A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Outsourcing Design for SaaS Platforms

Ensuring that a digital product actively drives revenue, scales your business, and builds deep customer trust is a real challenge for SaaS businesses. The decision to build an in-house design team or outsource is crucial for the business. We believe that outsourced experts can deliver an ROI of 10x, 100x, or more. Let’s see if you agree.

Why outsourcing may be beneficial for your business

1. Access to experience & expertise

Outsourcing means gaining a dedicated team of seasoned specialists. They bring diverse experience and fresh perspectives, offering expert guidance on how to achieve your vision, especially when the path isn’t clear. 

You need to find individuals who possess both user experience and technical expertise, and treat your business as their own, to deliver profitable results.

2. Cost-effectiveness & maximising ROI

While an agency’s fee might seem substantial initially, consider the hidden costs of an in-house team:

• Salaries & benefits: The ongoing expense of competitive salaries, healthcare, pensions, and bonuses.
• Recruitment: The time and money drained by finding, interviewing, and onboarding top design talent.
• Tools & software: Constant investment in licences for design software, prototyping tools, and collaboration platforms.
• Overheads: Office space, equipment, training, and continuous professional development.

Outsourcing converts these fluctuating, continuous costs into a predictable project fee. This allows for transparent budget allocation and results in significant savings, giving you a straightforward path to a measurable ROI on your design investment.

3. Flexibility, scalability & building trust through agility

Your product and market evolve rapidly. An in-house team might struggle to adapt quickly, being either overwhelmed during peak periods or underutilised when things quieten down. An external agency provides the agility to scale resources precisely when and where you need them, ensuring your product development consistently meets market demands and builds trust.

4. Fresh perspectives, innovation & unlocking potential

An outside team brings an unbiased perspective, free from internal assumptions or historical ways of working. They challenge the status quo, offering innovative solutions that you might not have considered, helping to unlock new potential for your product and business.

How to ensure your vision is realised?

1. Communication, collaboration & shared purpose

Working with an external team requires crystal-clear, consistent communication. It’s about establishing effective dialogue, even when we’re tackling the finer details.

• Our approach at Yozu Creative: We place a strong emphasis on genuine collaboration. We manage expectations clearly and always ensure you’re kept in the loop every step of the way, aligned with your business goals.

2. Seamless integration with your internal teams

Ensuring the outsourced design work integrates smoothly with your existing development, marketing, and sales teams is crucial. Design needs to amplify your broader business strategy and contribute to the big vision.

• Case in point – working with Yodel: Our Yodel project, transforming their complex internal operations, was challenging but highly collaborative. We blended their deep system knowledge with our fresh UX perspective, bridging legacy and innovation. This partnership streamlined operations, significantly enhancing staff user experience and proving the power of effective collaboration for mutual business efficiency.

3. Deeply understanding your business & users

An external agency needs to quickly grasp your business goals, target audience, and specific challenges. This requires a thorough onboarding process and your active involvement.

• Our approach at Yozu Creative: We kick things off with in-depth workshops and research. This helps us get under the skin of your vision, ensuring we deliver designs that genuinely solve problems, build trust with your users, and align with your business.

When an in-house team might be the right fit

While outsourcing product design offers many advantages, it’s essential to recognise situations where an in-house design team might be a better strategic choice.

An in-house team excels when your product requires constant, day-to-day design input, particularly for highly sensitive or rapidly evolving core features that demand deep, continuous institutional knowledge. If your company culture thrives on tightly integrated, multidisciplinary teams working side-by-side, or if you have a consistent, long-term pipeline of complex, highly proprietary design work that benefits from constant internal oversight, an in-house team offers unparalleled control and immediate access. It’s also ideal if your strategic goal is to build a distinct internal design culture or to develop unique, specialised design capabilities solely within your organisation.

Real-world examples from Yozu Creative: Driving success through outsourced design

We’ve seen firsthand how effective outsourcing product design and outsourcing UX/UI design can be in driving tangible business outcomes, boosting revenue, and fostering user trust:

• Yodel: Optimising internal operations: Our partnership involved reimagining Yodel’s complex internal platform. This deep dive into their existing systems, led by our outsourced UX/UI design team, streamlined operations and significantly enhanced the user experience for their staff. The result? Improved efficiency, reduced manual labour, and a clear boost to their profitability.
• BioGrad: Enhancing customer experience: For BioGrad, a key educational service provider, we delivered custom e-commerce and application design. This project, a prime example of successful outsourced product design, created a seamless booking system and improved customer service, directly contributing to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• New Construction Management Tool: Driving efficiency: We designed and built a comprehensive construction management tool for a client entering a new market. This innovative solution, developed through dedicated external product design expertise, significantly improved their internal processes, demonstrating how well-crafted software can save time, reduce costs, and establish market leadership.

Your vision, our expertise, shared success

Outsourcing product design is about strategic investment in your vision. While there are certainly things to consider, the benefits – access to specialised talent, improved efficiency, a fresh perspective, and the ability to scale – often far outweigh the perceived drawbacks.

A strong product experience, ensured by strong UX and UI, equals business success. It’s the foundation for revenue growth and building lasting trust. By partnering with the right experts, who share your purpose and treat your business as their own, you can make outstanding digital products that drive your business forward and solidify your market position.