In the current times, business of any kind requires a variety of IT services including web design, SEO (search engine optimization), online marketing, graphics and customer resource management. Any department of the business, be it human resources, accounting or customer service also have an increasing demand for IT services and the whole network needs to be continuously managed.
Furthermore, security is also one of the major issues for all enterprises. Without the experts, security of the business data can easily be compromised. Thus, IT specialists have become a need in the current times.
Here are the challenges and advantages of both the options!
Advantages of In house Development
In - house Knowledge
Once you have found and recruited the necessary in-house team, you can easily transfer knowledge between the team, create documentation as per your convenience. Over time the team will learn the intricate details of the custom applications project and thus, you will have experts specifically for your product.
Homegrown Project
Developing your custom applications in-house could result in quicker turnaround time and efficient communication when it comes to understanding requirements or handling change requests. If the team and stakeholders are at the same office, the efficiency level can be increased to a great extent.
Project Control
An in-house development team enables you have more control over the activities of project. You can set the coding standards, create and ensure implementation of the processes to be followed and decide which tools will be used by your team etc.
Challenges of In house Development
Knowledge and Skills Gap
In reality, changing technology requires knowledge of every upcoming technology for development. There are higher chances of the lack of required expertise. Your team might be proficient in a specific area but the current custom app development project might require a completely different skill set. Knowledge and skill gap means you need to hire new people.
Time and Cost
Later down the road, having a complete in-house team could actually be a cheaper option. However, at the initial stage sourcing and hiring an internal custom software development team to achieve your desired goals and objectives will cost higher. The key point of any project is time limitation.
Therefore, although hiring from scratch will cost you more, you can wrap up the project much faster with an in-house team.
Moreover, the cost of having a team to support the ongoing development and maintenance can be very high. The developers are only a part, you also need project manager, UI/UX designers and quality assurance people too.
Scalability
One of the major risks of an in-house development team is scalability. If the project grows in terms of scope, you need to once again carry out the hiring process. This is an issue which will continue to constantly affect organizations, especially the ones at enterprise level.
Supporting all the custom development projects internally can become a tough task, putting your business at a competitive disadvantage and increasing time to market.
Advantages of a Product Development Partner
Expertise and Experience
Custom software development companies are specialists who focus exclusively on the development of custom applications. They have a team that the organizations planning in-house development struggle to find.
Product managers, UI/UX designers and other key roles are easily available and each of them have a wide range of expertise and experience due to working on a variety of projects and overcoming innumerable challenges.
Firms that specialize in custom solutions have gained a lot of experience from years of working on the projects that are similar to yours and may also belong to the same industry as yours.
Thus, they can put to use the knowledge acquired and ensure shortened time-to-market of your software along with reduced project risks.
Early Adopters of New Technologies
To stay ahead of the competition, custom app development companies must be early adopters of new technologies and be able to gain expertise quickly.
They will have fresh ideas, understanding of the potential that the new technologies hold and tricks to make your product cutting-edge.
The people in custom software focused companies are passionate about learning new technologies and finding ways in which they can be used to solve day-to-day challenges.
Flexibility
There are many different options when it comes to handing over the project to a software development firm. You have the option of completely handing over the project to a third party, use a mixed-sourcing model or have some development done in-house and some completed by the partner.
This kind of flexibility allows you to adopt a development model based on the needs of your project and organization.
Defined Goals and Objectives
Rather than deciding on the delivery model upfront, you should take a look at your goals and objectives first. Here are a few questions to consider while opting for a delivery model:
- What are the business challenges you are trying to address?
- Are any specific skill sets required?
- Will you require any relatively new and unexplored technologies?
- What are your benchmarks for success?
- How much risks you are willing to take for achieving those benchmarks?
After taking into consideration these questions and defining your goals, you can begin to explore the various approaches to custom software delivery in an informed manner.
Challenges of a Product Development Partner
Choosing a Vendor
There are risks in any customized software development project, and choosing a technology partner for your product presents the same issues. Choosing a partner that is a poor fit in your organization will not only waste time and money but also you won’t have a viable end product.
The major challenge, then, is selecting the right technology partner. You can create a vendor selection criteria specific to your project needs and analyse the potential vendors on the basis of the set criteria.
Transparency and Communication
In case of some custom app development firms, you are at the risk of not being able to fully control the direction of your project. This is one of the things to be considered while choosing a vendor.
Some technology partners will provide the final product with very less regards for transparency. They have a “do it alone” approach rather than a collaborative one. It’s important to choose a team that will maintain a certain level of communication.
Some key points to look for are their willingness to allow you in the daily stand-ups, frequency of product demos and access to project management boards.
Cost
Relying only on a technology partner for long term engagements with no goal of having any development or delivery process in-house can turn out to be expensive.
Planning to hire product development partners for your upcoming project? Visit www.kodytechnolab.comnow to talk to an expert!
by Sanjay kidecha
