Should You Outsource Your Mobile App Development?

Outsourcing is often used as a dirty word, but in truth, it is often the best way to get the job done well. In-house expertise often doesn’t stretch to a particular piece of newly developed work – so what to do in that context? You have two choices: build your internal capacity, or … outsource.

Although developing in-house expertise may in the best of all possible worlds seem to be the right choice to make, in fact, outsourcing is often by far the smartest route to take when developing a mobile app. This isn’t just because it can get the project off the ground more quickly than doing the painstaking work of building your internal infrastructure (although it might).

More broadly, when asking whether you should outsource your mobile app development, there are five key reasons for making the move.

1. All that additional infrastructure

In order to build the internal capacity necessary to becoming an app development expert – and let’s be clear, you don’t want to be anything else, because you’re app needs to be the best it can be – you will need to invest in a lot of additional infrastructures. App development is multi-faceted and can be complex – don’t fool yourself into thinking that it comes cheap.

2. Finding the specialist staff

App development isn’t simple and requires highly skilled staff. It’s not good, either, putting together a web designer and a graphics specialist and hoping they can work things out: app development is its own game and requires experts if it’s to be done properly. Finding the right people – and knowing enough to know when you have – can be tricky.

3. Your current resources are stretched

Even if you have some internal digital capacity already, it’s likely that they are focused on existing activity. When expanding into app development, you need to be realistic about the resources you will need to commit to the enterprise. If you’re unwilling to shift focus or investment within your organisation, then again – outsourcing is here to help.

4. Long-term maintenance

Building the app is only the first step. Once it’s finished and on the market, long-term management and maintenance is an entirely separate ball game. You’ll need to be sure at the outset that you can facilitate all the testing and updating of the app moving forwards, responding to user feedback and continually enhancing the experience. If this prospect bothers you, again outsourcing may be a means of meeting the needs of app development more efficiently.

5. You can spread the risk

Let’s say the app doesn’t work out how you hoped. Had you developed the internal capacity to undertake the project, you would be left with a lot of wasted investment; outsourcing leaves you a lot more flexibility to cut your losses on any given project – eliminating one of the barriers to entering the burgeoning and exciting app marketplace in one fell swoop.

So that’s our answer … or rather, you should now have yours. Should you outsource your app development?

Contact ImagePlus for Mobile App Development

We provide mobile app design and development for all project requirements, both consumer and business apps. If you’re in need of a mobile app or just have an idea for a project you wish to discuss, please contact us to arrange a consultancy.

Call us on 02476834788 or email us at info@image-plus.co.uk.