Agencies vs Freelance in IT. Who wins?

In the era of global digitalization, every business who pretends to be called huge needs to be introduced in the network. Thus, executives of companies look for ways to stay up-to-date and spread their goods or services. Obviously, all of them seek for a high-quality product, which helps them to better and stay or become widespread. And one of the most common problems businesses can meet is who is able to implement their ideas or wishes. So, the question is what to choose: freelancers or outsourcing companies. Let’s take a view across this question and distinguish all possible advantages and disadvantages.

Communication

One of the keys to a good result, in the end, is communication between vendor and customer. In this case, evidently it is easier to have contact with one person, who is responsible for accomplishing his commitments on his own. You can share your ideas directly. When you deal with agencies, mostly, you communicate through a single manager, who will provide a team with your thoughts and desires. It could be a reason for misunderstanding, but currently, companies give you a possibility to become a part of the team. In a Pickwickian sense, but you can influence a team’s work process anytime. You will be added to the internal project chat and you can ask anything designers, developers or anybody else you want anything you are worried about. At the same time, managers will take over the workflow of employees who they leeds.

Professionalism and Flexibility

As mentioned foregoing, often freelancers can manage a wide scope of work by themselves. When you interact with companies, you will meet the following situation. The different duties will be divided among several workers who are responsible for their own task. But, if a freelancer is not available, you will have to find somebody else. Also, you need to take into account, that high-quality freelancer always in demand. Perhaps, they could be employed on other clients and even your competitors. Despite the fact that agencies provide you with a particular team, it can be changed anytime. Unless somebody who participates in the project cannot accomplish their charges, you can be sure that he will be replaced and you won’t miss any deadline.

Cost

It’s not a secret that price from freelancer, very likely, will be less than from the team. But you have to consider the following questions that may influence your decision:

Quality. Majority of elegant, swift, smooth, nice and minimalistic solutions are made by the team. If you wait for more than a spiced up template freelancer is not your option.
Collective expertise. As it was said before, rarely you wouldn’t get more than an updated template from freelancers. But, from the team you can receive the complex product, that will be customized according to your needs.
Continuous support. A web design company won’t abandon you as soon as your site is completed. They will be around to provide you with ongoing support. By comparison, a single developer may not have all of the time and tools necessary to help you keep your site running for a long time.
Confidentiality. In the IT business, confidentiality often means survival on the market. Of course, you can ask that your freelancers sign a non-disclosure agreement, but you’ll still have to weigh up the risks. The same freelancer working for you today may be teaming up with your competitor tomorrow.

Therefore, you have to pay attention to the factors were mentioned. As you can see not all services that agencies provide you with, freelancers not able to give you. So, if you think that work with the freelancer will be cheaper, you also stand a chance to recreate your project or update the work that has been done.

Swiftness

Very often, freelancers have an irregular working day. As a result, they can finish the project faster than agencies. But, it’s better to take in consideration the next thing. The main goal of freelancers to finish your order as soon as possible is to get the next one. So, you are not protected from the project that was done carelessly.

Working under circumstances of the modern market, companies have got used to focusing on not only hasty of accomplishing but its quality. It means if you have hired an agency, the process of fulfilling your order can be longer. But, in the end, you will get a result you could be satisfied with. Majority of companies provide their clients not just with coding and designing, but with the really needed but still underrated thing, Quality Assurance.

Fresh Ideas

Sometimes, you can meet a situation when you don’t know what you need or what can give you an expected profit. In this case, companies may guarantee you unusual solutions, specially for you. And, it is necessary to say that it wouldn’t be analysed ideas. Numerous companies appreciate their reputation, so they are interested in giving you fresh ideas, to make you think about future collaboration.

As it has been already said, freelancers want to finish your tasks at the earliest opportunity to start doing something new. So, they do not consider you as a boss or superior. They do care about their profit.

Key Takeaways

In spite of having some clear benefits, freelancers are not so reliable as you can believe. Obviously, you will spend less money, but the sum you have safe could be wasted in the nearest future on fixing bugs which are results of not enough attentive work. Thus, dealing with freelancers is really cheaper, but not always profitable and bring you dividends.

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