Hardware development outsourcing is a popular option among companies, mainly due to its vast benefits. Access to external know-how and expertise, lower costs for small-scale projects, and higher innovation—these are just a few of the advantages of working with an external vendor. In this article, we look at all of them. We invite you to read on.

The Benefits of Outsourcing for Hardware Development and Design

So, why is it good to outsource hardware testing, certification, design, and development? Let’s look at all the benefits.

Focusing on Customer Needs

The first benefit is strongly tied to your resources. When outsourcing hardware development, you don’t need to focus on it internally. As a result, you can switch your efforts to other directions, including customer support and market analysis. This enables you to create better products in the future and build higher customer satisfaction.

Talent and Technology Access Pool

Unless your business is a global enterprise, you likely cannot access all types of technologies and talents. After all, it is much more difficult to build an overall skilled hardware development team if you can hire only 4-5 engineers. Plus, you likely don’t have all the tech available to produce different types of hardware.

One of the main benefits of hardware development outsourcing is that you can access the latest tech and different talents on demand. In simple terms, you can hire a company to develop a specific piece of hardware when needed and build the rest internally, combining the cost-savings of an internal team with the knowledge of external experts.

Cost Savings for Small-Scale Projects

Another key benefit of outsourced hardware design and development includes lower costs. This applies to small-scale projects. When you do not need many hardware pieces, the investment in technology and human resources often exceeds the costs of commissioning the project externally. Hence, outsourcing is frequently the more profitable option for small and medium-sized businesses.

The same goes for the materials. Since specialized engineering companies need them anyway, they usually order the materials in bulk. As a result, they can offer you lower prices than if you were to develop your hardware internally.

Business Experience

Engineering companies that offer their services to other businesses tend to work with multiple, highly different projects. While this might seem like a disadvantage, it’s actually a major benefit. Why?

Such companies have worked with multiple different products and designed hardware for various purposes, which means that they can advise you better on the best solutions to use according to your business goals. What’s more, they might also have experience in other areas and offer related services (e.g., outsourced firmware development), taking over the whole process and ensuring that the final product is of the highest quality.

Faster Time-to-Market

To add to our list of the top benefits of hardware development and design outsourcing, this is often the faster option. Outsourcing might be a much better option if you need your components ready ASAP.

Additionally, you can opt for outsourcing to empower your internal team. If you have tight deadlines and limited resources, you can align your team with external engineers to develop the product on time.

Should You Outsource Hardware Design and Development Services?

Knowing the benefits of outsourced hardware design and development, let’s look at one more crucial aspect—deciding whether to outsource or prepare your hardware internally. How do you make the choice? It’s best to ask yourself several questions:

  • Do we have the resources to develop the hardware in-house? If not, how much would we need to invest?
  • Do we have the knowledge to design and develop high-quality hardware for this specific project?
  • Will the project be a one-off, or is it a continuous arrangement that will consume resources regularly?
  • How much time do we have to develop the hardware? Do we have the resources to keep to the deadlines?

If most of the answers to these questions correspond with the benefits of outsourced hardware design and development, it’s a better option. If you’re somewhere in the middle, you might need to examine your data in detail (e.g., cost estimates). Remember that hardware development outsourcing is a good option, but it’s situational—sometimes it’s better to purchase the equipment, hire engineers, and conduct it in-house.

Conclusions

Hardware design and development outsourcing has multiple benefits. However, many of them depend on the circumstances. This means that there is no single answer to whether you should or shouldn’t outsource. Instead, you need to look at every project separately, weigh the pros and cons, and make your decisions based on data. If you need hardware design and development services for your embedded systems, you can contact us at Conclusive. Our experienced team of engineers will be happy to help you build your components!