Skype vs. HipChat vs. Slack: Tools for Offshore Development Collaboration

Skype, HipChat, Slack: Which online communication tool to collaborate with your outsourced team?

Miscommunication, while perceived as a normal occurrence in outsourcing, should be the exception and not the rule. Since outsourcing follows a sensitive project timeline, miscommunication can result in delays in the development. Worse, it can affect the quality of the end product.

Organizations and providers should continuously adapt to the changing and demanding environment. Aside from having an established system and proactively managing the project, teams on both sides can make use of online collaboration tools to improve communication.

Here are some of our most recommended tools that can help your company improve communications with an offshore software development team.

Skype

Skype, one of the most commonly used online communication tools today, has become a necessity among teams who thrive on agile systems. Skype has a business package that allows up to 250 users to connect to an online meeting, which can also be recorded for future reference.

The company’s tie-up with Microsoft allows users to access MS Office documents, which is ideal for online meetings. But, what makes Skype one of the top communication tools is its ability to make real phone calls whether you are using the free version or the business package.

Free Skype is powerful enough for small to medium-sized enterprises, enabling up to 10 people to join a video conference. Skype for Business is designed for bigger organizations without their own internal chat or video call systems.

HipChat

HipChat is designed as a chat solution for teams and businesses. But unlike Skype, HipChat doesn’t allow users to go into a conference call, which can be limiting to bigger teams. However, the premium version makes up for it with other features such as unlimited cloud-based storage, screen-sharing capabilities, and searchable message history.

Another advantage of HipChat is that it can be installed on your own server. It comes with an admin tool that you can use to control users’ access to the secure network, which is advantageous to companies working with offshore software deployment teams since guest users have limited access to the network.

Slack

Slack is mainly designed for collaboration and file sharing. The software comes with an integrated internal and external file sharing option, allowing anyone from your team to upload and download files thereby improving cross-team transparency.

Slack has a powerful search functionality, enabling users to search not just in the team’s message history but also in uploaded files such as Word Documents and PDFs.

In terms of communications, Slack allows users to send direct messages. External systems such as Twitter, Dropbox, and Google Docs can be integrated with the Slack system, and the latter automatically indexes and archives not just the messages but the files as well. This means that searching for a specific conversation or file is very easy using the Slack software.

At a Glance: Skype vs. HipChat vs. Slack

All three collaboration tools have their own strengths and weaknesses. Choosing the right online communication tool will depend highly on your organizations’ requirements, budget, and business model. Whichever you choose, these tools can help improve your collaboration with your outsourced team, ensure better communications, and improve project monitoring.