There are a lot of things you can never give on outsource: marketing, analytics, financial processes, even good clients success management. But design, as well as development, never were on the list. All design studios work as outsource specialists for businesses: just in a smaller or bigger perspective. And there are few reasons why choosing outsourced teams is an only good option for certain companies.

Who should work with outsource design teams?

If you have a complicated product, that always needs to be designed sprint by sprint, analyzed and then designed again you probably would economy a lot on having an in-house designer. However, do you have an art director and product designer onboard as well? A solo designer will hardly deal with all tasks for the product design. As well as without art-direction, your product design risks becoming very subjective and outdated too soon.

You may hire an in-house designer instead of outsourcing team if you:

• have an art-director, who will be controlling the quality of the design. Neither PM nor team lead can handle this. And even if you are sure you’ve hired 100% specialist in the design, there is still a human factor. Designs should be checked. Preferably by at least 1 (better 2) designers before the launch.
• have a lot of in-house tasks: creating ads design, working on the platform design, launching new landing pages. For example a big corporation can work perfectly with in-house designers, as they always have a lot of work to offer for the in-house design team.
• work with in-door specialists only — if you have decided to hire in-door specialists only, hiring a designer as well would also be great. However, if at least one of the departments are working based the outsource model, having an in-door designer can hardly make sense.

What are the benefits of the outsource design team?

Outsource seems to be too expensive and hard to trust for clients, but let’s take a look at the situation.

If you’re launching a startup, you don’t have too much budget to waste on the huge team, that will be having nothing to work on. For example, you’re working on the fintech app. One designer can make it as maximum during 2–3 months. In case you have a super big application. Anyway, by the end of the deadline, you will have to fire a designer from your company. While for the outsourced team this is quite a long-term cooperation, for an employee it gives nothing at all.

The employee is not a team or freelancer. It is a human, you need to help to develop his skills. You also take responsibility for the wellbeing of this person and hiring just for the project gives nothing but few salaries to your designer. Hardly people, who love the design and want to boost their skills, will agree on changing places every 2–3 months.

If you think it is expensive, you should first of all count how many will a senior designer, who is working independently cost in your region, count all wastes on his as an employee, how much time will you need to check his work and then make sure, that hiring a team is cheaper.

Apart from all of that, you don’t have any quality guarantees. You may check your employee really good at the interview. But, have you thought of all what if? What if he gets ill in the middle of the project or will have an accident? What if he just will have a new-work-crises? There is no chance or guarantee someone will replace this specialist immediately and the process will be going on.

What are the advantages?

• an outsourced team is a set of people: art-director, designer, manager and graphic designer if required. It economies your time greatly, as you don’t have to do their work while working with in-house designers.
• design team specializes in the design and always boost skills — to survive on the market, design teams always provide their employees’ courses, new and more complicated tasks as well as competitions. The design team works all the time with user experience and UI, so anyway the team will be more progressive and smart. That’s how the collective mind works.
• there is always a guarantee. One of the most important advantages is that even if something happens, work on the project will be going on. Manager will add designers on the project, or art-director won’t be sleeping for days, but you will get a result just in time.
• you’re a client, not a boss. Boss is always someone, who needs to give you good care, etc. The client is always someone, who you are giving good care. Being a client is always way more pleasant, as you receive 24/7 service and support, all the documentation and even can ask for the customized workflow.
• bonuses. Being a client, you’re getting into the bonus program of the company. That means all bonuses, presents and actions are all yours. Moreover, you may even discuss and fix the budget for the project, what you definitely can’t change while working with an in-house specialist.

In-door designers are great. The product needs to have a designer on-board. However, you need to understand what to do with this specialist to bring use for him as well. If you’re launching numerous apps one by one, the UI/UX team will be more effective regarding time and cost. If you’re a startup, the team is better from the perspective of good expertise. If you do a redesign team is especially better in terms of knowing special metrics and looking at the things from another glance.

You don’t need to hire a team just because someone says so. You just need to pick the best solutions for business.