In-House vs Outsourced Staff

IT companies are all about getting things done and products released so it’s reasonable that you may be looking for the best ways to balance cost and quality. Most likely, you start thinking of IT outsource at some point of looking for software developers, especially if your business keeps growing. But is outsourcing really a better choice than in-house staff? Let’s find it out.

The debate between keeping permanent employees as opposed to hiring temporary specialists remotely for software development has occurred with technology advances. 

Both outsourcing and hiring in-house employees could be beneficial.

However, each of these options can result in worsening team performance and goal attainment in your company.

In fact, choosing between in-house and outsourcing requires comparing the potential consequences of the hiring practices.

Explore the pros before you decide

Of course, both variants make a positive impact on the progress of your company, which can make it challenging for business owners to make a choice between the two. However, some of these may be more meaningful to you and therefore, decisive.

In general, having an in-house team means that you have specialists available at any time. No time zone differences, no Internet connection failures, no unexpected excuses. Furthermore, it helps employees to develop a sense of belonging and realize the role of their contribution to your company. And, let’s face it, such teams are easier to control in terms of productivity and motivation.

The major benefit of outsourcing software development is the huge number of professionals out there. A decent vendor can be located anywhere in the world, it means outsourcing enables you to hire the person that you’re exactly looking for. What is more, there is no required employee training since they already have all the skills, supplies, and equipment. Besides, outsourcing is cheaper in the long term and allows to get the job done faster while you focus on the tasks you are actually in charge of.

Be aware of disadvantages you can face

While the benefits of in-house software development teams are critical, the drawbacks are also quite strong:

• you may no longer need the employee after the project is over, so keeping them requires unnecessary costs;
• employees must regularly undergo professional training;
• your company may need to purchase equipment that you’ll never need besides that one product;
• the issues of in-house workers are your issues — you still have to manage them.

Keeping people in-house means spending time and money on making them do the job. 

This can be really distracting from what actually needs to occupy your attention. 

While in-house developers affect your workload and budget, outsourcing can be troublesome for other reasons:

• technical issues and time difference limit employee’s availability to you;
• outsourced employees may not feel involved in the business and not show full dedication;
• some really good experts can cost you a fortune.

Since collaboration is the key point of outsourcing, these drawbacks can be some serious arguments against outsourcing developers.

Conclusion

The question of whether to hire someone for a long contract to your company or choose outsourcing tends to be a tough one. There’s no correct answer, in fact. Obviously, both in-house and outsourced employees can be favorable to your IT business.

However, you should take into account where your company is at right now.

Identify what you need more: a secure, complete team that you can manage and access at any time or experts that will get the job done but may be challenging to agree with?

Be sure to weigh the outlined pros and cons of each option before you decide.