Software Engineering March 5, 2020

In-house vs Outsourced Web Development – Which Gives More Bang For Your Buck

Written by Analytix Editorial Team Jagruti Patel

Your website is critical to building trust to enhance the customer experience, stay productive, and get a competitive edge.

According to a Visual Objects survey, 46% of small businesses still don’t have a website while 52% of small businesses assign responsibility to in-house employees for website maintenance. Nearly one-quarter of small businesses (22%) plan to launch a website in 2020.

Similarly, according to The Manifest 2019 Small Business Digital Marketing Survey of 304 small businesses, 73% consider their website the top marketing channel and 54% will invest more in website development.

With emerging web technologies – AI, ML, VR &AR, PWAs and others – today’s website development is not a one-time task. Rather, it is a continuous process that can often be a pain point for startups and small businesses. While some business owners find hiring in-house developers acceptable, others consider outsourcing a great way to cut costs, expand capacity, and get access to a global talent pool. Many see outsourcing as the key to growing a small business. Hiring in-house and outsourcing both have good and bad points, here are a few handy tips to consider before making the decision.

1. Cost Savings

The first and foremost benefit of outsourcing is significant cost savings. Either outsourcing to a freelancer or to a local or offshore web development company is significantly cheaper than hiring your own development team in the U.S.

The average salary of a frontend web developer in the U.S. is $119,224 (as of February 26, 2020) whereas the hourly rate of a frontend web developer with similar experience and expertise in India is around USD $8630 per year (as of February 29, 2020).

Hiring your in-house team demands lots of time and investment. Searching, interviewing and onboarding the right people can take months. Moreover, acquisition and retaining costs including HR, operational and infrastructure overheads, and medical insurance can take a toll on your budget.

2. Access to Global Talent and Team

Outsourcing gives you access to world-class IT infrastructure and the opportunity to work with certified expert web developers across the world who are constantly monitored and trained to deliver quality work. Moreover, you are not just getting developers, but a dedicated web development team including QA Engineer, Software Architect, Business Analyst, Project Manager, Frontend and Backend Web Developers, UX/UI Designer, etc., where everyone is an expert in a particular field and works within flexible web development frameworks like Agile, Scrum, Kanban, etc. giving you greater return for your investment. In addition, outsourcing typically provides 24×7 access for technical support for your queries, on-going maintenance and support.

Web development projects today require skilled talent with expertise in AWS, WordPress, AI, and Block Chain architecture. Finding quality local talent for your in-house development team can be tough, especially in smaller cities. Once onboard, they need regular training to start producing results. Conversely, outsourcing teams can start producing results on day one.

3. Significantly Reduce Your Time to Market

In addition to world-class talent, the latest tools and IT infrastructure, outsourcing allows you to instantly scale your team, allowing your website project to be completed expeditiously. Because your offshore partner works in a different time-zone, your team can work round-the-clock, ensuring round-the-clock development activities and accelerating project completion. Things get easier when working with an industry-specific professional web development company, as they work with multiple clients themselves. They stay updated with the industry’s best practices, provide state-of-the-art technical skills and time-tested processes, delivering high-performing websites without wasting time and adding to overhead.

Hiring your own development team can be tiring and consume both time and money as it requires setting up the infrastructure and processes. Similarly, other factors like regional holidays, leaves or an abrupt exit of a key resource may further slowdown the process.

4. Focus on Core Business Goals

Developing and maintaining a website is crucial, but there are other aspects too that need your attention. As a small business owner, you have to juggle multiple responsibilities to grow your business. Web design and development isn’t typically an everyday task. Setting up a development team in-house, especially in a startup, involves dealing with time-consuming and recurring headaches like recruiting, retaining, and training. All of this wastes precious time. With vetted professionals at work on your web development, outsourcing allows you to focus on growing your business rather than focusing on ensuring your website functions properly.

5. Scalability and Broader Skill Sets

As a growing business, you may need to involve developers to meet seasonal business needs or simply supplement your staff with broader skill sets. Whether you have a short-term project with pressing deadlines or your in-house staff lack particular domain expertise, outsourcing allows you to scale your team up or down instantly with trained and experienced developers without any extra cost.

Your in-house team may have a hard time adjusting to a sudden increase in workload, while finding additional web developers will require you to find, recruit, train before you can onboard them to the project.

Choosing the right web development partner can be a challenge, but it doesn’t have to be. Before selecting a partner, review previous projects, technology stack, framework, client reviews, and office locations.

Analytix’s IT service makes your e-commerce, portals, and web applications business-effective and converts technology into a revenue tool for your business. We offer a wide range of website design and development – Responsive Websites, CMS-Based Websites, E-commerce solutions, Web Apps covering open source technologies such as PHP, Node.js, Angular.js, Magento, Drupal, WordPress, CodeIgniter, Shopify, Cake PHP, and others.

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