In a previous blog, we had mentioned that there could be
times when you may want to actually outsource your mobile app development. Of course, the conditions under which you do
that will vary, but there are pros and cons to doing this. We review these in more detail.
The Pros Of
Outsourcing
1)
It is budget-friendly:
If you want to develop an app, controlling
costs and preserving cash flow of your business is probably at the top of your
mind. When you develop a mobile app in-house,
you will need to have a team that is dedicated to this task. When this approach is taken, you will have to
pay for salaries, benefits, time off, bonuses and more. But by outsourcing to a
third-party agency, the costs are obviously much lower.
2)
You get access to a broader range of talent:
When you hire an exclusive mobile
app development agency, that is all they do day in and day out. This means that you will have a wide breadth
of experience that you can utilize to build your project according to the needs
of the client. Also, this will save you
time in trying to find and recruit the talent that you would need if you were
to do this in house.
3)
You will have a team that is available on
call whenever you need it:
If you outsource your work to an
agency located in a different part of the world, you will be able to access
them reasonably quickly after business hours.
For example, if you do have a team of mobile app developers here in the
United States, you can augment them by hiring an agency, say in India, that can
work well after business hours locally until the next day. That way, you have a staff that is working on
an almost 24 X 5 X 365 basis to get your project done on time for your client.
4)
Your in-house team can be focused on
accomplishing different tasks:
If you have a lot of projects
coming down the pipeline, you will want to keep your existing team focused on
whatever they are working on the present time, and whatever workflows that you
may have planned for them in the future.
With hiring a mobile app development agency, you can pass on work to
them to get done so that none of your existing processes will need to be
altered or affected in any way.
The Cons of
Outsourcing
Of course, with the pros, come the cons, which are as
follows:
1)
The risk of data privacy and loss:
Whenever you outsource any type of
project to a different entity, there is always a much greater chance that the
confidential information/data that you share with them could be leaked out to
others either intentionally or non-intentionally. Here in the United States, as well as the
European Union, both data loss and data privacy are being taken extremely
seriously these days, backed up by the compliance powers of the CCPA and the
GDPR, respectively. If anything like
this ever does happen, you will be held primarily responsible for any security
breaches, not the agency that you hire.
This means that you could face some severe financial penalties. Also, the testing of the source code is on
your shoulders, not on the agency. This
means that you will have to do some sort of penetration testing or threat
hunting to make sure that the code is secure and that any unknown
vulnerabilities have been wholly discovered and repaired.
2)
You will have less control over the
development process:
If you have an in-house team create
the mobile app, you can always ask for updates whenever you want to, or feel it
is necessary, and get a response almost immediately. But if you outsource, you will have less
oversight in this regard, which could result in considerable lag time in
getting a needed response. Also, the
agency will not want to divulge all of their “secret sauces” as to what goes on
in the way they develop mobile apps so that it will not get leaked out to
competitors.
3)
Changes can be expensive:
Mobile app development is always a
continuous proposition; it never changes, especially when it comes to updating
the source code and making any changes the client requests. Obviously, your in-house team can do these
quickly, without any extra charges incurred.
But, if you outsourced your project, and if there are changes to be made
after the fact, you will be charged extra for it by your agency, and it will
not be cheap by any means.
4)
Stark cultural differences:
Depending upon the country in which
you hire the agency, there could be significant differences in terms of
communication, work style, and even language barriers. In the end, this could prove to be very
frustrating for you, especially if you are spending more time explaining what
needs to get done versus getting the tasks accomplished.
One
More Key Benefit
Overall, the decision whether you want to outsource your
mobile app development project is a choice that you will have to make based on
your needs. This is going to be driven primarily
by the budget you have and the time constraints that you are under to deliver
the app to the client. But when
outsourcing, there are fewer administrative headaches involved, which is
illustrated in the diagram below:
(SOURCE: 1).
Sources
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