Put together a distributed IT team that expands your corporate culture, increases your resilience
and diversifies your risk. A “catch 22” task or within easy reach?

In today's world, the ability to adapt to changing (environmental) conditions becomes the primary management premise. This represents a fundamental shift and yields a long phase of organisational learning. In the process, companies consolidate their networks - instead of linear value chains, value networks are created.

Looking for positive impact on your company’s resilience - outsourcing software development
enables you to focus on strengthening core processes.

It also doesn't overwhelm your internal employees with work that doesn't match their qualification level and allows them to focus more on strategic goals geared towards business. Let us explore the benefits of delegating IT-related activities to others, it helps companies achieve greater economies of scale and simultaneously focus on their core competencies in an economical manner. There are multiple arguments for and against the use of non-local staff. We would like to support your decision process with the following.

It is crucial to feel comfortable working remotely with people, regardless of who they are, what country they live in and what they charge for their services. Considering the factors that affect the rates such as location, team size, experience, technology stack, and duration of the engagement, it is obvious that the more developed a country is and the closer it is to Western Europe the higher are the rates asked by IT specialists. Also, the newest technology stacks are usually more costly than those that have been around for a longer period of time and that are known by more developers - hence where the demand is not as high anymore. And it is a known fact that seniors earn more than juniors.


AVAILABILITY – FLEXIBILITY – AFFORDABILITY

When we talk about the advantages of using an external provider, we start with one big advantage - the cost. Using sources other than internal sources can be much more affordable - especially looking at total cost of ownership - but does not necessarily need to be. As mentioned above geographical location is one of the factors to consider: A distinction is made between Onshore, Nearshore and Offshore Outsourcing.

While Onshore is about outsourcing to a software development provider or freelancer within your own market, Nearshore describes outsourcing to companies usually within two times zones difference to CET, so more or less neighbour countries like Ukraine or Bulgaria, whereas Offshoring is about regions overseas like India or Vietnam, a couple time zones away. The trend to outsource software projects to more affordable destinations further away has become stronger, but obviously this is not only because of the lower cost but also because of programmer availability nearby, leading to the fact that onshore IT-freelancers from Western Europe easily ask hourly rates starting from 100 €.

However, to be successful in these outsourcing endeavours, the cost is not necessarily the factor for overall winning or losing. Mostly it’s a mix of the scope of your partnership with a service provider or freelancer, an acceptable budget, trust and understanding and last but not least a reliable quality level that lead in a good and valuable collaboration.

How to accommodate peak loads and reduce time to market?
With flexible access to resources covering the right field of expertise.

Every company has times when the demand is highest. This means redistributing the available internal resources to operations and processes in which they are not specialized. Or hiring new employees alternatively. Both lead to higher costs and a reduction in efficiency, but also flexibility. With software outsourcing, you can simply hire a scalable team only for the peak load. They help to balance the workload, save money and at the same time increase efficiency. Companies around the world have recognized the importance of speed and how it can be used to gain competitive advantage. With software outsourcing, you don't have to rely on your available internal resources to launch the product. You can dictate timing in accordance with your schedule and have dedicated developers with matching skillset at your service. If the mix or the balance is right, this is an important ingredient contributing to increased resilience by offering Availability – Flexibility – Affordability to the business, making the organisation stronger by creating a vital value network.

A USE CASE

Code of Africa - A model that enables competitive pricing compared to Developer-As-A-Service business in the DACH region or Eastern Europe and a fair local pay at the same time.

We are able to deliver compelling financial benefits acting as your nearshore provider – with a maximum of two hours difference during European wintertime and with a price level lower or at least equal to the Eastern European market.

Being a business with strong focus on positive socio-economic impact in line with the 17 SDGs and with our Mission of building a company that creates sustainable value for all stakeholders through educating and employing a skilled IT workforce in East Africa while addressing the tech talent shortage in DACH, we are not aiming to compete with Indian rates.

However, we still deliver substantial financial benefits - some hard facts:

If you are looking to hire a developer which works dedicated for you full time (160 hours per month) then working with a company like Code of Africa which provides these IT resources will be the best choice. Enabling a lower price than an hourly rate, since we can plan better with full-time resources – providing clients with 40-60% (depending on contract duration) cost benefits over employing own fulltime staff with all the overhead costs related to this. If you are up for more flexibility or thinking of projects with a more short- to midterm duration, we are able to offer hourly rates for around a third you have to invest for local outsourcing (onshore).

Code of Africa can allocate a single software engineer for you or set up a dedicated software development team according to your requirements. We handle payroll, accounting, HR management, retention and have a strong focus on upskilling in both tech and soft skills.

In addition, we provide a cool working environment with a well-equipped office space, and a meaningful social package for our IT professionals in Rwanda. Furthermore, we have partnered up with some of the most talented and creative tech startups in both Kigali and Nairobi, enabling us to provide a broader technology stack. CoA will become a great complement to your software development family, with all the benefits of a contracting party in Germany – with multi-layered IP protection, EU model clause and fully managed processes.

When it comes to choosing a specific partner, clients first think of cost-effective solutions. When chasing low prices, customers sometimes forget about quality, the latter being even more important than cost. So, you should consider both the price and the quality of the outsourcing provider you want to try. Code of Africa aims to create an environment in which East Africa is named as a top destination for IT services – click here, if you want to know more about this Vision and our Developer-as-a-Service model. On our way we focus on client centric managed processes combined with a holistic approach - from specification to implementation with a personal touch incorporating also a focus on soft skills. To facilitate ongoing knowledge transfer and continuous learning by custom-made training programs of our partners and Co-founders is just as much in our focus as to handpick developers for our client projects, ensuring a perfect match of expectations and skills. CoA believes that the most successful partnerships are based on openness and strategic collaboration. We believe that the passion to achieve the common goal is the engine for trusting relationships in business.

Let’s start to extend your value network together!