Top 10 Benefits of hiring an Agency over a Freelancer

If you’re a 7 or 8 figure software business, more often than not, the perspective revolves around achieving larger Goals with smaller Teams.

One of the primary challenges in having a small-sized team is that the business limits its area of expertise.

Say, for instance, an Expert Software Development Firm might not have expertise in Software Testing.

But Software Testing is an integral part of SDLC.

So how do they address this concern?

The solution – OUTSOURCE – To either a Freelancer or an Established Agency.

A recent Clutch study revealed that 52% of the small businesses outsourced their peripheral business activities.

Now, this ultimately makes sense as any company would want to focus on their core business goals and objectives rather than spending unproductive hours on the peripheral activities.

What better than Outsourcing? You get to reduce costs while leveraging the expertise of an external resource to complete the non-core activities of your business efficiently.

This practice brings us to another question.

Whom should you Outsource?

An Established Off Shore Agency or a Freelancer?

The world of the Internet is just a click away for you to access the Freelance Marketplace or the Agencies instantly.

The Freelancing platforms are mostly Service-Buyer Oriented where you have many options to choose from while paying a marginal or no fee for accessing their platform.

But what is the difference in hiring an Agency over a Freelancer? To begin with, the Freelancers usually come with one focused skill set while a typical Agency consists of Broader skill sets under one roof.

There is more to this.

So here are our Top 10 advantages why you should hire an Established and Professional Agency over Freelancers.

1). Business Continuity

Professional Agencies always employ a Shadow resource who works along with the hired Agency resource.

This shadow resource would fill in for the hired agent in cases of emergencies.

Another aspect of going with a professional agency is that they would always have backup options readily available for their resource’s disposal.

Be it Power or Internet Outages or System Breakdowns – an Agency would continually reinforce their instruments and machines to maintain the Business Continuity, which is an unlikely luxury to find with most of the freelancers.

2). Quality of Resource

It is imperative to be sure about the quality of resource to-be-hired.

There have been multiple recorded instances where the freelancers have faked their skills to land a project only to be ousted later by the client for their low quality of work and lack of knowledge & understanding of the required tasks.

A Professional Agency, on the other hand, hires skilled resources and grooms them with time.

Professionals from agencies tend to have extensive industry exposure and niche expertise.

Consider the case of hiring a Junior resource from an agency.

The juniors always have the support of at least a couple of senior and experienced folks, for guidance, during complex situations.

3). Variety of Service

Contracting an Agency allows you to enjoy a variety of services together.

For example, a Freelancer may not have access to additional devices and machines for Software Testing and may charge additionally to gain access to the required devices.

But an Agency would always have access to all the latest, functional mobile devices and machines in the market that could come in handy while testing the application.

All of this is accessible to the hired tester at no additional cost.

Apart from this, the client does not have to worry about looking out for another resource for filling in a different skill of similar vertical.

Consider this – There is a Production release scheduled for the upcoming weekend, and the client needs to test the performance of their application.

If they are on a contract with an agency for Manual testing, then they could ask for a Performance Tester from the Agency for a week without having to worry about the quality of the resource.

More importantly, they do not have to go through the screening process to-hire-a-new-resource for Performance Testing all over again. That is so convenient!

4). Confidentiality

You could always rely on a Professional Agency to honor the signed contracts between the parties.

The resources at most of the Agency undergo verification for their personal and professional backgrounds.

The agencies also tend to have internal NDA’s signed with each of their resources to maintain high levels of project confidentiality.

They employ measures to ensure that the confidential information of the client and the project do not leak out. 

This aspect goes completely missing with the freelancers, because they are strangers, at least 90% of the time.

The risk of any confidential information leaking out through a hired freelancer shoots up considerably!

Besides, there is always a chance for some of the unethical freelancers to forge their documents to get through the eligibility criteria of a project.

5). Professionalism

There have been several cases of Freelancers vanishing out of a project at their own will, without intimating anyone, let alone considering what is at stake for the client and the project!

We’ve also heard of their cars breaking down, kids needing a pick up from school, family emergencies arising out of nowhere and what not!

These reasons could be fake, or they could be genuine too.

But why does the client have to bear the problem of a Hired Resource?

They already have their share of business problems, now if they are to deal with the hired resource’s problem as well, then what is the point of hiring them?

The clients might as well do the outsourced activity themselves!

Now, this could happen at the Agency too, but then there is a shadow resource waiting to fill in during the emergencies!

Resources in most of the Agencies follow a strict work schedule and usually have a strong work ethic.

The Agency monitors them so that no discrepancy happens in the project they work at.

There is a standard that each professional Agency maintains.

 On the other hand, there is no efficient way to monitor a freelancer’s work ethic.

Also, have you ever heard of an Agency vanishing overnight? Freelancers have!

6). Growth Resistance

Another essential aspect that needs consideration is how the resource is grooming their professional skill.

The hired agent needs to remain updated with the latest trends in their Industry proactively.

Their complacency, with regards to their outdated knowledge, would indirectly affect the way they are working in the project.

There is no way you could force a freelancer to update their skill set.

They may or may not resist growth.

But in a Professional Agency, it is always imperative for a resource to keep upgrading their skills at regular intervals of time.

Agencies also encourage their agents to get professional certifications.

In fact, some of the Agencies also monetarily reward resources on the successful completion of a new skill, thereby making it a win-win situation for all the concerned parties and the stakeholders.

This act enables the hired resource to stay competitive at all times while applying their new learning’s smartly during complex situations in a project.

It also envisions them with fresh perspectives that contribute to the growth of the business.

7). Communication

How often have we heard John complaining about his newly hired freelancer not being able to follow instructions?

Off late, there has been a reasonable amount of increase in the number of cases where the clients have expressed their dissatisfaction over the freelancer’s poor communication skills.

The Hired Resource needs to be able to communicate their understandings and observations openly to the concerned stakeholders’ team, especially during critical times.

A failure to express in clear terms may lead to confusion and misunderstanding in a project.

While it is difficult to judge a Freelancer’s communication skill solely because of the STRANGER element that is tagged along, Resources from a professional agency can be relied upon as better communicators as they already are filtered for communication by the agencies before hiring them.

For instance, a Junior resource always has a senior assigned to them, from the Agency, to monitor the project to prevent any mishap related to communication.

8). Reporting Standards

On any given day, a professional agency would have access to more tools and technologies than a freelancer.

The Agency also invests heavily in purchasing paid subscriptions to access these tools.

Paid Tools provide way more insights and have robust reporting features than the free tools that the freelancers commonly tend to use.

The reports generated from these tools and their analytics are essential to determine key performance indicators in a project. 

Both the freelancers and the agencies have access to Open Source Tools.

However, with an Agency, the clients have the option to choose from the two.

 Needless to say, a Good Report is critical in effectively communicating the essential information of the project the stakeholders.

9). Involvement and Dedication

Another point to keep in mind is how much involved are the hired-resources with their assigned projects.

Freelancers are known to work on multiple projects simultaneously to make quick money.

How would you expect a freelance Tester to be dedicated to your project and test your product efficiently when they are testing multiple other projects simultaneously?

An agency, on the other hand, has better credibility than a freelancer.

Through the Agency’s credible and accountable portfolio, one can always determine its solemnity.

Furthermore, agencies can be counted on to provide ongoing support even after the completion of the contract, to fix minor issues that may arrive.

Freelancers are known to jump over new projects immediately after completing one.

10). They say Agencies are costlier than Freelancers – but for a reason!

An Established Agency covers all of the points, mentioned above, as clauses in their contract.

To qualitatively guarantee the smooth functioning of all of this, an agency needs to take care of individual costs.

This happens to be the reason why the Prices of Agencies are slightly towards the north of the meter. 

Besides, quality always comes at a price! 

So why would business owners have a problem in paying the right price to an Agency, when in reality the agencies are insuring the outsourced activity with all the aforementioned services?

Hence, the cost of an Established Agency is reasonable – keeping in mind the quality and the number of offerings (right from ensuring that the tasks are performed efficiently to internally managing the resource’s performance) along with the ROI that the clients gain.

Conclusion

Finally, it is going to be your decision of whom to hire.

But the general phenomenon has been that Professional Agencies tend to be with you as fellow entrepreneurs – trying to understand your business goals and helping you in achieving them whereas the freelancers are known to incline towards making quick money.

Agencies, through their experience, assets, and investments on tools and technologies are better poised to provide value to your business.