Internal vs Outsourced Software Development Team – what’s more affordable?

Are you wondering if hiring a python software development company is a good idea? You keep asking yourself, what is more profitable: An in-house or outsourced development team? Deciding which option suits your needs more is difficult for you?

If you want to know the advantages and disadvantages of hiring in-house vs. an outsourced development team, you should start by acquainting yourself with the main differences.

Know the difference

The main difference between outsourcing custom software development services and hiring a team of developers locally lies in your responsibilities. If you decide to go with the second option you will need to be able to:

• manage software developers,
• manage the office,
• hire additional employees such as Scrum masters, an Office Manager, a CFO, an accountant and an HR team.
• start recruiting new software developers – which is not an easy thing to do. We’ll talk more about it in one of the paragraphs below. 
• Hiring additional employees translates to having much more responsibilities, which in turn means that the business side of your product will be put aside. You’ll spend more time managing your team than actually developing your product. 
• additionally, it won’t be easy to scale your team up and down immediately each time you need to (i.e. scaling down while waiting for another round of funding or scaling up when you need to speed things up because you’d like to meet deadlines).

What can you expect if you hire an outsourced team of developers? 

Least possible cost

Outsourcing allows you to hire software developers without bothering about modern office management, keeping people motivated, trust-building, effective performance measurement or providing necessary tools for IT Project Management, such as Jira, etc. This is one of the key reasons why many companies decide to outsource software development teams.

With an in-house team, you will be exposed to many additional costs that will drain your wallet. 

First, you’ll need to research the market and prepare job offers, find the right people for your team, and make sure that they’ll stay with you. You’ll have to research the right tools for your requirement process, job portals, invest your time and money into reaching the right candidates and screening them. 

Before doing all of that, however, you’ll have to ask yourself: what can you offer to the developers? You’ll have to make sure that you have an office and tools that meet the needs of your future employees, you’ll have to think of real benefits that you can give to employees and real development opportunities, such as medical care, knowledge base, participation in the conferences, and more. 

With the outsourcing team, you don’t have to invest your time, money and thoughts into all of that. The equipment, the necessary tools, or the mass of other circumstances that accompany the maintenance of employees are no longer your problem. The only thing you need to focus on is creating your product. As you can see, it takes a lot of pressure off you. 

Time to spare

Now, you’re probably already getting the gist of it all. Fulfilling your role as a CEO, maintaining the product, supervising the developers, talking to clients, and at the same time taking care of the office is not a one-man job. Managing the workload like that or hiring a group of people to manage it for you and managing their work instead is, of course, possible, but you have to ask yourself this one simple question: do you want to dedicate so much time to all of those things instead of committing it to your product? It might not seem like a lot right now but managing every single above-mentioned task and keeping your employees satisfied and motivated at the same time might not only take all of your time but also take your mind off what’s important: your product. This is a clear disadvantage of hiring an in-house software development team. 

With an outsourcing development team, administrative tasks, the workplace, coordinating office supplies, managing your team and your office, and all of the other tasks mentioned above, are not your responsibility. Therefore, you don’t need to worry about them. It’s also beneficial for you because when you are sure your software is going in the right direction, you can focus on other aspects of developing your product. The marketing strategy, target group, competition, branding, etc. all need your consideration. 

Outsourcing will afford you the opportunity to put your mind to it instead of trying to think about million other things, all at the same time. So not only, as was stated in the previous section, hiring an outsourced development team costs less money but also offers you more time. 

Scale  your team

Expanding or reducing your team is not an issue when you are outsourcing software development teams. You can do so at any given time without the fear of losing money. The process of scaling with an outsourced team is quick – your business is conducted by a well-trained staff that can meet your every expectation. The company will adapt to your needs and provide temporary support whenever it’s needed. It’s crucial to understand that even though the base of your product won’t change, your customer’s needs might and that there are always many additions to be made. 

What tools should you use?

Every type of business, every startup and every department of a large company is unique, in the sense that not every tool that one can find on the Intern will be suitable for each and every business, startup, etc. 

The possibilities of numerous specific tools used for IT Project Management are well known to us. Similar functionalities exist in software such as Trello, Asana, Monday, and Microsoft Teams to name a few. The manner in which these tools work on solving a given problem is what distinguishes them from one another. 

Each tool should correspond with processes that occur in your company. Operating and configuring a tool like, for example, JIRA requires an employee who is well trained in using this tool. Similarly, workflow configuration should be handled by someone who has an understanding of Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban). There are many tools that may help speed up the software development process and you don’t necessarily only need advanced software like JIRA to improve the workflow. 

Even using such a simple tool as Trello can help you manage your employees’ work. What is crucial is to not dismiss the importance of writing down tasks and communicating with your team. If you want to be successful in managing it, though, you need someone experienced in using them; someone skilled and good command of these tools. 

This is why it is so essential to have regular training on how to use various platforms, as well as to have someone on the team who will be specialized in this and therefore will be able to train others. 

Outsourcing to Poland

Poland is known as one of the most advanced countries when it comes to the development of technology. Many of our developers have already worked on projects of various sizes for multinational companies. We have an easy point of reference in their approach to development, thanks to a large number of meetings, conferences, and activities within the local technology communities that help them develop better products. 

We are experienced in developing software for many industries, starting with Enterprise Software and Shareholder Management Software, through Speech Recognition Software, Route Planning and Optimization Software, Crowdfunding Software, up to Real Estate Software and Healthcare Software. We worked on many different applications, always taking into account very specific requirements and needs of each and every Industry. 

For instance, as a custom healthcare software development company, Profil Software developed an application with real-time telehealth video calls, an electronic health record (EHR) and electronic medical record (EMR), safe data sharing, online doctor appointment booking, and so on. We’ve also worked on managing and integrating payments for this and other Industries, knowing how important it is in this day and age to have safe payment systems that can adjust to the client’s needs. 

Conclusion

Hiring an outsourced development team instead of the in-house one is more profitable, because, among other things, it reduces costs, lets you shift your attention to the development of your product, makes scaling easier, and provides you with the help of a professional. Still, we can lay out all of the benefits of hiring an outsourced team of developers in front of you, but the final decision belongs to you. 

Dedicating your time, money and resources to hiring in-house developers can work in your favor – you just have to be prepared for all of the hard work that comes with it and all of the issues that can arise during the development process. It can easily lead to you getting stuck with your project somewhere in the middle, which is not something anyone would want.  

So, before you make any irreversible decision ask yourself: Which option is better for me? Do I want to do it all by myself or outsource and focus on the tasks that are more crucial in the grand scheme of things?