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So, you want to take on new projects and/or create new digital products, but you don’t have enough in-house developers to take advantage of all the new market opportunities that are coming your way.
While hiring more developers seems like the logical no-brainer, you quickly realize the costs and time it will take to build and develop new development teams. You start to analyze whether the return on your investment will even be worth it, both short and long term.
In the long-term, it of course makes perfect sense to invest in your internal development capacities. But the main reason you’re considering expanding your team now are current opportunities, not some future prospect. You need an approach that will produce more immediate results, and so you start considering software development outsourcing options.
Hiring a team of freelancers may seem like an appealing short-term solution, but is less reliable long-term. With freelancers often working on multiple projects, you also won’t get the same level of dedication as with in-house developers committed exclusively to your project/product.
On top of that, a team composed of freelancers is likely to be less cohesive and take longer to properly onboard, paradoxically compromising the agility and speed gained from getting new development experts quickly.
That’s when you stumble upon this particular article about dedicated development teams and realize that this might just be the ideal fit for your needs. Let’s break down what a dedicated development team is, along with 10 practical benefits of relying on a dedicated team to expand your development capacities.
What is a dedicated development team and why is it right for you
A dedicated development team is a type of software development outsourcing where the partner agency provides not just one or a few extra developers to grow the client’s in-house development team, but rather a full ready-made team of developers based on the client’s specific needs.
This can mean a full front end team for a specific front end technology, a full back end / infrastructure team, or a complete full stack development team that takes care of all parts of development.
The team can be self-managed and work independently (i.e. with the partner agency providing its own management), or tightly integrated into the client’s in-house workflows and under their development and project managers. With an agency like Agiledrop, this level of control/integration is entirely up to the client’s consideration.
So, how exactly will your company benefit from partnering with a development agency that provides dedicated teams?
1. Easier scaling of development capacities
A dedicated development team provided by your agency partner can allow you to scale up when demand arises or you find new opportunities to pursue, but also effortlessly scale down in periods of decreased demand/workloads.
This kind of agency partnership also brings long-term viability, as a fruitful relationship formed this way can last even when you’re not actively working together and serve as an invaluable future-proof resource.
2. Responding to market shifts and new innovations more quickly
Because of easier up and down scaling, you are able to more quickly respond to market shifts, new technological innovations and other business disruptions. You can also adapt the size of your dedicated team as the partnership progresses, or get an additional team for a different new project from the same development partner.
3. Faster onboarding and start
One of the biggest draws of dedicated development teams is the rapidly fast start and onboarding. At Agiledrop, we’re able to provide a full team in less than 10 days, depending on the size of the requested team and your specific technology needs.
Our long-standing client experience allows us to get onboarded and integrated into your processes very quickly, and we can immediately begin with the dedicated work on your project.
4. Skill fit
This may be a bit of a no-brainer, but the dedicated team approach makes it easier to get exactly the right skills for your specific project, not just in terms of technology but industry experience as well.
Your agency partner will provide the optimal lineup based on your specific needs. This includes selecting developers who work optimally together – either they have worked on the same project before, or are working from the same office and can thus collaborate more efficiently by being able to more quickly exchange information.
5. Proven, verifiable expertise with hands-on industry experience
When selecting your ideal development partner, you’re able to guarantee that they are the right fit through their proven, verifiable expertise, i.e. case studies, client testimonials, and content about the particular industries and types of projects they excel at. It’s also often possible to have preliminary calls with the developers and/or team lead your partner proposes (this is how we do it at Agiledrop, at least).
6. Less expensive than hiring individual in-house developers
Hiring in-house already takes up a lot of company resources, but then you also have to account for the additional employee overhead related to things such as onboarding, company equipment, sick leaves, etc. And when the market shifts or a project is completed, you’re still left with all these in-house costs, or you have to let go of great employees that would have been invaluable for future projects.
In an agency partnership, your partner agency takes care of all of these additional costs. As we pointed out earlier, downsizing is just as smooth as scaling up, with no strings attached to a particular developer’s engagement, and so letting people go has significantly less gravity than having to fire an in-house employee.
Another consideration that’s especially important for smaller companies is that hiring new developers often ends up heavily involving development leads, development managers or even the CTO/development director.
Ironically, this means that the very people whose workload you want to ease by expanding development are often the same people whose workload increases due to the hiring process. Partnering with a development company that provides a ready-made development team greatly facilitates this, resulting in less stress and time spent for these critical development roles.
7. More reliable and sustainable than teams of freelancers
With a freelancer, if something unexpected happens (e.g. medical or family emergency), you have to go through the process of sourcing a new freelancer with the right skill set as the replacement, or slow down the work if you’re unable to find an adequate replacement.
With a dedicated development team, your partner agency immediately provides a replacement developer that matches the skills of the original one if this happens, saving you significant time and money without compromising development momentum.
8. Stronger team spirit and better team cohesion
While it’s easier to foster a stronger team spirit and better team cohesion with in-house developers than with a team of freelancers, it’s still something you need to invest in, and onboarding new team mates into all the workflows takes time, no matter how skilled they are.
The dedicated team that your partner agency provides will come with an already established team spirit, especially if they’re providing you with a full stack development team that will take care of every aspect of your development.
This out of the box team cohesion will result in smoother collaboration, promote agile development, increase independence and proactiveness, and, to top it off, guarantee shared responsibility and accountability.
9. Internal processes intact
We already highlighted fast onboarding as a key benefit that a development company like Agiledrop is able to provide. One of the main features of our fast onboarding is our developers’ full integration into your workflows and adoption of internal tools/communication channels, without any disruption.
We do it quickly, effectively becoming your team mates. This ensures your workflow and processes stay intact, whether the dedicated team is managed by your management or self-managed through our own project and development managers.
10. Full control of the project and ownership of resulting IP
Thanks to white-label development services, you will retain full ownership of the intellectual property produced by your dedicated development team. Of course, you also keep control over the development process and project roadmap, but you can also choose to entrust it to your agency if they are a strategic partner too.
Conclusion
The dedicated development teams approach is a robust and reliable software development outsourcing strategy. A dedicated team provides immediate value and helps tap into current trends and innovations, while also enabling long-term scalability.
Since you’re reading this article, it likely means you’re looking for an efficient way to quickly scale your development. Whether you need a front end, back end, or a full stack development team, reach out to us, tell us your goals and needs, and we’ll start building the optimal dedicated team for you right away!
