You finally decide to outsource to a software engineering firm because you need help with specific software development, management, or maintenance operations. Like other small and medium-sized businesses before yours, you envision cost reductions and experts running your software needs as the value-added advantage of this decision. While your assumptions are correct, many other benefits you may need to be made aware of exist.
Knowledge of these benefits is the first step to taking advantage of them. Here, we will outline 10 ‘other’ benefits of hiring an engineering firm, using the experiences of other SMBs as inspiration.
- Eliminating the Need to Recruit Talent – John Daly, the CEO of a medical device manufacturing firm that utilizes digital manufacturing processes, highlights the importance of hiring a software engineering firm. John said his business struggled to create a DevOps team or department from scratch due to challenges with recruiting experienced developers. He stated that ‘deciding to outsource our software development needs was our saving grace.’ ‘Outsourcing not only reduced our operational costs but also helped us work with some of the best DevOps teams in the game.’ Hiring an experienced software engineering service provider can help SMBs avoid the pitfalls of recruiting expert software engineers for their businesses.
- Flexible Scalability – SMBs are susceptible to the flow and ebbs of their market forces. Increased demand sometimes translates to more operational capacity, such as increased storage, security, and data processing capabilities. Consequently, reduced demand translates into a reduced need for these IT capabilities. According to Stacy, CTO of an e-commerce store for gift items, ‘the holiday season comes with increased demand which has led to unplanned downtime within our IT systems’. She stated that ‘partnering with a software engineering firm helped us secure our online platform, scale up, and eliminate downtime.’ Outsourcing software engineering and management services to experienced service providers empowers SMBs with the agility to scale up IT requirements as needed. The service provider implements the changes, allowing SMBs to focus on their core business operations.
- Faster time to market—For SMBs, staying competitive means getting innovative products or solutions to market quickly before the competition. IT systems needed to support new marketing strategies must be configured to enable go-to-market plans. The average SMB is unlikely to have the technical capacity or workforce needed to produce new items, execute marketing strategies, and maintain IT systems. Hence, outsourcing IT-related responsibilities to a software engineering firm ensures that professionals cover that aspect of the marketing process.
- Streamline Project Management and Administration – Building new technical capacity to benefit an entire workforce comes with hassles. For SMBs, these hassles include getting everyone on the same page to execute the project successfully and ensuring optimal management. Software engineering firms bring years of experience streamlining similar projects to the table. This means your firm would be working with an experienced service provider who understands role delegation and its responsibilities and determines the scope of work to be done.
- Time is Money—Joe Walsh, CEO of a sheet metal manufacturing firm, says time is money and that the considerable amount of time spent outsourcing software engineering operations to experienced service providers is worth every penny. Every SMB talks about the cost savings associated with their decision to outsource and forgets about the time gained from outsourcing. Software engineering firms eliminate the countless hours spent figuring out what’s wrong with your IT architecture or how to optimize its performance. That time can be better spent on your core business and thinking of new ways to meet customer demands.
- Quality Solutions to IT Challenges—There are many ways to skin a cat. Many SMBs make decisions or apply short-term DIY solutions that may solve IT-related challenges but do not eliminate the problem. Working with a software engineering firm enables you to put out fires as they occur and for the long term. Expert service providers employ best practices and use cutting-edge solutions to provide high-performing solutions to IT challenges.
- Access to Specialized Services – The software engineering service provider community comprises thousands of firms with experience in specific IT niches. Hence, SMBs can benefit from the industry-specific services and knowledge different firms provide. For example, SMBs may hire a software engineering firm to handle their digital transformation initiative and work with a cybersecurity service provider to ensure their digital assets are secure or to develop an incident response plan. Access to specialized services also reduces the cost of troubleshooting obscure IT challenges to your business processes.
- Access to Experts around the clock—Many software engineering firms provide services to fit your business schedule. This means SMBs can use round-the-clock services for specific timelines in their business circle. Hence, an SMB planning to employ a marketing campaign to deliver increased demand or an SMB preparing for the holiday rush can seek 24/7 support from a software engineering firm to ensure operational success.
- Timely Project Deliveries—Software engineering firms are contractually expected to provide project deliveries according to a stipulated timeline. These timely deliveries provide certainty when planning business operations such as marketing campaigns, fund-raising presentations, or other activities.
Making Things Easier for Your SMB
The final benefit is the simplicity and extensive support software engineering firms bring. Outsourcing to the experts makes things easier for your business because they understand the technical and regulatory concerns governing your IT architecture. Consequently, hiring their services provides you with a foot into the world of professional software engineering, development, and cybersecurity at a small cost.