If a business is going to succeed, it needs a solid presence on the web. The first step in this direction is the creation of a website. It is not a trivial project. Web development is much more than just creating an attractive website for your business. Yes, it involves programming, marketing, and the combination of many other disciplines. The result must be an online launching pad that will enable the take-off of your business.
Deciding who should be in charge of web development is not that straightforward for small businesses, particularly startups. Should your company form an IT team in charge of creating the aforementioned online launching pad? Or, should you opt to outsource this vital task? The decision is not simple. If you weigh both alternatives on a balance, you’ll find pros and cons in both of them. Statistically, outsourcing website development is favored.
The vast majority of small businesses choose to use the services of web development companies. IT is not the only service that small businesses choose to outsource. Accounting and digital marketing are tasks that small businesses usually leave in the hands of external service providers. To a lesser extent, HR and customer support are also outsourced.
In-House Website Development
If you own a small business, do you need to pay for external web development services? Well, only if you want. The alternative is to do it in-house. For this approach, you need to hire IT experts and good designers. However, the process to recruit the right people can be time-consuming. And even if you apply stringent selection criteria, you are not guaranteed to choose the best people for the job.
Investing all the time and effort to find the right professionals for your in-house web project may not be the best solution. It would make sense only if your business is related to IT or software development. Otherwise, you’d be wasting precious time in the recruiting process only. If you run a one-person company or a startup, outsourcing web development can be a better alternative. Even several big companies choose to outsource this task.
Why Outsource Website Development?
There are several reasons to hire an external company to work on your web project. However, it would be wise to first learn all the benefits that outsourcing this task can bring to your company. The following list is not exhaustive:
· Quicker completion of the project;
· You can focus your efforts on the development of your business;
· Monetary savings;
· Enhanced security;
· Superior flexibility and scalability;
· Business support;
· Better risk management and mitigation;
· Broader skill set.
The list can go on, but you have already seen the key points. But before you run to find a service provider for this task, it would be useful to discuss some of the above points in more detail. Also, you must consider whether you will outsource the development of the server-side only or the full stack. What is full-stack web development? It refers to the development of both sides of a web application, which are client and server.
With the above terms clarified, we can review some of the major advantages of web development outsourcing. These are the main reasons small businesses opt to delegate this important task to a third party.
1. You Save Both Time and Economic Resources
The key to the success of a business in its early stage is the availability of economic resources. So is time. Hence, you cannot simply waste them because of a decision that was not well thought. Hiring an external company to work on your web project can reduce costs significantly. It doesn’t look so obvious, does it?
First of all, you must consider that this type of work can be done remotely. While having an IT team at your premises is somehow comfortable, it is not a must. You can hire one of the web development companies that advertise their services online. You can save up to 70% of the money you have allocated to website development and other IT projects.
Paying less doesn’t mean that you get lesser quality work. This saving comes from the difference in salaries between countries. For example, an IT specialist in India earns, on average, half the yearly salary of an equally skilled specialist in the United States. By handing your project over to an offshore company, you help their economy and save money at the same time. It’s a win-win situation.
And what about saving time? We have already mentioned this issue above. You won’t waste time and other resources by interviewing candidates for your IT team. Also, there won’t be a learning curve, which takes several weeks or months. Instead, you pay for web development services that are readily available. These specialists can begin working on your project at once.
2. You Get a Dedicated Team of IT Specialists
As explained earlier, the presence of your business on the web is decisive for its success. Hence, you want the best IT specialists to work on your project. If your website will include some special features such as virtual reality, finding the right expertise may prove troublesome. The same applies to blockchain technology and other recent features. If you choose to outsource, the company of your selection will provide a dedicated IT team of experts for your project.
3. You Get a Broader Skill Set
Besides the team of specialists that will deal directly with web programming, other specialists are also needed. From web designers to software architects, you will need more than just experienced programmers. And then again, you should invest the time, effort, and resources to recruit these specialists. Instead, web development outsourcing releases you from all this hassle.
A company that provides IT services for others has a pool of talent at your disposal. Such companies employ experienced personnel that guarantees success. Whether you want developers for the server or client-side only or an entire solution, a specialized service provider will be able to provide all the supporting expertise. What is full-stack web development without quality assurance? It’s just programming without the guarantee of success. Only a broader skillset can guarantee excellent work in all aspects.
4. Superior Flexibility and Scalability
With a pool of experts, the service provider can approach your project with more flexibility. They can work on each part of the project independently, but with the possibility to integrate everything at the end. This approach is also useful when you want to modify the project eventually. The flexible frameworks allow integrating other technologies. The service provider will likely have the expertise to do it.
If you opt for in-house development, you can with the expertise of your team only. You cannot easily add or integrate other technologies that your team is not familiar with.
Something similar happens to scalability. If suddenly you need more experts to work on your project, for any reason, the service provider has the manpower to do it. What’s more, the personnel provided by the external company are already trained and ready to join the project. Otherwise, you have to recruit and train people to scale up your project. Such administrative tasks would cause unnecessary delays. Likewise, if you need to scale down, you won’t need to deal with any legal matters to reduce your personnel.
5. Enhanced Security and Confidentiality
When you outsource, the company you hire commits itself to protect your project information. A Non-Disclosure Agreement will serve as the warranty that no information about your project will be leaked to third parties. Such an agreement is legally binding.
You can argue that you can get an NDA signed by your employees if you opt to do your project in-house. True, but statistically, disgruntled employees are more likely to leak information out of resentment to their employers. Moreover, if you outsource and some information is leaked, you know the company you hired is responsible. You can get damages compensation from the company. In the case of an in-house project, pinpointing the source of the leak is more difficult.
Also, the company working on your project will take all measures to keep your code confidential. They will use secured repositories to back the files related to your web project. Depending on the type of contract and clauses that you sign, this company may pay compensation to you in case of stolen information.
6. You Can Focus on the Development of Your Business
If your niche is not IT or any related field, having an in-home team of web developers doesn’t make much sense. If you hand these tasks over to a specialized company, you will have more time and resources to develop your business. You will be doing things you enjoy doing instead of working on things you may not even like. Let’s elaborate.
Nowadays, if you want your business to succeed, you must develop any new idea quickly. Otherwise, your competitors can beat you and take over the market. When you outsource, you’ll have the time to meet and discuss with your marketing team. You can plan the ideal marketing strategies for any new product or service.
Likewise, you’ll be able to devote some of your time to working with the sales department. You won’t need to worry about the IT department if you hired the right people with the expertise to handle your business’s presence on the web.
7. You Can Enjoy More Diversity
There is a global trend to hire people from different ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, sexual preferences, and more. You can certainly do it when you outsource your IT work to an offshore company. You’ll work with people from a different country and with a different way of doing things. In itself, this experience can be very unique and exciting. However, you can get much more than just that type of diversity.
You can also get expertise diversity. It means that you can select the right people for each task in your project. You don’t have to limit yourself to hiring just one person to handle all the aspects of the development process. As your project advances, you can change the experts based on the required skills at the moment. For example, in the early stage, you probably will need web designers. Later on, you’ll need to hire programmers mainly. This approach ensures that your project is always in the best hands.
8. High Quality and Robustness
A specialized company that offers IT and website development services always keep its personnel updated. Hence, you can rest assured that the people you will hire have competence in the use of the latest technologies and best programming practices. As a result, your website and the associated apps will be robust, secure, and functional.
If you opt for an in-house team of developers, you will need to invest heavily in courses, seminars, and other ways of training to get the same quality standards. From the technical and economical point of view, it is better to hire personnel that already have the knowledge and experience. In this way, you know your project will succeed in the long run.
What Tasks Should You Outsource?
To have a solid presence on the Internet, you have to pay attention to all the aspects of website development. All the tasks associated with this development can be outsourced. You can choose to outsource some of the tasks or all of them, depending on the in-house expertise you already have. The main tasks of the process are web design, programming, content creation, and digital marketing.
The first two tasks are more often associated with IT. However, content creation requires some technical competence also. So does digital marketing. For example, SEO techniques must be applied when creating content for your website. Likewise, a continuous link-building campaign must be carried out to ensure the visibility of your website.
While you are not forced to outsource any aspect of your web project, your business can benefit greatly if you do it.