Cooperation with an external partner in the field of software development, although it is becoming an increasingly popular solution, still has its opponents. There are several factors that cause concern. In fact, they are not really problems – it may turn out that by working with software houses you will achieve better results than with your own internal team.
Building and expanding an in-house team or rather starting the cooperation with a software development company? This is a very common dilemma. Basically, both approaches have their pros and cons. I would like to prove to you that popular concerns about software houses are not a real problem, as some might think. See for yourself!
Costs are one of the most common reasons for worries related to working with software houses. Some people have the mistaken belief that software development agencies generate much higher costs than an in-house team. In many cases, however, establishing cooperation with an external partner is a more cost-effective solution. You pay such companies for each hour of development work only. In this way, you avoid other costs, such as financing the recruitment process, onboarding, providing the necessary equipment, managing the developer's work time, or paying for vacation. All of this becomes additional costs if you have your own in-house team.
You won't have to worry about excessive rates if you find a reliable and cost-effective partner. Please note that in Western Europe you pay up to 80-90 euros for an hour of development work; the costs are even higher in the US. In turn, you can find developers for 50 euros per hour in the CEE.
Some concerns stem from the fact that the company never used a similar solution before. Companies are not sure if this approach to software development will work for them. Their doubts relate to many aspects. For example, it is good practice among the clients to have one person dedicated to contacting external developers – it can be a project manager, a product owner or even sometimes the CTO. So, the question is – could the lack of sufficient experience in this type of cooperation of this person become a problem?
In fact, there is nothing to fear. I have noticed that all worries disappear after the first few days of cooperation. It all relies on establishing clear rules of cooperation at the very beginning. Then the whole process runs smoothly.
Codest works with clients who have their own in-house teams, but their high needs led to starting a cooperation with a software house. Simply put, the number of tasks exceeds the capabilities of their teams. When combining such cooperation, there may be objections related to the effectiveness of daily communication or exchange of information.
The answer to this issue is similar to that provided in the previous point – it all depends on the proper management of such cooperation. I think that Agile and Scrum work great in remote collaboration. Meetings such as "daily" and "planning" solve all problems. Moreover, tools that boost teamwork are also helpful. We use Jira and Slack. In addition, we are in constant contact with our clients. We analyze our cooperation and constantly try to improve the process. It works! This is just one of the examples of a well-managed cooperation.
Many people still think that remote cooperation is associated with a decrease in quality. I do not agree with that. First of all, more and more global giants are cooperating with software development agencies. Why? Such a solution pays off more – both in terms of costs and quality.
Second of all, I closely observe the IT industry every day. I have no doubt that we are currently dealing with the popularization of remote work. Most software houses have developed high standards for such arrangements. For example, Codest believes that our most important value is creating high-quality code. We believe that this approach is the only way to build the best products and establish trust in cooperation with clients. This allows us to maintain the highest standards of cooperation with our partners.
One of our clients once said that our developers, when they started working with their in-house team, brought a lot of good practices to the company’s daily work and that directly improved the quality of the in-house programmers' work. For us, any such comment is a reason for great satisfaction. For you, it is a confirmation that this solution really works.
There’s only one convincing solution – in practice. If you want to find out if working with a software development company will be a good idea for your company, just try it. You can always opt for a short pilot period. During this time, you will learn about the development team, their principles and the specificity of everyday cooperation.
Finally, I recommend reading two articles that may interest you. They are entitled ‘How do we implement the requirement analysis?‘ and ‘Our approach to customer journey.‘ Both can be found in our Playbook. These articles present our approaches related to starting the cooperation with a software house. I think you might find them illuminating.
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