth project execution.
Step 6: Ongoing support & talent retention
High turnover can disrupt dedicated development teams, which is why we prioritize talent retention. We carefully manage this process to ensure your team remains stable, providing you with peace of mind that your project will progress smoothly without disruptions.
Best for software companies
In our experience, the dedicated team model works best for startups or companies where software development is core. If you have established software development processes in place, and are ready to be fully involved in the development process, this is a model to go for.
Not ideal for large enterprises
While some large enterprises, like those we interviewed, may consider the dedicated team model, it may not always be the best fit. This is because enterprises often have complex structures and extensive internal processes that can slow down collaboration and decision-making. They may face challenges in fully integrating external teams and maintaining consistent oversight, making it harder to achieve the seamless alignment required for success in a dedicated team model.
Full-cycle software development, on the other hand, offers a completely different approach. Based on our experience and insights from our survey, it is the ideal model for enterprise companies.
Full-cycle software development is the model where an outsourcing software development provider takes complete responsibility for managing the development process. Your partner oversees the timeline, ensures quality, and deals with any risks associated with your project. With this model, you can rely on your partner to handle all project-related nuances with minimal oversight on your part.
Our full-cycle projects are structured around four key stages: Alignment, Design, Development, and Maintenance & Growth.
We break the development process into small iterations with user validation at each step to keep things moving fast, catch issues early, build the right thing, and avoid expensive fixes later. This way, through constant testing and functionality refinement, we deliver a high-quality product.
Step 1: Alignment
We take the time to thoroughly understand your business, its challenges, and objectives, ensuring a strong foundation for a successful partnership. This allows us to align our efforts with your vision and set clear expectations from the outset.
Step 2: Design
We take a user-centered design approach, focusing on understanding the needs and preferences of your target audience to ensure that the final product not only meets functional requirements but also fosters high user adoption and satisfaction.
Step 3: Development
Our solutions are built with scalability and adaptability in mind, ensuring they can evolve alongside your business as it grows. We focus on creating robust, flexible systems that can handle future demands while maintaining high performance and efficiency.
Step 4: Maintenance and growth
After the initial release, we focus on maintaining seamless operations and continuously enhancing the functionality of your software to meet evolving needs and ensure long-term success.
Full-cycle software development offers an end-to-end approach that is ideal for large enterprises with complex needs. Enterprises benefit from having a single team responsible for all stages of software development — planning, design, development, testing, deployment, and maintenance.
Since a single team handles the entire project, there is less risk of delays or issues arising from coordinating multiple external providers. The model ensures a more predictable timeline and execution, reducing operational risks for large organizations.
However, this approach comes with trade-offs, including reduced control and potential challenges such as cultural differences, communication gaps, limited understanding of your business needs, and other alignment issues.
These challenges are not just theoretical — they reflect real-world concerns shared by business leaders in our survey.
Let’s explore them in more detail.
Based on insights from our survey of nearly 200 tech leaders across companies in Switzerland, Germany, and the UK, here are the most common concerns about software development outsourcing highlighted by our respondents.
Differences in work ethics, values, and how people communicate can cause a lot of problems in software development. You want to work with a software development partner who aligns with your company’s culture, understands your business goals, and adapts to your preferred communication and collaboration style.
Choosing a partner who has worked with companies in your industry or region can help mitigate cultural differences and foster a shared sense of purpose.
When team members don’t speak the same language fluently, some things might be lost in translation. It may slow down progress and affect the quality of work due to misunderstandings, unclear instructions, or misinterpreted feedback.
You want to choose a partner with strong language proficiency in your preferred working language and ensure that key team members, such as project managers or team leads, have excellent communication skills.
It’s difficult to evaluate if the services justify the expense when an outsourcing company isn’t clear about its pricing. To avoid guessing whether you truly get what you pay for, there should be a detailed cost breakdown with measurable deliverables. And a vendor taking full responsibility for providing those deliverables. Without it, you’re left in the dark.
A clear schedule with set deadlines might seem enough for in-time delivery, but projects rarely go as planned. When the task expected to take two weeks stretches into a month, you need to address this here and now. If delays aren’t addressed promptly, they can snowball and push back the final delivery date.
Imagine a stakeholder requests a change in the project’s scope but the update isn’t clearly communicated to the software development team. As a result, they continue working with outdated requirements, which wastes time and inflates costs. To prevent such an outcome, there should be proper coordination and clear ownership so that everyone moves toward the same goals.
If you work with an outsourcing partner located miles away, miscommunication problems tend to multiply. Time zone differences, cultural gaps, and limited face-to-face interactions make it harder to maintain alignment and resolve problems quickly.
On the other hand, working with a local partner reduces these risks significantly. Local companies share your language, cultural context, and work standards, enabling smoother collaboration.
Data security is a critical issue, especially for industries like finance and healthcare. If you operate in these or similar domains, it’s better to have a local vendor who takes full ownership of not just delivering the product, but also ensuring that all security protocols are strictly followed.
Our survey shows that despite some positive outsourcing experiences, many companies still doubt whether it’s the right decision to go offshore.
All these concerns lead us to the following conclusion:
With a reputable local vendor, who speaks your language and understands your business, you have a stronger chance for a successful project.
Modeso is a software development partner based in Zurich, Switzerland, dedicated to serving DACH businesses. We’ve delivered solutions for leading companies like TWINT, Visana, Würth Financial Services, Bühler, Lidl, and more.
We provide full-cycle software development services, taking full ownership and responsibility for the success of every project we work on. Our approach is built on clear communication, deep business understanding, and a commitment to delivering results.
Here is what makes us different from other software development providers.
Unlike most outsourcing providers who have project coordinators working in off-shore locations, we assign a product owner based in Switzerland. It’s a person who truly understands the DACH culture and speaks German, so there’s no need to worry about cultural differences or language barriers.
Our product development teams are trained in Agile practices with regular updates and continuous feedback, ensuring that you get tangible results every one to two weeks.
By bridging cultural and communication gaps, we create an outsourcing experience that feels more like working with an in-house team.
At Modeso, we use Lean methodology to ensure fast time to market and efficient software development. By focusing on delivering a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with a validated feature set in our first iterations, we allow you to start getting value quicker.
Our iterative development process ensures that we release working increments regularly, while continuous user testing and feedback help us refine the product based on real user input. With Lean, we help you launch faster, adapt to the needs of users, and stay ahead of the competition.
Our approach has helped dozens of businesses launch successfully, minimizing the risk of introducing the wrong product.
With Modeso, your software is designed with a robust architecture, optimal performance, and strong security. We automate development processes (CI/CD, monitoring), and provide detailed technical documentation. Combined with an exceptional user experience, our solutions are reliable, adaptable, and are built to be future-proof.
Also, rest assured, we don’t send your data outside the DACH region. Your project is managed from Zurich and your data is fully compliant with the highest security and regulatory standards. This makes Modeso a perfect partner for DACH businesses. Your data is safe and secure with us.
Although Modeso operates in Switzerland, it doesn’t mean you will have to pay Swiss prices. We blend Swiss-based product management with development expertise from our tech hubs in Cairo and Alexandria. This unique combination enables us to deliver high-quality products at a competitive cost, maximizing the value of your investment.
Of course, full-cycle software development is not a one-size-fits-all solution. But if you are in fintech, healthcare, or a similar field, and software development is not your core expertise, it makes sense to partner with a local provider like Modeso.
We share the same values and can bring your project to success. Reach out to our team and book a free consultation to see how we can help you achieve your goals.
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