As your agency’s workload grows, your team is likely to hit capacity sooner rather than later. There’s only so much work you can take on before everyone’s plate if full, and you risk having to start turning work away. Outsourcing your web development projects is a great way to prevent burn out or overworking your staff without missing out on those lucrative projects.
If you’ve never outsourced your agency’s work before, you might not know where to start, or how the process works. The process is going to vary depending on who or where you outsource to, so here’s a quick rundown of what you need to consider when exploring the option of outsourcing.
Have a good understanding of what you want
Before you even think about who you’re going to outsource to, you need to know exactly what you want – this includes goals, objectives and tangible deliverables. Imagine yourself at the end of the project, and consider what success is going to look like. What do you need to get out of the project, who needs to do what, and what is your client expecting you to hand over. Those are the kinds of questions you’re going to need to be asking.
However, even if you’re not sure what the answers to those questions are, Sidekick can help with that. Our project managers can sit down with you and map the project out, assist with developing milestones and deadlines, and give you the confidence that your project is in good hands. And because of our affordable subscription plans, you know exactly what it’s going to cost, and how much profit you’re going to make before the project even starts.
Use a reputable outsourcing partner
You’re probably aware you can outsource your web development projects to India or the Philippines, and you’ll save yourself a few bucks. The problem with that is you take on a whole lot of risks, including:
- not knowing who is working on your project
- issues with time zone differences
- not being able to have face-to-face meetings with your outsource partner
- relinquishing control of the project
- lack of ongoing support
- having no assurances of quality.
… and all that risk just for a few bucks. In our eyes, it’s just not worth it, and that’s one of the reasons we started Sidekick in the first place. We wanted to give our clients a sense of safety and security when using us, which is why ALL of our Sidekicks live and work right here in New Zealand. We don’t cut costs and save a few bucks by pushing your work overseas, and neither should you.
What’s more, all of our clients can sit down with a Sidekick project manager, and depending on where they are based in the country, they can also sit down with their own Sidekick. This gives our clients the confidence and assurance that their project is in good hands.
A couple more things to note as well – a reputable outsourcing partner will be happy to sign NDAs, and will also ask you a whole lot of questions before they get started. The first thing an overseas outsourcing company will establish is the cost (what they’re going to earn), and then promise you the world. That’s not our style.
Establish channels of communication
While the project is underway you’ll want to keep in touch with your outsource partner to ensure the project is progressing well and in the right direction. You can’t afford to get close to the deadline only to find out that there’s been a misunderstanding in terms of direction, or, even worse, that there’s been hardly any progress! There are so many good tools for maintaining communication with your outsource partner, and here at Sidekick, we’re more than happy to do whatever works best for you.
By default, we manage client communication in TeamWork, which is software that helps us not only communicate with everyone involved in a project but also offers some great project management tools as well. However, we’re more than happy to have regular phone calls and face-to-face meetings or chat on Skype, Facebook Messenger or Slack. We’re flexible and happy to do whatever works best for you.
And even if you have a quick question you want to ask, your Sidekick project manager is always just a phone call away.
Plan ahead
A huge risk with choosing a non-reputable outsource partner is the lack of ongoing support. Again, you’ll save some a few dollars by going overseas, but what happens if you deliver the project and something goes wrong with the website? Or what happens if the client requests a few small changes? The best way to fix something that’s broken or add new features to something is to bring it back to whoever built the project initially. Who else knows the project as closely as the original team that worked on it?
But the problem is you can’t get hold of them. Or they’re refusing to fix something unless you pay them a significant amount of money. Or they tell you that they don’t have the time, skill or knowledge to add those additional features. Suddenly you’re in a difficult situation, where you’re not in control anymore, but you’re still responsible for delivering the project back to the client, and it’s going to reflect poorly on you.
Using a Sidekick gives you assurance of ongoing support. Your subscription gives you access to a Sidekick for a specified number of hours each month, so you know the availability of your Sidekick, and you know exactly when they’re going to be on hand to offer you that much-needed support.
To sum up…
The reason we started Sidekick was to alleviate so many of the concerns that agency owners face when the need to outsource aspects of their web development work arises, and we’ll do everything we can to ensure high-quality web development projects are delivered on time.