Every year, the importance of digitalization is felt more and more strongly, and primarily it is felt by non-IT companies. When a company decides to digitize their company, a dilemma arises: do you hire your IT staff or use outsourcing? 

Today, we will talk about the benefits and challenges that companies can face by using an example of one customer story.

We will make our own web platform

We deliberately removed the company name, but we will share the specifics of their work. The company was engaged in collecting data on partner violations, doing reviews, and solving the legal problems of their customer. The key problem was the lack of automation in certain areas of work. That is, the operator receiving the call had to fill out a questionnaire and describe the problem to conduct a review and give feedback. All of this took a lot of time and human resources that should be optimized.

This is how the idea of ​​creating a platform arose, where the client could fill out an application and transfer it to specialists in an already prepared form. By Simply adding this platform would significantly reduce the burden on the support department and make it possible to unify the application system.

But an idea remains an idea until it is realized. Once implemented, the company’s management decided to hire one developer per staff, as it initially appeared to be less expensive.

Recruitment difficulties

The client conducted interviews with various specialists but came to the conclusion that they lacked an understanding of how to select the appropriate specialist, how to verify that they would deliver the required work, what technologies they should know, and so on.

This often becomes a significant challenge, as it can be quite difficult for someone unfamiliar with the implementation of a task to evaluate the competencies necessary for its completion.

In addition to hiring difficulties, our clients have voiced concerns regarding retaining specialists who work with different cultures. The specifics of developers’ work are different from those of other employees, making it challenging for developers and IT specialists to work in teams where they are not well understood.

Let’s hire a freelancer

As a next step, the hero in our story decided to seek out a freelancer who could assume responsibility for delivering the final product, enabling the client to avoid becoming embroiled in the intricacies of the code and its implementation.

This approach could have worked. After some time, they were able to find a specialist who was willing to take on the task. The developer asked for technical specifications to understand what needed to be done, as developers typically do.

The development tasks were set by one of the best managers in the company. Unfortunately, he did not have the knowledge or experience in developing software solutions, resulting in tasks being set as he understood them. The freelancer did as requested and as he understood, but delivering the software product was ultimately impossible. The client spent tens of thousands of dollars and a year of time.

How did our story end?

Unfortunately, this is a typical story that we encounter in our experience. Writing good code is only part of the project’s success.

Ultimately, our client turned to an outsourcing company, which conducted a business analysis stage where they mapped out all the platform’s functionality, determined the requirements, created a prototype, and clarified which parts required development by the developer and what type of specialist was required.

Not everything went smoothly this time, and choosing the right outsourcing company is always challenging. We will talk about this in the next article.

The story’s moral is simple: employees, freelancers, and outsourcing companies all have different approaches to implementing business tasks. It is crucial to carefully evaluate one’s strengths and weaknesses and choose tools and approaches that will lead to the result you need to get.

Further information on the business analysis can access through the link.