The mobile app development market is heating up in 2020. Amidst higher levels of demand has come growing competition for these services. Finance Magnates spoke with Virtual Electronics PTE for this perspective on this trend and the company's growth in 2020.
How can you create a profitable mobile app development company in 2020? Thoughts on outsourcing?
Do you remember those wonderful (not really) times a decade ago on the mobile app market?
Then anyone who knew a little about technology and programming could download a starter kit of developer tools to his computer, read a couple of books, and in a few months produce a release version of their first mobile app.
And it often happened that the resulting low-quality product, however, quickly gained popularity and even began to bring its creator a decent profit. Can you imagine something like this happening in 2020? Hardly.
The App Store and Google Play are now filled with hundreds of thousands of apps created by professional teams, attracting serious investment.
And the consumer has changed – now he will pay attention only to the product brought to an ideal state, whereas ten years ago, for lack of decent alternatives, we could use even fairly poor quality applications for years.
But what if you have been visited by a great idea for your mobile application and you are sure that you will be able to attract the attention of the market?
Even if you have special development skills, any application to keep the user in 2020, in addition to a great idea, must have a high level of usability, professional design and a decent level of interaction with the user – so that he continued to use your product.
Obviously, to create such an application, in addition to money, you need a team of at least 4-5 people. You may, of course, try to hire developers free, but today to find professionals who are willing to spend their time on one project with an uncertain prospect is almost impossible.
We tried to understand how such a problem is being solved today, and for this purpose we talked with representatives of the Singapore outsourcing company Virtual Electronics PTE LTD (V.E) – these are specialists who, as it turned out, you may turn to if you have a great idea and all you need is to find the same great team to implement this idea.
In the process of communication, we asked a representative of the Virtual Electronics Company a few questions, and the received replies may give the reader an understanding of what is happening today in the world market of outsourcing development of mobile applications:
The main question is why the managing office of your company is located in Singapore, where it is registered? After all, as far as we know, Virtual Electronics development offices actually work in Eastern Europe – Ukraine and Belarus.
This is actually a simple question – it all depends on financial feasibility, market prospects and convenience.
The main office and registration in Singapore are important to us because Singapore is an interesting place for business itself, but it is also a very convenient entry point to the АSEАN market (Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, and Indonesia) – a market with huge prospects, and any company that has a long-term development strategy should take it into account.
Development offices in Eastern Europe are the best option for us because there are enough high-level specialists in those specialties that we usually need, moreover, in Ukraine and Belarus, the level of education in the field of exact sciences and programming is historically high.
And these specialists today have the opportunity to work in an outsourcing company. In Singapore, it is much more difficult to find such specialists today, especially in such quantity as to open a development office.
And even if this is done, the operating costs will be too high – the profitability of developing offices in Minsk and Kiev is many times higher.
You mentioned the prospects of working in emerging markets, and what about the most promising areas in the field of outsourcing today? We know that your company is developing mobile applications, but surely is there something else in your area of interest?
Today, any company that relies on growth and development should be as flexible as possible, and this is especially true for the market of outsourcing services.
Many years ago, we started as a website development company, after a while we created several of our mobile applications (for two applications, by the way, it is planned to enter the Asian market), and realizing that the market is long overdue demand for such services, we began to develop mobile applications for our customers.
In addition, our interests include the creation and implementation of our own Hosting products.
Do you also develop business in the field of Cloud technologies?
Yes, it's a brand justvps.com, which is operated by the main company Virtual Electronics PTE. LTD.
From your words, it is clear that outsourcing today is a profitable business, but how good are these services? There is an opinion that the specialists involved through outsourcing companies are not as much involved in the project as, for example, an employee who works in your company and is in your office every day. And there are always risks that after completion of work on the project by outsourcing developers, it will be difficult for the customer to develop the project independently further, because the code was written by a developer engaged for a certain period, and, in case of any problems, there will be no one to turn to?
In fact, the situations you have described also apply to the developer who sits in your office every day. At any moment he may abandon the work and leave the company, you will have to understand the code, what's left of it.
The only difference here is that when a client works with us, he knows that under the agreement the draft will be implemented to the stage of readiness of 100%.
In addition, if customers have any difficulties with independent project development in the future – we always offer the client assistance and advice on the promotion of the project after the completion of the development, and the contract may specify different terms for further support of the project (usually from 3 to 12 months, but the term may be longer).
It looks like the right strategy! Do you recommend something to people or companies who want to implement their project without attracting additional employees, but do not want to contact outsourcing companies for some reason?
In fact, we can recommend that such people just look at the market figures - in recent years, the provision of outsourcing services in the areas of programming, advertising, finance and other things has become more frequent than hiring an employee responsible for such work in the office. Don't be afraid to try: perhaps outsourcing is what will give your business a new incentive to grow and develop!
