I have been in digital product development over 15 years so I have got a question that I heard more often from my clients, what should we use in-house or outsource for product development?
Actually I have worked with both in-house and outsource developers. There are pro and con for both.
In-house developers
Pro:
- Know insights about organization, culture and product.
- Quicker to adjust or improve product if there is urgent situation.
- Be convenient to work cross-functional team in the organization.
Con:
- Comfort zone, lack of enthusiasm to learn new thing.
- OPEX cost, in case of terminating the product, if the company can not find the right job for them. What should the management do? Lay off?
- Cost of turn over. It is challenging for the organization and Human Resources to maintain young blood developers.
Outsource developers:
Pro:
- In case of transparency organization, it will have biding processes, we will have several options to select outsources.
- Terminated project, terminated outsource’s contract.
- Get knowledge or learn new thing from the outsources.
Con:
- It will be shit, if gets the low quality outsources.
- If you do not renew the contract, somehow they will throw away.
- In case of urgency, it might be difficult to fix, if you do not have SLA agreement to support 24×7.
- The outsources just work as a project base, they might not know insights about client’s organization, culture, way of work and so on. That it might be difficult to be in the same page with the client.
Anyway, the pro and con that I have mentioned above, it came from my experiences. I cannot judge that what of things that would be good for you. It depends on the company’s policy, budget, culture, people, way of work, and product.
As I worked with my clients in Thailand, the majority of these industries will use outsource services which are banking, insurance, and telecommunication. I have seen some local companies that use outsources as well especially in entertainment industry.