For many people, the term ‘outsourcing’ leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. It brings to mind horrible customer service experiences with someone who’s not even giving a token attempt to hide their complete and utter apathy for your situation while they butcher the pronunciation of your name; or maybe, and perhaps even worse, it brings to mind mass-layoffs because a company has decided it’s cheaper to contract sales representatives or accountants overseas; or it conjures nightmares of local businesses going under and local economies slowly disintegrating because the market is being flooded with cut-rate alternatives being imported from countries far away, where raw materials and labor are cheaper to come by. And while these negative stereotypes may be entirely true in some industries, one industry where outsourcing is not a negative phenomenon, and in fact might be a necessary and healthy practice, is open-source web development.
The myths of outsourcing have generally arisen because of semantic reasons. Because of simplistic media and pop culture portrayals, ‘outsourcing' implies vast geographical and cultural distance, where your product or service is being rendered far, far away from you by someone who barely speaks the same language. This is sometimes entirely true. But the actual definition of ‘outsourcing’ is this: “A practice used by different companies to reduce costs by transferring portions of work to outside suppliers rather than completing it internally.” While in some industries this means laying-off a technician or engineer and hiring someone overseas who will work for half the salary, this does not apply to web development. Because unlike accountants or customer service agents, most large and mid-sized companies or organizations never had an in-house professional web designer on their staffs to begin with. No one is losing their job because a company is trying to build an affordable company website. And unless a company miraculously employ someone whose hobby is programming languages, internally developing their own web presence is going to command considerable time and effort, and result in frustration—and that alone should be enough to convince someone to contract a professional web development company. And although there are cost effective ways to establish a company or personal website (like Wordpress), most free web solutions are more suited to personal blogs. Another avenue is buying commercial software—but unless cost is not an object, then this is an expensive and limited option.
The best is opting to go with a professional developer of open-source software—like Drupal for example. It’s cost-effective and dynamic—and provides a high-quality, customizable web-presence that most companies or organizations could not develop on their own, which means they need to outsource it. Companies, NGOs, and schools outsource crucial projects like this all the time, just visit Vardot’s portfolio page if you need any proof.
So, when it comes to web development, ‘outsourcing’ your need to a startup that specializes in open-source web development is a no-brainer—outsourcing stereotypes need not apply.
But that’s not all, open-source web development startups also demystify outsourcing in other ways too. Many open-source web developers—like Vardot—are usually comprised of small, tight-knit teams, so when it comes to contracting a project you’re likely to encounter somebody who is intimately familiar with your needs or the needs of your company. Being a good developer usually runs parallel to being able to work with clients effectively to find out what they want, and that means good customer service is a top priority. So chances are if you need assistance or information when contracting work from a startup, you’ll talk to the same person each time—and you’ll build a working and amicable relationship with that person, because you’re not simply being transferred to one random employee out of thousands. Good customer service is not guaranteed with a small, outsourced web development company, but it’s hard not to argue that a company with 30 employees will have an edge when it comes to personalization and familiarity of customer service experience compared to a corporation that’s outsourced its customer service division to the lowest international bidder.
And when it comes to web development, the very technology that has made the industry thrive also makes the negative stigmas associated with outsourcing irrelevant. People from all corners of the globe can now be in constant contact, creating a global community where physical and cultural distances can be bridged. When data is racing along fiberoptic cables or bouncing between satellites, the distance from San Francisco to Mumbai isn’t that much different than the distance from Amman to Beirut. And web developers and clients may not always share a common language, but the language on which they build their products transcends that cultural barrier—programming languages like PHP aren’t limited by geopolitical boundaries or cultural heritage.
What does this all mean, you may ask? Well simply put, yes, in some circumstances, ‘outsourcing’ has earned its bad reputation. But in the context of web development, the negative stereotypes of outsourcing can actually hurt both parties involved: the potential client who needs a website or app built is overlooking what could be the answer to their problems because of biases or because they think outsourcing is only for ‘big’ companies that can afford expensive software; and a competent, innovative, and hard-working web development team is being judged unfairly because of the deeds of others, and being overlooked because they’re small and use open-source technology. When it comes to web development, outsourcing is a completely legitimate practice that doesn’t undercut local economies—instead outsourcing your web needs can actually help your local economy in the long-run by helping small and large businesses alike become more dynamic, and therefore more competitive.
That’s why the next time you need a website built or an app developed—“outsourcing” to an open-source development team like Vardot is truly the only way to go.