Should big companies have an in-house web team or use an external agency? The perceived benefits from upper management of having an in-house team are usually:
- More control
- Immediacy of action
- Less expense
However, as a web agency peopled by staff who have worked both on in-house teams and externally, and with clients big and small, we would argue the following:
- In-house teams with headstrong management invariably break process despite all good intentions. Process saves time, money and effort and always results in better product at the end. Hence in-house teams often tend to end up costing more for a lower standard of product. “Yes, sir” sites often creak and break early due to just-in-time planning. They undergo lengthy rewrites, alterations etc just to stand still, never mind improving as iterations of sites ought to. Agencies can say “no” for the sake of the end product, and for the sake of their reputation, without risking their livelihoods. Agencies can walk away.
- Agencies bring a wide range of skills. We, for instance, have skill sets in illustration, web design, web development, web application programming, database modelling, servers and hosting, internet marketing (search engine optimisation, pay-per-click, online lead generation), email marketing, web usability, information architecture and HR. We have spent years building our team. It’s not easy to duplicate this cost-effectively in-house.
- Agencies only charge you when they are working for you. Over any retainer, you only pay for what you get. Agencies have access to additional resources which they can scale up and down as required. To pay a team and then not carefully utilise that resource is costly. Web work tends to be “bursty”, not busy. This is a major reason why in-house teams are quite unusual.
- Agencies, in working with multiple clients, tend to bring more fresh ideas to the table, and so generally produce more innovative, forward thinking and ultimately more successful work.
- Agencies are less hassle. With a good agency, you deal with one person, agree a deadline and wait for the deliverables. For the CEO of the commissioning company, it’s less work.
The answer, we’ve concluded, is down to management style and how stable the workload is. But in 90% of cases, we feel that for the reasons outlined above, it is best to outsource web work to a specialised agency.
Tags: corporate clients, in-house teams, outsourcing, web agencies