Outsourcing product management really works

The transformation around customer-oriented digital technologies has shaped the way businesses work within global markets. Most organizations today stay competitive by expanding their workforce with additional remote professional teams, allowing them to be more tech-efficient and performance oriented. For startups, competing in the fast-moving digital space has become vital for survival. Startups of all scales and across all industries can draw on the strengths of skillful remote tech teams. Getting a complex feature executed, or multiple digital products completed and positioned in the target market, becomes easier and faster through an extended and reliable technical team.

The paradigm shift in remote product management development

According to a 2021 State of Product Management Report 67% out of 2,200 surveyed product managers, across all company sizes, chose to work remotely.

Working with remote product development teams has become a persistent reality as a growing number of product managers express their willingness to work remotely. The unprecedented global pandemic accelerated the move toward this new practice. Founders were challenged with taking pressing decisions in relation to collaborating with distributed teams to build software products.

Remote product management can nevertheless present real challenges. The role encompasses various responsibilities, involves cross-functional duties, and requires attention to several demands, among them the following.

• Forming adequate relationships with coworkers and customers
• Communicating effectively on complex subjects and building consensus
• Collaborating with the team to deliver on time and within predefined budgets

Numerous startups have succeeded in deploying sound organizational practices to cope with the challenges of remote digital product development. There is therefore a strong case for considering an extended team approach for the entire product management and development effort of a startup.

Extending in-house teams in product development is the new normal

Working with distributed and expanded teams in product development is a strategic decision. Conducted correctly, it allows businesses to draw on the expertise of companies with proven processes in this area. Several scenarios lead startups to shift operations to near-shoring locations for product management and development.

1. Modifying or creating essential new features that involve complex coding efforts motivates the decision to scale teams accordingly. In addition, when a specific niche task requires careful implementation, startups may find it suitable to scale distributed teams with agility to undertake the new project properly.
2. The product development life cycle includes planning, development, design, testing, delivery and product support. Startups might be in a position to contract out the entire product development from ideation to delivery. Given a lack of sufficient and reliable resources, startups often find it more convenient to entrust the complete product implementation to a trustworthy and effective extended team.

Shifting product management and development to a nearshore area brings various benefits, including but not limited to the following.

• Reducing manpower costs. Managing a product development budget has become quite challenging for startups. They need to offer genuine added value in terms of quality, innovation and convenience despite their limited resources. Startups can therefore benefit substantially from labor cost reductions when entrusting these tasks to a reliable extended team.
• Achieving easier scalability. To maintain operational agility, the scope of product development can either grow or diminish with the various changes that need to be implemented reactively. This can be extremely challenging, as finding another team member with similar skills is difficult to fulfill. In such cases, scaling or reducing the in-house team should align quickly and proactively with these requirements.
• Lowering development risk. Developing new products carries ample risk factors at various levels. Having a trusted extended team with deep knowledge of and efficiency on a particular project enables the in-house team to distribute the risk involved in the strategic tasks around product management. Partnering with a global talent pool therefore allows the startup to diminish the risk attached to implementing the target product roadmap.
• Delivering value promptly. When a startup partners with expert professionals focused solely on end-to-end product development, the result is stronger, greater and faster versions of viable products. Thanks to deeper knowledge and expertise in the niche of the product, the mandated product teams are able to develop products promptly and efficiently.

WeaveLines as your reliable offshore outsourcing partner

At WeaveLines, we are on a mission to transform how startups launch and scale faster and more efficiently. We understand that hiring remote product development teams can play a key role in the success of an organization. An extended team with deep and specialized knowledge can make the difference in product management. A sound distributed team works collaboratively with the in-house team to achieve these goals successfully.

Our role is also to augment startup in-house teams with agile and professional IT experts in accordance with the hybrid model of software development. This ensures the delivery of a continuous flow of valuable products and services to clients and users.