Outsourced Software Development
Your outsourcing sweet spot
Our experienced dev & data teams are based in South Africa – the sweet spot for UK & Europe’s outsourcing.
SCOPE. BUILD. RELEASE. REPEAT.
Outsource dev firms are a dime-a-dozen.
You can pick from literally thousands across a few dozen countries, however, successful outsource partnerships are built on more than just low cost & high quality – there are 6 other success factors to your choice: (i) language fit, (ii) cultural alignment, (iii) min. 4hr time-zone overlap, (iv) consistency of talent, (v) right size for your organisation, and (vi) proven low attrition. We represent all this for our clients, which is why South Africa, and our team in particular, are the sweet spot for many in UK & Europe.
Our approach
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We take a delivery-first approach.
We work closely with our clients to understand the desired business outcome, and build a team with that in mind, regularly monitoring our delivery against those outcomes.
We are open & transparent.
Our estimates & rate cards are transparent and granular, calculated by location, discipline, and seniority of each individual, not to hide behind obfuscated or blended rates.
We are about relationships.
We take a pragmatic & human approach to our engagements. We understand that innovative software teams are built around people, and that both innovation and people can be messy, but the challenges are made possible through constructive relationships of authenticity and trust.
We are flexible & iterative.
We regularly check in on the business goals & team fit to be ready to iterate the team shape as the business needs inevitably evolve. Our approach, and our contracts, are designed flexible – malleable notice periods to get moving quickly and ready for inevitable changes in business direction.
We operate as a team.
While a client may engage us for a small team, our approach gives them access and insight from our entire team, providing every client a level of guidance for process, people, and technical challenges that might be outside the skillset of the immediate team.
Permanent staff for the win
Far too many software consultancies engage in high ratios of contract staff and sub-contracting to other firms to manage their own capacity, resulting in many team members being on non/low-committal agreements where firms contract further contractors who contract further contractors which often creates an environment of higher costs and higher churn.
At Haefele, we believe in building a core base of permanent staff only to prioritise team stability, loyalty and a longer tenure and higher trajectory of career growth within our business.
Teams
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Staff attrition speaks volumes
Developer attrition, or churn, is an important metric in your choice of software partner, not just their cost and quality. In fact, the rate of developer churn will drive your partner’s cost and quality – a software partner who cannot minimise developer churn, cannot maintain cost nor quality.
Developer churn is an industry-wide issue and we spend a lot of energy across a number of initiatives to look after our team. We are proud that we maintain a rate of churn less than half the industry norm. As a start, we build our team solely with full-time, permanent employees – prioritising stability over revenue – focussing as much on individuals careers as much as we do on our collective resume.
We do offshore, onshore, or mixed teams
As part of presenting a truly collaborative team for our clients, our offering doesn’t always mean a purely offshore team in Cape Town. We realise that some projects can greatly benefit from an onshore or mixed team – perhaps an onshore Business Analyst or Technical Lead able to engage stakeholders onshore while broader development and QA continue offshore in South Africa.
Additionally, when it allows, we encourage key members of hybrid teams travelling between locations to spend time for high-value ramp-up and ever-important team building.
We are AI assisted
As a team, we actively focus and explore all developments in AI and it’s very real effects on our industry and productivity. All of our teams, across Business Analysis, Development, and Testing actively engage with various AI co-pilots to inspire ideas, boost velocity and optimise our efforts.
We already see improvement in specific technical solutions, individual speed of development, and overall team velocity where AI is used well and expect this to only continue as AI becomes deeper entrenched as yet another tool in our collective toolbox.
