Should you outsource your digital product development? Here are 7 reasons why

So you’ve decided to develop a new digital product. Good idea. As we head into 2022, there couldn’t be a better time. It’s now easier, faster and requires a lower investment than ever before to bring a digital product to market. It could drive sales of your existing physical products. It could be a completely new revenue stream. Or it could be both.

The question is, how do you go about the design and development of this new digital product?

In our experience, business leaders first turn to their own people to look at how best to start work on a new digital product. Of course, go to who you know! This might be an internal IT team, a digital team or even an internal software development team. Guess what they usually say? “We’ll do it!” Internal teams usually love to get their hands on the design and development of a new digital product. Who wouldn’t? It’s fun. It’s a change from the everyday work they do. It’s exciting! But are they the best people to do it? Here are 7 reasons why we think you should at least consider outsourcing your new digital product design and development to a specialist digital product business.

It will save you money.

Designing and developing a new digital product takes between 6 and 12 different disciplines; application design, visual design, user experience, front end development, server-side development, application architecture, business analyst, database management, dev-ops, project management, product management and testing are all potential roles or areas of expertise that you will need. Employing all those roles can get very expensive very quickly. So whilst you might pay higher hourly or daily rates when working with a specialist digital product business, you’ll generally only pay for the hours you use and this almost always works out to be less expensive overall.

It will save you time.

Unless your team is designing and developing new products all the time, it is unlikely that they will have the experience that a digital product specialist will have. It’s that experience that will likely save you time (and money) in the end. A lot of this comes down to process, but it’s also about accountability. We tend to see far more delays, missed deadlines and things that get missed from internal teams. It’s hard to get a new digital product up on time if it’s not something you do every day. Experience counts for a lot when it comes to delivering on time.

It will be more business-focused

We find that whilst internal teams often know the business well, they don’t always understand ‘business’ well and will focus on technology requirements more than business requirements. If you are not focused on the business outcomes, then you are unlikely to achieve them or it will take longer to build those into the product. We’ll often find that internally developed products are over-engineered with all ideas being thrown in, whereas a digital product specialist will know to keep it lean.

It will be more customer focussed

Sometimes it takes an outsider to look at your business from the customer’s point of view. We find that internally developed digital products are more likely to use jargon, make assumptions and forget that customers don’t know or understand the business, as well as the internal team, does. By using an outside team, you get a fresh perspective, a fresh pair of eyes and experience from working with lots of different businesses. This can really help in the decision making process about which features will drive the success of the product and which are nice to have’s that can come later.

Benefit from different industries

Many companies benchmark, borrow ideas and focus their products within their industry, but surprisingly few look beyond their industry for insights and opportunities. By working with a partner who has cross-industry experience, you will almost certainly get valuable input that could really help improve the performance of your digital product. This might include product features, business models, promotion ideas and more. There is a lot to learn from other industries that can often be applied to yours.

You’ve got someone to blame

Let’s be honest, any new business venture is a risk and they are not all successful. That’s business. There is a lot that can be done to mitigate risk and avoid failure, but sometimes a product will fail and this can really take a toll on the internal team. By outsourcing the design and early-stage development, any failures will have minimal impact on your team and that means you are not going to affect your existing business. By keeping your internal team focused on your existing business, you can make sure it is not impacted by any new digital products. Once the new product is up and running, then it can be transitioned into your existing team. By then it will be a known quantity.

It will be more successful

By using an external digital product specialist, your new product will almost certainly be more successful. It’s in their interest after all. Any reputable digital product specialist knows their reputation is only as good as their last project. They know that their success depends on your success so you’ll typically find they will go the extra mile, make the extra effort and do whatever it takes to achieve success for you. Sure, some new products fail, but you’ll find that fewer fail when their design and development is outsourced to a digital product specialist.

At 3RD SENSE we’ve created hundreds of digital products, apps, websites and games for some of Australia’s and the World’s best brands. If you’d like to have a confidential informal chat about your digital product ideas, get in touch, we can show you plenty of relevant examples. You might be interested in our Collaborative Design Process which is often a great first step.