Deciding whether developing an app with the help of your in house team or outsourcing the work to a third-party company or freelancers can be quite a tough question to answer. Since we’re not on a holy crusade to steer you towards either option, we’re going to objectively examine both of them and determine their pros and cons.
The pros of in house development
The most obvious benefit of doing this is attaining complete control over the project. You know exactly what everyone is doing at any given time, and you can make adjustments whenever needed. Apart from that, you’re also able to estimate the development costs, since the employees are probably on a fixed hourly rate (and the amount of hours they spend working every month is a known variable). Since your employees are probably already familiar with the policies put in place by the executives, this effectively eliminates the learning curve. Those who are outsourcing do not have a similar kind of luxury.
The cons of in house development
The in house team of your company is not all-knowing, even though the team members might be one of the most experienced developers in the industry. This means that, inevitably, there are going to be some additional costs and delays. Furthermore, being able to adapt and change things whenever needed may be a pro, but at the same time, also a con; the revisions and modifications could easily go out of control. Finally, recruitment is time-consuming, the licenses are costly, and the same can be said for the infrastructure.
The pros of outsourcing
Generally speaking, by choosing to outsource the work, your costs are going to be lower. Since we’re talking about fixed costs, you will be able to plan things out from the get go with almost 100% accuracy. Since everything is agreed upon with the app developer company up front, planning truly becomes smooth and easy. All in all, outsourcing is considered to be the most budget-friendly option, but it may not have all the flexibility you’d have by leveraging the availability and adaptability of your in house team of developers.
The cons of outsourcing
Not being able to completely control the project, both from the planning and execution perspective, is the probably largest drawback of them all when it comes to outsourcing. To add to this, you’re basically putting all of your trust into another person or organization that isn’t really a part of your own company. The one you end up outsourcing the work to will have to get familiar with your company’s policies, vision, best practices, etc. Also, the number of free revisions you’re going to get probably won’t come in endless supply.
Conclusion
The final verdict is this: there are no right or wrong answers here. Still, you’re going to need to make a decision, and to make the best possible choice, the following things need to be taken into equation – risk, cost, and time sensitivity. Only then will you be able to make the correct decision based on the individual circumstances of the project and your company’s vision.
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