Beta Solutions Blog

Benefit 1: Expertise

Some companies may do some of the work in-house, but with each unique project comes the requirement of expert knowledge and experience depending on the technology involved in the project. Accessing the skills and knowledge of experienced electronic design engineers, whose bread and butter is to be at the forefront of new technology, can give your product the edge to succeed.

The right electronic development partner should add value to your company in the following areas:

• Working exclusively in electronic product design and development, they acquire knowledge about various markets, industries, and technologies that can make your product the best it can be. 
• Multidisciplinary perspectives (hardware, embedded software, mechanical integration) that leads to innovative ideas, offering the right technology and design solutions to your project's problem.
• Knowledge of the process, stages and requirements of electronic product development.
• Understanding and communicating the risks associated with particular decisions, and recommending ways to mitigate such risks.
• Knowledge and advice of the regulatory compliance required for your electronic product.

Benefit 2: Speed to Market

Product life cycles for electronics are significantly shorter today, and experienced electronic product developers with the correct in-house resources can deliver new products with speed. This is due to:

• Inherent knowledge that cuts down learning and exploration time. Your project benefit from their years of experience and established industry relationships from technology to production suppliers. 
• In-house resources to deliver rapid prototyping so that it can be tested with end users and refined without delay.
• Design For Manufacturing (DFM) techniques that ensures the intended product design can seamlessly enter production - without the need for costly and time consuming modifications.

Benefit 3: Cost

• Opportunity cost

1. By boosting your resources with outsourced design partners, you can avoid lost sales due to not having a product to market on time.
2. Accessing world class capabilities with outsourced electronic product design engineers you can prevent not having the right product for consumers' needs resulting in lost sales.
3. Hiring an outsourced team ensures focused attention and project management with greater efficiency and time management to get a stronger product to the market faster.

• Learning cost

1. Years of experience and breadth of knowledge from design companies results in a reduced learning-though-failure costs for their clients.
2. Electronic product design companies are passionate about new technologies and are constantly investing in updating their technical tools and equipment and upskilling their engineers. To attain the same level of knowledge and resources for every new product and its unique technology requirements, can become a costly endeavour for product companies and can lead to wasted resources.
3. The profit advantage of hiring an outsourced electronic product design team hence can be even greater for complex projects. These projects might include undertaking significant amounts of research and/or developing complex electronic hardware, firmware (embedded software) or electro-mechanical systems.

• Operational and labour cost

1. Hiring an electronic design company, like Beta Solutions, give you access to a whole team with multidisciplinary design experts which is more economical than hiring them individually. 
2. The infrastructure costs (design, diagnostics, and test equipment, etc.) to establish an effective electronics design lab can be considerable. In-house teams may have the know-how but not the right tools and resources for the design and development of your product. This may include complex software programmes, testing and validation equipment, prototyping tools and production equipment, etc. You benefit from the electronic design company's investment in time and money to procure and learn to operate new tools and equipment. 

Benefit 4: Focus and Amplified Capacity

Outsourcing the parts of product development that is not your expertise - like the electronic workings of the product - expands your product design capacity.

• If your company is facing a resource crunch, an outsourced development team can expand the workforce. 
• By hiring an electronic product development team (and their immediate knowledge and skills) and thereby delegating non-core practices, your internal team can focus on other tasks that will ensure the commercial success of your product. 
• Whilst your outsourced design partner focus on research and development, testing and experimenting to get a viable product to your specification, your team can focus on the management of the product and the marketing required for launch. 

Conclusion

As discussed, there are many advantages to outsourcing in the realm of technology and electronic product design. Ultimately, combining skilled outsourced resourced with your in-house efforts will lead to superior products, quicker turnaround times and speed to market. There is never a wrong time to outsource electronic product development, which could be (for example), right at the product's inception stage or perhaps somewhat closer to the product's release date. The correct electronic product design company can add value at every step of the design process, from innovative idea generation and cost reduction analysis to critical design reviews and specialist product testing.

Over the past ten years we at Beta Solutions have gathered a considerable amount of expertise in designing electronic products for many industries. We have experience with a wide range of technologies, obtaining regulatory compliance / certification, designing for manufacturing - as well as, undertaking fast (in-house) low volume production or outsourced high volume production. We have successfully partnered with both clients who required fully outsourced R&D as well as clients who outsourced only a part of their electronic product design (where a specialised service was required to complement their in-house team's work). Our purpose is to apply all our knowledge, skills and passion to get the product you need to market at the opportune time.

It always starts with a conversation ... so feel free to contact us for a free 1-hour consultation.

References

1. Brandon Gaille. (May 2017). 27 US Outsourcing Statistics and Trends. Retrieved from  https://brandongaille.com/26-us-outsourcing-statistics-and-trends/
   
   
2. Banner modified image retrieved from https://pixabay.com/photos/web-network-technology-developer-3963945/
   
   
3. Conclusion modified image retrieved from https://www.pexels.com/photo/about-us-achievement-agreement-business-533405/