In short – yes, they are. Although this type of cooperation and expansion attracted attention of many companies during the recent events and lockdowns, they are far from new. And if run effectively, they have a success record in regards to productivity and cost-efficiency.
In the following lines we will cover the concept of remote development centers, its benefits and alternatives.
General trends in remote working
The trend of remote working may be connected with the years since 2019. However, according to the statistics (see figure below), the trend can be followed in the past 15 years. Of course, the curve has significantly changed in favor of higher numbers of people working remotely.
Namely, in 2006 percentage of employed people working sometimes or usually remotely was 10.1 %. As of 2006 through 2020, the numbers practically doubled. According to the data in 2020 the number of remote employees grew to 21.0 %. The spike in numbers occurred when the COVID-crisis hit and generated the increase of 6.6 p.p. over a one-year period.
More about remote software development centers
So, let’s start from the meaning of the the term remote development center. In essence, it stands for a software development company which is placed in a different country. As the phrase itself suggest, Its main function is to provide software development services which, again, depend mainly on the client’s needs.
The services provided by a remote development center
The needs of a client are dynamic and they can fluctate and adapt to a market’s trends. Therefore the following list is just a representation of some of most common services, with a customization where necessery within each one of them.
- You can create a remote software development team according to the requirements of your project or product plans. Needless to say, the remote software development team will be fully and 40-hour per week dedicated solely to your project. If you want to read more about team extension model, you can read a post entirely dedidcated to this topic.
- On the other hand, you can choose to set up a complete IT center for your company. That may start with setting up the core team which will function under your brand, having the separate offices also branded as you wish, or having the separate space within the current working space of the your tech company partner in the process. Read more about open your office mode in one of our previous blog posts.
- In addition to that, you can opt for a complete dedicated team whose architecture will be determined by the product or project requirement from your side. With that in mind, apart from the software developers, the team can include a project manager, software consulting services, DevOps engineers and any other additional team members to comply with the established practices you have. You can find more details about dedicated team model on a page which focuses on the steps for that model.
How a remote development offices look like?
The remote software development centers are usually planned to be in modern business buildings with all the necessary infrastructure. The infrastructure may include, but is not limited to:
- The proximity to the city center or at least good connection with it,
- Spacious offices with enough personal space for each team member,
- A space specially designed for relaxing (chill zones),
- Security-wise, the office is designed usually to be accessed through some set of safety measures (passcards, passcodes, etc.).
It is not unusual that the teams that work on different projects share the same open space, so you can opt for that option.
On the other hand, some teams function better in separate rooms which are designed for their purposes and just join the other team members in the shared spaces.
All in all, having in mind benefits of remote software development centers like access to the local pool talent and saving up on infrastructure, it is safe to say that the trend is going to be around for a while.
