Advantages of outsourcing your web development
- If your in house team is relatively small then your web design might suffer from a lack of expertise.
- Outsourcing can help to keep your website design separate from other processes within your business.
- Outsourcing might give you access to expertise that might be too expensive for you to maintain in house. For example, sending a member of your in house web team on a £5000 training course for a one off web project might not be cost effective for your business. In this case you might seek an external specialist.
Disadvantages of outsourcing your web development
- Depending on the scope of your web project, you might be able to do a good enough job in house.
- Hiring external specialists can be expensive depending on the nature of the project.
- Transparency and accountability may be a problem. Trust should be developed. Control may be decreased when hiring an external web design agency.
- Costs of setting up communication.
- Reliability of the external web development agency.
Advantages of keeping your web development in house
- Greater control over your project.
- Perceived ease in requirements illicitation. We could argue that an in house team would be quicker and more successful in realising project requirements than a new, external web design agency.
Disadvantages of keeping your web development in house
- Costs of training and keeping skills updated.
- Employee retention.
Conclusion
Although this is not a cut and dry subject, and there are various factors involved such as scope of project, resources, time constraints and staffing issues, the above should provide you with a brief overview of the pros and cons of having a in house or outsourced web design team.
