Which is better in-house development vs outsourcing web development

The debate between Outsourcing vs in-house in software been going on ever since the market since day one. Software development has come to define the activities of many startups: whether a firm is attempting to solve a core business issue, developing an easy-to-use software is an essential part of making a significant market impact or propose a disruption to existing models of business strategy. Startups can choose to build their software in-house or outsource the process to firms that specialize in software development. In all actuality, the two methodologies have their advantages and picking the correct one is the choice that relies upon numerous elements.

First, let’s see what in-house development and outsourcing are:

In-house software development means leveraging company resources (in-house team) to develop or implement software according to the company-specific requirements.

Where outsourcing is task delegation. Basically, an arrangement made by a business to hire a third party software contractor to do the software related work instead of doing it in-house.

This article will discuss a few pros and cons of outsourcing and in-house development:

Pros of In-house development:

• Homegrown: power over how the project is planned/organized. "Customers" in a similar office. In the case of something is off, turnaround time in understanding the necessity and iterating is low.
• Control over the team: since you will be developing it in-house, chances are you'll be maintaining it too. So you can decide what's best from a maintenance standpoint
• Cost effective: This is relative. In the sense you already have 3 IT staff and if they aren't overloaded they may be able to work on it within their same salary bounds.

Cons of In-house development:

• Increase in cost: Salaries, perks, raises, insurance, travel expenses, etc.
• A burden: If website development/maintenance is not part of the core capability of the organization it could be a huge burden on the IT staff to get it right.
• Lack of motivation: They may lack the enthusiasm/fervor to get some extra work done. It could drain their motivation and you could land up with a sub-optimal product.

Pros of Outsourcing:

• More time to work on something better: Done by somebody else. Decreases coding/development burden on the IT staff which can be used in other projects.

Cons of outsourcing:

• Costs of communication: Since the outsourced team isn't local, there are huge costs of communication and synchronization of understanding the requirements. Online communication, video chats, differing time zones (if at all) low throughput/turnaround in case of requirement fixes/updates. All this gets expensive pretty quickly.
• Less control over the current work: there will be moments when you can’t see what the team is working on and whether the project is going exactly how you want it to.
• Little to no control over how the project is internally designed: this may be true if the outsourced teams are doing an end-to-end job. You could do the plan and hand it off to them for coding however that doesn't work all that incredible either (since configuration changes/defects should be always endorsed with somebody in your office.)

So when considering whether to outsource or not one should look at the economics - what are the costs involved. Especially the "hidden" costs of communication. I suggest sitting down with the IT staff and asking them about this. Your choice basically depends upon what your needs are, so make sure you’ve your requirements known to make the best decision for your business.

I am a Professional Technical Content Writer. My professional interests include tech communications, editing/quality assurance, marketing, designing visual information, and content management.