Should You Hire An In-house Development Team Or Outsource?
In-house development and outsourcing are two sides of the same coin that lead to an end result which is common and fruitful. It’s the journey taken to reach the end result that makes in-house development and outsourcing different.
Every company wants to test the waters in software development by either building an in-house team or outsourcing their project. Both have their pros and cons and it’s not necessary that everyone can afford the former and fully trust the latter.
To gauge if your business is better off hiring an in-house team or outsourcing your development projects, let’s look at the merits and demerits of both.
In-house Development
In-house development refers to the process of building a team from scratch and putting it to work. Creating an in-house team is no different from your traditional hiring methods. You first have to find a suitable candidate, vet them, test them and finally interview them. After the hiring process comes the onboarding and training process. All in all, this is what it entails when you decide to architect an in-house team.
Pros:
- No Communication Gaps: Probably one of the biggest assets of an in-house development team is the advantage of easy and clear communication. Since there are no time and distance barriers, team members can communicate freely and frequently without bouncing lengthy emails or hopping on glitchy video/conference calls. This makes the work process more seamless and effective as there are no doubts or loopholes in the modus operandi.
- Immediate Team Support: This might not amount to much in words or on paper but on-ground, teamwork and support is everything. When your project begins to go south, you need the help of your managers, peers and seniors to lead the way for you. In an on-site work setting, you can easily get a hold of them to undo the wrong and fix things before further damage.
Cons:
- Expensive: Hiring an in-house team can be one of the most costly decisions your company can ever make. The funds, effort and time spent in building a robust in-house team almost overshadow the benefits that it’s going to provide and therefore not a lot of people think of it as their first bet.
- High Attrition Rate: One of the biggest concerns of building an in-house team and working on-site is a high turnover rate. It happens to every company, big or small, and it will even happen to yours too if you don’t have the right tools to curb it. After all, the team that you’ve so painstakingly built will one day like to move out to explore other more tempting opportunities and there’s not much you can do.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing refers to the process of delegating your developmental chores to an external agency skilled in it. Outsourcing is garnering fame, trust and audiences rapidly with the IT outsourcing industry projected to grow by $98 billion by 2024 itself.
Pros:
- Cost-effective: Outsourcing your IT development is the most cost-effective alternative to building a great product. Outsourcing can save you up to 40% more than in-house development which is a lot if you decide to allocate these saved funds to further market research and user persona studies.
- Access To A Global Talent Pool: With outsourcing, you can hire the best of the best to work on your projects at a minimal cost. As there are no geographical limitations, the external agency hires its developers from a wide talent pool and pre-vets them so that you don’t have to do the hard work.
Cons:
- Trust Issues: Even though this can no longer be deemed as a prevalent issue, it still is a predicament faced by many companies when they turn to outsourcing. This issue is not really a problem of the external agency as much as it is of the company looking to outsource. If you want to outsource your IT development without facing any trust issues, you will have to do your fair share of research by deep diving into vendor profiles.
- Communication Barrier: Some people who have worked in a consolidated, on-site office space many times find it difficult to communicate let alone work with a remote team. The dedicated remote outsourcing teams today are pros at mastering seamless communication with the client company and so this should not be an issue any longer.
Conclusion:
To outsource or not to outsource really depends on your company’s current state of mind as well as its fiscal stability. If you want to get the job done in the shortest period of time, to its greatest potential & at lower costs, outsourcing by building an agile software development team is just the thing for you. But if you prefer the old-school way of seeing team members work round the clock in an office space as you discuss every chore with them face to face, go with building an on-site team.
