Outsource or in-house: which option to choose?

One of the most important questions that arises when the company grows and the need in the new employees occur is to hire in-house specialists or to outsource certain tasks?

There are a lot of things that the company can outsource to make the processes inside the enterprise more efficient. However, there is another option to consider. Hiring specialists for some positions is better for the wellbeing of the company. It definitely increases the company’s control over most of its activities but it comes with the high cost and time spent.

Benefits of outsourcing

Hiring the outside agency gives you the opportunity to access the bigger base of specialists who will be to your disposition at any time. It also allows you to turn to their help only when you need it. You don’t have to support the whole team and make sure they always have something to do. You can be sure that the agency you are hiring have more qualified specialists than you can find in a short time. Thus they are providing higher quality services. It doesn’t mean that you can’t find skilled professionals, but it will take you much more time to hire them and to train them to reach that level.

By outsourcing the tasks you are saving money and time on the hiring process. Of course, you need to pay the agency for their services. The cost will still be lower and the cooperation time is usually shorter. If you want to build a website, for example, you would work with the software house for a couple of months to a year, while the employment lasts much longer thus you will be obligated to pay your workers more in a long run.

Outsourcing means that you will have more time to focus on other important things. You still would have to oversee the process but while working with another agency you will not be that involved because they have their own managers who are responsible for the task execution. 

Downsides of outsourcing

You obviously don’t have the control over the processes that are going on in outsourced agency that are not related to your project but can influence it. So it’s best not to outsource tasks that can lead to serious problems with your business.

While outsourcing you put a lot of trust into the agency that sometimes cannot be that involved in your project. Also if you have some issues the help will be available only when you ask for it. Even if the agency works very fast you are risking upsetting some of your customers with malfunctioning website or application until the issues get fixed. Hiring appropriate people means that they will always be looking for possible issues or at least will react fast enough to avoid much damage.

Benefits of in-house

Employees are more dedicated to your project than an outside agency. It could not be more cost efficient but it will be a long term investment into your own business. They also will have easier access to other departments of the company which positively affects its integrity and promotes the company’s culture.

Also, employees stick with the company for a long time. By training them and giving the opportunity of career growth you are creating the dedicated team that will do their best to make your product the best. They are interested in the success of the company because they will benefit from it as well. The outsourced agency have a lot of clients so they are not that invested in your company as your employees could be.

Downsides of in-house

The in-house option requires you to know a lot. You need to judge the people you are going to hire and their work afterward. Managers and CEOs then have to know at least the minimum about everything to be able to supervise their employees.

The qualified employees can be harder to find especially in smaller cities. Additionally increasing the skills of the employees is time and cost consuming. The hiring process is also lengthy and involves the risk of employing inexperienced and underqualified people.

At the end of the day when it comes to outsourcing or in-house solutions, it depends on what aspects of your business you are willing to have less control on. It is always a good idea to grow your company by investing in skilled and experienced employees. However, outsourcing some of the tasks can free your time and resources to direct it towards more important parts of your business.