[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]To you, your app isn’t just an app. It’s your idea, your brainchild that will change the game for you, your business and your customers.
It’s only natural to want to build your app in-house. After all, who’s better acquainted with your business and your industry than your in-house team? You may believe your team will take the most pride and sense of ownership in taking on your project, as they have a vested interest in its success. You may believe that building your app in-house will give you greater oversight and insight into its development.
These assumptions may not be so accurate. Many reservations you have around your ability to control your project may be immaterial in the context of modern project management.
When paired with the substantial direct and indirect costs of assembling and managing an internal team, these factors may shift the scales as you weigh the benefits of an in-house team against the benefits of partner app development company in Toronto.
You don’t know what you don’t know
Bringing your app to life takes a team of specialists who—in an ideal scenario—will work alongside the general practitioners who run your company daily. It can be easy to overestimate the capabilities of your team to extend their talents to adjacent, yet distinctly different areas.
While you may have a talented team of developers at your disposal, they may not be equipped to fully round out your app for maximum usability. Even a team of excellent developers will need the input of privacy, security and accessibility experts. Keep in mind each of these specialties functions differently in different app environments—security protocols for a web-based application have a different structure than a SaaS application, for instance.
Your internal design team may have created stellar branding and collateral, but they aren’t experts in UX and UI. These niche skills are crucial in making your app as smooth and user-friendly as possible, which requires an entire world of skills and best practices like journey mapping, usability testing, beta-testing your app, and more.
Without external input, your app may suffer from an echo chamber effect.
Your in-house team may have a deep understanding of what your app should be, but they may fail to envision everything your app could be. They don’t live each day in the world of app development, and may not anticipate emerging trends that impact the success of your app in the world.
They may not be capable of building your app for the future, instead of just for the now.
The cost of deepening your bench
Perhaps you’ve considered hiring these experts to round out your internal project team. This approach comes with several logistical challenges that are detrimental to the ROI of your project.
Obviously, new employees will increase payroll costs in salaries and benefits. Hiring new employees will affect the timeline of your project, because they will need time to onboard with your company and understand what you do, how you do it, and why it’s important.
Then there are the managerial costs of incorporating new talent into your existing protocols and overseeing those new employees and ensuring that they are engaged and using their talents on an on-going basis.
More importantly, hiring niche specialists full-time may not be practical.
Your company’s hiring targets are matched with ongoing demand for a skillset that will keep your business running or solve a recurring business need. Projects of this nature tend to be short-term, therefore hiring technicians long-term may be counterintuitive to the broader recruitment strategy.
For example, imagine you have a plumbing issue at your office. Though you may call upon a plumber on multiple occasions, you won’t need a plumber so frequently that you hire one full time, or even keep a plumber on a retainer.
That’s because you need a specific set of skills to solve a specific problem within a timely fashion.
- You’ll look for recommendations for a plumber, and they’ll bring the skills to solve your problem—a wealth of expertise and niche experience in the realm of plumbing. The plumber will diagnose your problem and quote the price of a solution.
- They’ll complete the work. You’ll pay them for the work. They’ll only charge you for the work they did. Your problem is solved by a trusted professional.
Many companies simply assume it’s better to expand the skillsets in-house, but they can’t say exactly why. If you go this route, make sure you establish a clear understanding of what exactly you stand to gain by hiring full-time employees in-house, rather than working with a vendor partner who specializes in these types of skills.
Development companies, the inside outsiders
With the right app development partner, you’ll get the expertise you need while minimizing the costs of that expertise outside the completion of your app project.
- You won’t have to train your vendor team. All they need to understand is the scope of your project and its KPIs.
- You’ll lower the managerial burden of your project. An app development partner can focus totally on your project, unencumbered by the day-to-day operations of your company.
- You won’t pay for specialists you aren’t using. An app development partner can rotate specialists into your project when needed and rotate them out when they’ve finished.
- You’ll cut costs. A development partner can help determine the most economical approach to building your app.
- You’ll benefit from top-shelf industry knowledge and experience that will expand your ideas about what your app could be. Your partner will help you establish the scope of your project, define your Minimum Viable Product, home in on meaningful KPIs and provide post-launch support.
Your app development partner will know how to leverage the expertise of your internal team, as well. As you know, no one knows your business like your team. A development partner will work to understand your business as thoroughly as possible to produce an outstanding result.
The last thing you want is a partnership that amounts to mere order-taking. A true partnership is collaborative. It thrives on trust, communication, determination. By the end of the project, you should feel like your vendor is part of your in-house team.
At TheAppLabb, we help clients bring their ideas into reality. That’s why we’ve been named one of the top developers in Canada for three years in a row. Our goal isn’t just to build and deliver a stellar app, but to accelerate the growth of your business and empower your in-house team. [/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”Full Width Line” line_thickness=”1″ divider_color=”default”][vc_column_text]TheAppLabb is a leader in the strategy, design and development of mobile apps. We work with global brands across a number of industries to create innovative and user centric business solutions and app experiences. Have an idea? Tell us about it.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]