Onsite vs Offsite
Onsite vs Offsite Web Development: Which one is right for you?
The debate on whether to develop in-house or offsite has been going on for quite a while now. The new economy has certainly taken this debate to another level and some business owners are beginning to wonder if choosing offsite web development will help them overcome more easily the new challenges they´re facing.
Having an in-house development strategy means that a company has programmers on its staff that develop their software internally. On the other hand, offsite web development is a business to business strategy in which a company hires another firm to develop a custom application. Two different alternatives for one same purpose… But which one is right for you?
There´s no question that for an in-house employee it should be easier to understand the business’ needs and collect all the necessary information about them. But will he be the best option to translate these into the desired solution? Internal development teams, due to their nature, tend to become institutionalized and blind for new perspectives and innovations whereas offsite web development teams, will offer a fresh perspective to challenge internal preconceptions.
Also, due to their competitive nature, offsite web development firms feel more pressure to keep up with the latest innovations in order to survive. And what´s best, no additional training expenses will need to be incurred by your company to ensure this happens.
Offsite web development is for someone who would prefer not to expand the facilities in house. So either if this is a short to medium term project or a long term one which you have currently no capacity for (and do not want to make the necessary investments to expand it) then offsite web development is probably the answer for you.
Offsite web development has also proven to be very effective in keeping your fixed costs low by turning development costs into variable costs (which are also proportional to your active projects).
Another reason to choose offsite development is that these companies are a bigger source of experience and will have the right expert for your specific project. With in-house development, instead, you´re tied to the skills of your onsite development team.
Offsite web development is also known to help businesses increase their productivity, since each project has a predetermined scope and budget and you´re also delegating responsibilities while focusing on your business’s potential and growth.
Each company is different and, hence, will have different needs. A good combination of these two strategies, which we encourage you to consider, would be to have one in-house business analyst gathering and documenting your project´s specifications and acting as the liaison with the offsite web development team. This way, your company will be able to have the best of those two worlds.
With over 75 years of combined experience in offsite web development, our professionalism, organizational values and result oriented mindset differentiate us from our competitors. Contact us today and consider IT done!