3 Reasons to Hire 4mation over an In-House Developer
Dane EldridgeFounder & Chairman
Passionate about helping people and companies achieve their potential using technology, Dane started 4mation in 2001 while completing his Computer Science degree at UTS.
In growing 4mation Dane has looked after clients as a developer, designer, project manager and in sales, marketing, management and strategy, empowering the team to take over each step of the way.
Pragmatic, growth-oriented, and a lifelong learner, Dane has delivered success for some of Australia’s best-known brands and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Trying to decide between an in-house developer or an agency to develop your website, mobile app or system?
Whilst at first it may appear cheaper to hire your own dedicated developer, you may be surprised to learn that the reverse is often true. There are a number of benefits to using an external agency such as 4mation including:
1. Expertise
An individual developer is usually an expert in a few aspects of design or development. While they may be able to develop something that meets your needs short term, a single developer working alone will rarely if ever produce the same quality of solution that a highly experienced and specialised team can produce, especially on large or complex projects.
At 4mation our team of 40 skilled professionals are experts in their own area—strategy, scoping, graphic design, UX, web development, database design, software development and mobile app development. We provide ongoing training to our team to ensure they’re on the leading edge of technology.
After 20 years and literally hundreds of interviews we have a particularly effective system for identifying, evaluating and hiring great developers. How confident are you that you can spot a good individual developer from a mediocre one that could cost you months or even years of delays or lost productivity?
A team of specialists can avoid issues that would trouble a solo developer and delay delivery of your project—by allocating additional resources or having the right expertise to call on as required. An individual developer only has a fixed number of hours in the day to invest in solving a problem, and usually won’t have easy access to a support network like 4mation’s.
2. Productivity
Internal developers always have a company administration to address as part of their role within a company—internal phone calls, emails, meetings. People get sick, attend training courses and go on holiday, and inevitably this eats into development time.
At 4mation, this happens on our time—not yours.
When you engage 4mation, the hours you purchase are used solely to work on your project and if you purchase an ongoing development and support package, you also don’t pay for bug fixes (they’re covered under our warranty).
3. Reliability
A developer working solo in an organisation often does not have the structures or development processes to enable them to produce the best quality result. These structures and processes can include pre-planning, code reviews, testing, and structured feedback. This unstructured workflow can cause a great deal of uncertainty regarding delivery dates and service quality.
4mation has been in business for 20 years and has a stable team of expert developers. We’re well known in the industry for working with high-profile clients on core business systems and web-based applications, and as a result, we now have some of the best development processes and formal test procedures around. We guarantee that our processes will produce great solutions that are on budget and bug-free—leaving you to focus on your core business.
Other benefits include:
- No need to handle payroll, tax, or human resource management
- Our job management system and simple, itemised monthly invoice gives you complete cost control, transparency, and no surprises
- Our expertise, with proactive recommendations and advice from our team of experts including database designers, graphic designers, project managers, PHP developers, .NET developers and testers.
- The best developers want to work with the best, so we’ve worked hard to establish a great environment attracting the best developers in the industry—most recently we were ranked 29th in BRW’s Great Places to Work for 2013
Interested in having a chat? Call us on (02) 9213 1300 for an obligation-free discussion with one of our project managers.
Already have an internal team? Check out our recruitment and team augmentation options for more information on how you can scale-up.
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