Launching a modern digital product requires more work and expertise than one individual can produce, especially when starting a new project from the ground up. Knowing the benefits of hiring a digital agency over growing an internal team is not only a way to reduce time and cost, but it is also a way to ensure that you get the product that you envision.
The evolution of building the web
In the past, a single webmaster could feasible build and manage a company's digital presence, and the company had enough updates and enhancements needed to keep that single role busy for the full year. The web supported limited technologies, and the majority of web content was mainly informational. Nowadays, the web is vast and complex and evolving at an increasingly rapid rate. Websites and applications allow you to do everything from purchase groceries to interacting with your friends to managing your banking. Staying on-top of a single focus is hard enough, but keeping up with everything is impossible. It takes a team of digital specialists to design and develop a modern website or application. Finding and training the right talent, and managing them to work cohesively to produce a high-quality product is a more challenging, and expensive, task than many organizations initially grasp. Below are 4 reasons why any company developing a new website or application should pursue hiring a digital agency over building an internal team.
Hiring a team is expensive and time consuming
While many people may consider digital agencies to be extremely costly, they obviously have not yet undergone the cost of hiring their own team. The time and cost associated with finding, hiring, and staffing an internal team adds up very quickly. New digital opportunities are popping up everyday, and employers have to be extremely competitive with salaries and benefits if they want to attract and retain top talent.
The costs are the same as with any employee: salary, on-boarding, health insurance, retirement benefits, and vacation time. But unlike with other departments, you can't get away with a single employee. Growing an internal team will add up fast, and you must be sure that the roles that you hire you can support long-term. Not to mention you will have to create new management roles to oversee this new team. On the other hand, while agencies may have a larger up-front cost while building your project, you do not have to support those costs long-term. The cost of an agency's services can scale up and down based on the needs of your project and best of all you do not have to worry about the costs of sourcing, training, or managing the talent.
Finding qualified talent is hard
Building a modern digital project requires a team of specialists working together to solve problems and create the best product possible. As mentioned above, digital opportunities are growing at a phenomenal rate. Finding and attracting top talent can be a difficult and costly process. A company must either already have an expert on-staff that can help to vet candidates, or the company will be at the mercy of expensive recruitment companies. Either way, the process of finding solid talent will be expensive and time consuming. Once you build your team, you must then keep them on-board and excited about working full-time for one brand indefinitely. Part of the reason why designers and developers like working at agencies is the constant mix of new projects as well as the heavy use of the latest trends and technologies.
The other problem with building an internal team is that digital projects require a lot of specialists working together as a team, but not all of them are required full-time. Which means that you will have to balance hiring and managing your internal team with finding qualified contractors to help "fill the gaps" of your project. A digital agency will already has a qualified team in-place, as well as an extensive network of employees and contractors to pull from if they should need additional expertise that they do not have on the project full-time. When hiring an agency, you can skip over all of the difficulties finding and building a team and can focus on putting your new agency team to work.
Agencies will produce a better quality product
When hiring an agency, you can feel more confident in the quality of the end-product because at the end of the day you are paying a team to provide a service. The company and the agency have both have agreed upon the general functional and aesthetic requirements of that end-product. There may be some bumps in the road, and potentially even some unforeseen costs, but at the end-of-the-day the delivered product will meet your agreed upon expectations or the agency will not be getting paid.
When you build an internal team, all reassurance of the quality of the end-product gets thrown out the window. Internal teams will not be as concerned with budgets, timelines, or quality of the product as those issues are not directly tied to their paycheck. Conversely, building a quality product within the timeline is always at the top of an agency's mind, as not only is it tied to a pay check but also to their reputation and often the potential for future work.
Agencies can scale up to meet your deadline, or down to save you money
Business owners should be focused on scaling their business, not on dealing with the limitations of their internal web team. Traditional businesses will not have other digital talent that can be re-assigned to a problem project that has run over. And trying to find and vet contractors when you are in a timeline pinch can be frustrating and time consuming. When you work together with an agency, you can rest at ease as there is an entire team of experts available to keep up with your needs. Your agency team can expand or shrink for your project to make sure your deadline is met while also saving you time when your project slows down. Additionally, agencies have an army of qualified contractors that they can bring on if needed to ensure that deadlines are met while maintaining the integrity of the final product.
Taking the time to understand the true benefits of hiring an agency versus looking for an internal web team will save you money, time, and a lot of frustration on your next digital project.
