Five Reasons you Should Hire an External Tech Team

Whilst the expertise of in-house teams is tremendous and there's no replacing understanding of your business from the inside, there are times when the sheer pace of technological change means that it's inefficient to grow every type of talent in-house.

Technology teams offer a fresh perspective and niche skills, capable of handling a wider variety of projects, from bespoke software and application development to cybersecurity and hosting. Hiring the right tech team keeps your business focused on running day-to-day operations – which increases workplace efficiency and productivity.

Statista expects that by the end of 2021, IT services companies may delegate $413.72 billion to external suppliers.

Whether you are a start-up company looking for a fully outsourced IT solution or an established company in need of additional technical expertise, here are our five reasons for hiring an external tech team.

1. You Get the Perfect Tech / IT Solution Whilst Upskilling Your Current Workforce

We are helping to empower smaller businesses to be more agile in what they are doing and how they are rolling out tech. That way they are not boxed in with having to deal with a full-time salary and then having the cost dictate the level of skill they receive.

Another company's mindset could be: "Let's get an external partner in for a short period of time. They deliver the tech, hand it over and it is done. Then we can pick it up and run with it afterwards.” It’s much easier to be given a completed tech solution, particularly if your team is still developing. You can pull it apart to figure out how it works and build from there. It's a simpler approach than building an entirely new solution from scratch.

1. You Can Deal with Business Growth with an Experienced, Professional Team at Your Side

Regardless of the skills that you have in-house, sometimes you need the experience of a company which has implemented your project dozens of times. It is good to have a fresh pair of eyes on your project.

Essentially, it's about striking a balance between cost, level of skills required and time to market. At Arishi, sometimes the sheer pace of change means that external experts can get the job done faster. Companies experiencing growth need someone to come in and get the job done with minimal interruption.

1. You Can Hire Them to Do the Heavy Lifting

For many businesses, digital projects are essential but can feel like a challenge. Some of our clients are creative agencies, who are creatively led but technology is not always a core competency. When it comes to more challenging projects, which we call 'heavy lifting', in-house technical expertise may not have the right combination of skills to deliver them. Some agencies may be limited in the software they use and they may lack the technical skills to take the most astute path to implementation. One area where we have experienced this is in integration. A client may ask if the agency can integrate a technology with a different system. Some agencies don’t have those skills, so they come to us and say, “We’ve done the bulk of the work and we just need you to handle the more complex parts.” We can slot into any set of requirements whether it is a one-off or an ongoing relationship which works well for them.

1. It Can Prevent Unfortunate Permanent Hires

At Arishi, we find it more successful to get people on board early in their careers. We have a well-defined process in-house for upskilling our teams to the right level. Everyone gets involved in mentoring our new recruits and we like to think our standards are high. If you have the time to do it, we recommend training and nurturing your own team.

For start-ups, there’s usually some kind of time pressure and a certain amount of investment available which needs to have an impact quickly. It can be hard in this situation to recruit the right people at a more senior level.

In the effort to recruit the right people, sometimes start-ups use the approach of: "Let's throw a wish list of skills together and make it ultra-specific" as they think that it is the best way to narrow down the avalanche of CVs, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes people with industry experience may not have the best technical skills and someone from outside the sector will bring a valuable new perspective. We don’t say we are experts with the healthcare sector or construction sector or advertising because our skill is in learning and adapting tech to new industries – and part of that learning brings new ideas to the table.

Arishi's Managing Director, Andrew Elia has direct experience of this: "A lot of start-ups will say “We need two backend developers, one front end developer, one UXer" but very often what you find is that unless the product is really defined, the UX recruit for example will be twiddling their thumbs while you are paying them to do so. Try to think strategically. Who are the people who you need for a one-off project or on a short-term basis? Think about the needs of your product and identify what sort of resources you need to have thereafter."

1. It’s Cheaper in the Long-run

All of these reasons and more can actually save your business money in the long-run even if you already have an in-house team. How? Time is money and there is a shortfall of quality tech talent out there. Plus, the hiring of in-house and outsourced tech teams can become a vicious circle.

A company may have no tech internally at all and may outsource it. Then they may say: “Oh we’re paying all of these companies so much money, let’s build our own tech team.” Then they build their own tech team but may end up compromising their product because the tech team may only be able to perform a certain set of tasks. If they’re only doing the same thing day in day out, they aren’t being exposed to new kinds of clients or technologies. With tech being such a fast moving sector, if you’re not evolving your skills all the time, you’re stagnating and getting left behind. In the creative sector, we see some agencies who routinely produce the same sort of websites and brochureware because these are familiar projects for them. Then companies must outsource again in order to get fresh skills and ideas. And so the cycle continues!

Again, it's striking a balance between cost, skillset, and time to market. We can help your translate those factors that drive your technology and deliver a fully outsourced solution. We can even help you identify the right in-house people you need to bring on board to do it.

Bonus Reason: You Can Hire a Trusted Tech Team.

Perhaps, the most important reason of all, companies need to make sure they are hiring a trusted tech team that can deliver above and beyond what’s asked of them. That’s where Arishi comes in. Let us know how we can help achieve your technical business goals. No project is too big or small and we would love to hear from you. Get in touch.