Outsourcing Your App Development vs. In-House Hiring

The question of outsourcing comes up repeatedly in business, and you might find that it becomes more relevant as you reach areas of your business that feel less relevant to your core operations. For example, you might need to have prioritized video marketing capabilities if you are in construction, but video marketing will still be a great way to increase your brand awareness, making outsourcing an obvious solution.

When it comes to app development, however, the question becomes more complicated due to how intrinsic this platform is going to be for your brand. Therefore, weighing up the pros and cons could be worth your time.

The Maintenance to Come

Of course, when it comes to web or app development, it is not a matter of simply designing the app and leaving it at that – you need to be able to maintain and consistently improve the platform for the time to come. Bugs, issues, and general modernizations need to be addressed regularly so that the user experience does not suffer as a result of this. Having access to a suitable dev portal can help you deal with this in-house, allowing for a clear oversight of the improvements that need to be made and the kind of engagement you’re dealing with.

That is not to say that maintenance will be an issue when you outsource development, as you can ensure that this is part of the initial deal you make – perhaps enlisting their services regularly instead of a one-off situation.

The Cost

Another element of outsourcing that might put you off is the financial side of things. You might feel that the expenses involved for something that you might have to pay for again in the future might make it an invalid route compared to what hiring for this role can offer. However, it is important to be aware of how much more expensive an in-house team could be because you might need to hang onto them long-term. 

With that in mind, it might better to consider this debate fitting into the question of where your business is. If you’re relatively early on, outsourcing could be more realistic, but as you become more established, you might find that you have the means to accommodate an in-house development team.

Learning from the Process

You might also be opposed to outsourcing because it robs you of experience you might gain when conducting it through your own team. Again, outsourcing often means that you are getting fresh faces on board to help with a specific task – you can still be involved and learn from this. In fact, using everything that you learn from outsourcing tasks could be utilized when you do get around to hiring your own development team, if you decide it is worth having one in-house in the future. This is true in all other areas such as video marketing or content creation in general. Outsourcing does not have to be an option that’s as disconnected from your own control as you might believe it to be.