Outsourcing is undoubtedly the best way to cut down big time on costs while utilizing best technological platforms. However, there is a common hurdle while hiring someone on board, choosing a professional web development company and a freelancer. After this discussion, you will be able to make your mind regarding what option to prefer when you plan to outsource your IT projects.Factors To Look For:
Transparency in Work
The major problem you encounter while dealing with freelancers is transparency lacks to a great extent since they are located at a place out of reach, or in a completely different region altogether. Since you have no information whatsoever regarding their experience, delivery, or qualifications, it is difficult to monitor them constantly. It is more like a gamble here rather than a conscious approach.
With a professional company, things are pretty easier. Since they have a physical setup in place with stakeholders, infrastructure, technical team, and more, you tend to gain more trustworthiness into the company.
Meeting The Deadlines
Freelancers are not very professional when it comes to meeting the project deadlines on time. In fact, they won’t respond to phone calls, emails, and in any other ways.
This is not the case with a brick and mortar company wherein there is an unbreakable agreement between two parties. The agreement is enforceable making it evident for both parties for binding to the agreement in fear of the penalties involved. Additionally, in absence of resources, freelancers take much longer to complete the same project.
This is not the case with a brick and mortar company wherein there is an unbreakable agreement between two parties. The agreement is enforceable making it evident for both parties for binding to the agreement in fear of the penalties involved. Additionally, in absence of resources, freelancers take much longer to complete the same project.
Overall Project Costing
Working with a company is way costlier than working with individuals since a company involves a team of experts working on your project. However, the expenditure within a company pays off in long run, since there are no major risks involved even in most complex scenarios. While freelancers come for cheap, but they do accompany too many project hurdles resulting in long term disasters.
Privacy & Warranty
Because a project is protected by a warranty period, you can demand the professional company you have hired, to work on the left out aspects. In fact, the company will do rectify the issues still under the warranty period, to keep the reputation intact. Even as far as the confidentiality goes, the privacy issue is dealt through a confidentiality agreement. Herein, sensitive data is protected by the hired company, so that project details are not leaked to anybody.
With freelancers, there is no such agreement, and hence data privacy is a big issue under scrutiny. Since there is no agreement, there is always a risk involved with sensitive information getting leaked out to someone else or competitors.
Experience Does Count
Years of experience play a critical role in accomplishing big when it comes to technicalities within your projects. For problems to get solved faster, experience involves tackling all kinds of situations in a rapid manner, especially in terms of wide technical expertise.
Working with a professional company means you are employing a team of expert designers and developers that add something to the table bringing in more knowledge and skill set.
Ongoing Customer Support
A professional company has the right kind of infrastructure and people to provide an ongoing customer support even after passing on the product to the clients. Freelancers lack the right kind of setup and hence it is not possible for them to provide ongoing maintenance.
Hiring a Freelancer
Pros
- Affordable Cost. Freelancers tend to charge lower than that of professional companies with just 20-30% of the total cost charged by a company.
- Flexible Attitude. Because freelancers set their own schedules, you can have them work day and night to get your projects completed faster.
- Easy Availability. Ever since the rise of a multitude of freelancing outsourcing platforms, you can get in touch with freelancers easily on Freelancer, Elance, Guru, and more.
- No Legal Bindings. There are no such major legal agreements or issues involved with freelancers, and hence it is easier to set terms and conditions as per your will.
Cons
- Difficult to keep your eyes on. Since freelancers work at their own will, it can be difficult to monitor them all the time, working on your project.
- Trust issues. Because there are no Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) involved, it can be difficult to trust freelancers showing full dedication towards your project. Even there are confidentiality issues related to data privacy.
- Seriousness compromised. When individuals take up work, they tend to be less serious as compared to an organization on the whole. Hence, a quality product can be something taking a backseat in this case.
- Lacking at organizational skills. While freelancers might be experts at technical knowledge, they still lack the soft personality traits or organizational skills such as time management, organizational behavior, professional approach, etc.
- No maintenance work involved. Freelancers might complete a project haphazardly. However, what if bugs or errors appear from nowhere? They will show no more commitment in sorting out the post-deployment problems, and not stand responsible for post delivery issues if any.
Hiring a Professional Company
Pros
- End To End Consulting. This especially is a boon in case of startups or ventures just starting fresh. A professional company offers end to end services with the likes of business consulting, idea evaluation, business analysis, project estimation, and more.
- Latest Technologies On Board. Since new technologies are evolving with moving time, the professional company can offer up to date contemporary solutions that freelancers might fail to do so.
- Experience That Is Diverse. When hiring a company, you are hiring a team of individuals with different kinds of expertise, as well as technical skills.
- Legal Safety. Since you are bound with a professional company via contract or agreement, you have full assurance regarding the project completion on time under proposed budget with top-notch quality.
- Relationships Build For Long Term. A professional company will satisfy you full-fledged ensuring relationships for the long term. This is unlike freelancers who just want to finish off with your projects rather than focusing on relationship building.
- Ongoing Maintenance And Support. Long term relationships do not mean just sufficing quality, but even providing a continuous support and maintenance after delivering the product.
Cons
- Costly Affair. The only disadvantage associated with hiring a professional company is it can be a real costly affair to get an organization on board. This is due to the fact that you are hiring years of technical expertise, infrastructure, technologies, and platforms on board.
The Ideal Choice
As per the thorough discussion we had above, a professional company has more or less same advantages as that of freelancers. However, there is just one disadvantage associated with hiring a professional company, compared to a number of disadvantages with freelancers.
Hence, if cost factor is not a major issue, hiring professional company is an ideal approach; whereas, if finance is a major concern, it is a wise approach to opt for freelancers.
