In-House Development vs Outsourcing: to hire or not to hire?

When there is a need to introduce new technologies into the company, it means that you should hire the IT team or to outsource tasks to the external provider. We have already described questions that help you looking for a vendor, differences between outsourcing and outstaffing, and how to find your contractor. Now it is time to discuss the next question, which should be asked first, to hire IT team or to outsource business to the external provider?

Count it Out

First of all, try to count the cost difference between permanently hired staff, including the cost of onboarding, hourly rate, etc., and outsourcing. It that moment, a lot of companies turn out to help the external vendors. Choosing an experienced team, who worked with similar projects to yours, will definitely be an advantage. Comparing to hiring a new in-house team, which has no experience working together and should adjust to the working style, project, and company.

Use the possibility to find the best one, from any part of the world

One more feature of outsourcing is the possibility to check out the market, compare the quality of services and prices in any country. Of course, there may be some communication barriers, but we live in the globalized world with unlimited access to the internet, where almost everyone speaks English, those facts decrease problems. There are more advantages of outsourcing:

• A vendor will decide who is the best for your project, together with a Quality Assurance team, Business Analysts and Good level of Project management
• You will not need a full team of software developers, after the end of the project, so there is much more sense to outsource the project
• As well as, there is no need to invest in the equipment, which similarly will not be needed at the end of the project

Together with mentioned above, there are some advantages of in-house software development:

• The team will be trained according to company policies. It may be specifically helpful for companies that work with sensitive data
• The IT team will be available for you at any time in the same office. This can be especially valuable in case of emergency, such as a security breach
• You will be sure that design of the desired software is uniquely developed for the needs of the business

What about 2-in-1?

Ultimately, most companies are looking for a mixture of both in-house and outsourcing development. An in-house IT team is essential and may be focused on customer support, security or online marketing. In the same time, roles of graphic designers, problem troubleshooters, software developers can be outsourced.

Building the right in-house IT team requires patience, diligence and a clear understanding of the skills a company will require in the long term. While outsourcing may seem a more immediate, cost-effective solution. What is clear is that as IT becomes more central to the running of any successful business, more companies will realize that they need to have experts in various IT fields working for them full-time.

Summing Up

The choice between an in-house team and software development outsourcing provider comes down to the cost and the quality issues. If setting up an in-house team proves too costly, you should try to find a software outsourcing company. Finally, the answer to the questions: “to hire or not to hire?” & “outsource or not outsource?”, fully belongs to you.