With the job market becoming ever broader and larger, more and more companies are beginning to outsource mobile app development to freelancers or external developers. In this article, we’ll be looking at why people are doing this, as well as what outsourcing can mean for your company.
The Benefits of Outsourcing
Outsourcing app development bypasses the need to actually hire in-house developers. When outsourcing, you work on a per-project basis, bringing in external teams of experts (or even singular developers for small jobs) to do your app-building and maintenance for you.
Some of the reasons people prefer outsourcing to actually hiring developers are:
1. It’s Cheaper
When you have an in-house team of developers, you’re pretty much responsible for retaining them throughout, not just during the development process. This often can get quite costly, and for many, simply not worth it. An in-house team also incurs additional costs, such as insurance and other employee benefits that are non-existent when you outsource.
Since the freelancers you’ve contracted work on a per-project basis, you only have to pay them for the development of the app itself, as well as future administration tasks, which overall will end up costing you much less than having an in-house team.
For daily tasks like answering customer inquiries and concerns, you can lessen the expenses of purchasing equipment and training your employees by working with a call center in the Philippines. BPO companies in this country, as well as in Brazil and Malaysia provide excellent customer service for various businesses.
2. It Expands Your Horizons
When building an in-house team, you’re bound by geographical restraints – the experts you hire will probably live in the same town as you. But when you’re outsourcing, your team might be in the next state over, or all the way in Europe. By outsourcing, you’re immediately exposed to a broader market and lots more possibilities.
This, of course, has a huge financial benefit. Since living costs differ between countries, the team you hire abroad might cost you much less than the local team. This is not usually an indicator of the quality of work, simply of the living necessities of your developers.
3. It Simplifies the Process
When working in-house, you’re in charge of hiring and maintaining the team, both in terms of interpersonal relationships and professionally. This ends up costing you quite a lot of time in the long run. When outsourcing, on the other hand, these responsibilities belong solely to the team manager in your outsourced team. Thus, you’re not troubled by any of them and can better concentrate on your own duties.
Does It Have to Be One or the Other?
Not necessarily. Nowadays, more and more businesses are blending the two, both hiring an in-house team, and doing the occasional outsourcing. Why?
Well, app development is a rapidly changing world, with new areas of expertise popping up every day. It stands to reason that the skills and expertise you used on your last app might not be so useful on your new one and that it might require an expert you don’t have on your team. It’s quite popular, in such situations, to bring in a freelance expert. No need to hire them because you may not need to gain expertise in this in the future, but there’s no reason you should go without just because you have an in-house development team.
On the contrary, when done right, your in-house team and your outside expert can work together brilliantly and yield top-notch results.
