Before You Start: A Beginner’s Ultimate Guide to Outsource PHP Development

What Is PHP Development Outsourcing?

What Is PHP?

PHP is a server-side scripting language that is widely used for building web applications. This language started its journey with the first version around 1994 and has gained popularity mostly in recent years. According to statistics, up to 76.5% of known websites use PHP as their server-side programming language.

The combined power of PHP allows experienced PHP developers to serve a variety of needs surrounding web development, from creating dynamic web pages and handling form data to managing databases and building web applications.

What Are PHP Outsourcing Services?

PHP is the language behind the success of many major platforms and applications, including:

• Facebook: Being one of the most notable use cases, Facebook initially used PHP for both its front-end and back-end development, highlighting this language’s performance and scalability in handling a massive user base and complex functionalities.
• WordPress: As a widely-used content management system (CMS), WordPress is built on PHP and MySQL, showcasing PHP’s effectiveness in delivering digital content for millions of websites worldwide.
• Wikipedia: Wikipedia, also known as a collaborative online encyclopedia, relies on PHP for its backend development, demonstrating PHP’s capability to support a large volume of dynamically generated content.

The examples across diverse domains above explain the range of new projects powered by PHP. However, not every business has access to highly specialized PHP programmers to meet their project needs. Hiring new developers can be a move, but it is a challenging task, especially in the current software engineer shortage. This is where PHP web development services come into play.

Outsourcing PHP development refers to the practice of hiring external service providers to handle PHP-related tasks and projects. Rather than relying on the in-house team, businesses leverage the knowledge and expertise of dedicated PHP developers provided by third-party vendors to complete the projects while ensuring the quality requirements, time constraints, and budget. Outsourcing PHP development can involve offshore, nearshore, or onshore outsourcing, depending on the specific needs and preferences of the client.

Why Do Companies Prefer Outsourcing PHP Development over Self-development?

PHP developers outsourcing has gained rising popularity among companies regardless of size due to its numerous benefits. Software outsourcing development not only eliminates recruitment hassles but also grants access to niche talent and efficiently allocates internal resources to critical areas. Instead of self-building a software product, companies prefer outsourcing PHP development for several reasons:

• Cost Efficiency: One of the reasons why businesses decide to outsource PHP development projects is because of the cost reduction capabilities. The company can still access specialized skills and let the expert do the expert thing without the overhead costs of training, hiring, and maintaining in-house developers.
• Time Efficiency: An offshore PHP development team with full experience from previous projects can speed up the implementation of the software development process. This time efficiency is crucial for companies looking to stay competitive in the market and reduce time-to-market for their PHP-based applications.
• Access to Specialized Skills: Outsourcing PHP development offers access to specialized skills domestically and in different areas like Vietnam. By benefiting from the expertise of professionals who are well-versed in PHP development and related technologies, companies can potentially receive higher-quality outcomes.
• Flexibility and Scalability: Any PHP outsourcing company provides services to customers based on their unique needs. By outsourcing PHP development, businesses gain flexibility and scalability in adjusting the team size based on project requirements and use cases while ensuring efficient resource allocation.
• Risk Reduction: Employee turnover, missed deadlines, information security breaches, cyber security risks, etc., are some problems businesses often encounter throughout their operations. With the right PHP development outsourcing company, combined with a number of related contracts such as NDA (non-disclosure agreement), companies are entirely assured that software projects are finished on schedule and meet the highest quality standards.

How to Outsource Your PHP Development Project?

Outsourcing any type of software development is challenging as such practices involve multiple parties and various tasks to ensure final product quality. What does a real outsourcing process look like? Take a deeper look at the main steps below.

Step 1: Identify Project Scope and Requirements

Everything happens for a reason. You cannot hire an offshore PHP development company without even knowing what your needs are. The process of clearly defining the project scope in the initial phase sets the foundation firmly for upcoming successful collaboration. Businesses have the basis to easily track and monitor project progress, and third-party vendors have established a comprehensive understanding of the project’s goals and parameters, leading to better project outcomes and clarity from the outset.

Here’s a breakdown of what to do in this crucial step:

• Gather Stakeholder Input: Engage with related stakeholders, such as business leaders, technical teams, and end users within your company, to gather the most complete list of project requirements.
• Define Functional Requirements: Outline the specific features and functionalities that the PHP project needs to deliver and describe how the system should behave.
• Gather Technical Specifications: List the desired technology stack, PHP frameworks, integrations with other systems, performance expectations, security considerations, etc., necessary for the project.
• Detail Non-Functional Requirements: Specify non-functional aspects, including performance, security, scalability, and usability requirements, to ensure the final product meets the expected standards of user experience and performance.

Step 2: Research and Shortlist Potential Partners

It is time to browse professional networking platforms like LinkedIn and keep an eye on industry publications related to outsourcing and business process outsourcing (BPO) to look for potential partners worldwide. In addition to the website’s visual appearance, businesses can contact the vendors directly and arrange necessary meetings to discuss project requirements in more detail and assess suitability.

Among hundreds of third-party vendors providing PHP software development services available on the market, it is a wise choice to shortlist only potential partners that closely align with your organizational goals, avoiding wasting valuable time and effort on both sides.

Here are the key actions involved in this step:

• Define Selection Criteria: Establish clear selection criteria depending on factors such as technical expertise, relevant experience, project management capabilities, cultural fit, and the ability to meet budget and timeline requirements.
• Evaluate Partner’s Technical Expertise: Assess the technical proficiency of potential partners by reviewing their portfolio, case studies, client feedback, and testimonials to receive valuable insights into their reliability.
• Review Project Management Capabilities: Understand how the outsourcing partner manages the client’s projects, including their communication tools, approaches to task tracking, issue resolution, and milestone delivery.
• Request for Proposals (RFPs) or Quotes: Request detailed proposals or quotes from potential outsourcing partners to aid in the selection process.
• Consider Cultural Alignment: Evaluate the cultural compatibility and alignment with potential vendors to ensure a good fit by accessing their work culture, values, and communication practices.

Step 3: Choose the Most Suitable Partner

Based on the results you collected in the previous step, select the candidate you think is most suitable to proceed to the contract signing stage. Of course, each business’s definition of suitability is different. However, make sure to choose the outsourcing company that best meets the project’s budget and timeline while fulfilling the project’s requirements.

This process needs to be implemented carefully and planned because your decisions can profoundly affect the quality of the project later. Choosing the wrong outsourcing partner may lead to poor quality compromises, missed deadlines, increased costs, and reputation damage.

Below are several key steps and considerations to keep in mind at this stage:

• Set Quality Assurance Standards: Define your unique testing and quality assurance standards that need to be upheld throughout the development process, including bug tracking, testing methodologies, and resolution processes.
• Document Constraints and Assumptions: Outline any of your project constraints, such as budget limitations, time constraints, or resource availability, to provide clarity to the outsourcing partner.
• Consider Regulatory Compliance: Protect the sensitive data of end users and your company’s confidential information by outlining any compliance requirements, such as DPA, HIPAA, or PCI DSS, that the third party must comply with.
• Negotiate Terms and Contracts: Engage in negotiations again with the chosen outsourcing company to finalize terms, pricing, service level agreements, and any other contractual arrangements.
• Collaborate with Subject Matter Experts: Reach out to subject matter experts to receive insights into industry best practices, regulatory requirements, and any impactful domain-specific knowledge.
• Plan for Ongoing Communication: Establish a plan for ongoing communication and collaboration for issue resolution and project tracking.

Step 4: Monitor the Project’s Progress

It is vital to continue monitoring the progress of your PHP project even after finalizing a PHP outsourcing company. This ongoing process monitoring enables businesses to ensure that the development process aligns with expectations, stays on track, and meets the predefined milestones. By proactively tracking and monitoring project status, companies can promptly address any issues and make necessary adjustments to optimize the project’s success.

Here are some main steps to effectively monitor the progress of your project:

• Maintain Regular Communication: Maintain open and consistent communication with every PHP developer of the outsourcing team by using various communication channels to stay informed about the project’s status, challenges, and achievements.
• Set Up Performance Metrics: Define key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to measure the project’s progress objectively.
• Implement Quality Assurance Checks: Implement a robust quality assurance process to continuously evaluate the output of the project against predefined quality benchmarks.
• Establish Client Feedback Loop: Encourage a feedback loop with the outsourcing partner, provide constructive feedback, and review deliverables, thus ensuring project expectation alignment.