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Who to Hire
Should you hire a large programming company? or an individual? or a medium sized programming company? or just use your own staff? We suggest that you hire a medium sized programming company like ERW Custom Programming.
1. Medium sized programming companies? We think medium sized, established programming companies are ideally suited to serve other small to medium sized companies. We are always available. We usually take care of problems immediately. In addition, we are not afraid to work weekends or until midnight if necessary to keep your company running.
2. Individual programmers? By “individual programmer”, I mean those persons who earn their livings working for themselves who usually work out of their homes. There are 2 types of individuals doing what we do - competent and incompetent ones. I have made a tremendous amount of money following the incompetent ones around - trying to clean up their messes. Let me tell you about Eric.
Eric "designed" and partially completed a custom inventory control program for a small manufacturing company. The design would have flunked Computer Science 101. To make matters worse, the customer thought the program was 90% complete when they called us. What they did not know was that about 100 procedures and functions were not complete - most were empty shells. What they really had was a pathetically designed program that was about 20% complete. The program cost them at least $10,000 more than it should have, and because of the bad design, never ran the way it should have.
Then there are the good programmers like Joe. When Joe gets overworked, he has no one to back him up. He often simply can not take care of the critical needs of many of his customers. And all too frequently Joe gets tired of being independent and goes to work for a company, leaving his customers without support. The customers then have the onerous task of trying to find a new and reliable programmer.
Individuals simply cannot be in 2 places at one time - only companies can.
Individuals cannot have the combined experience of several experienced programmers working together. It is that experience that, over the lifetime of your system(s), can save you tens of thousands of dollars and help you make even more money
Individuals, over the lifetime of your system, will likely cost you much more than working with companies, large or small.
3. Larger programming companies? You are likely to pay more and be serviced by their least experienced people. The big accounts will get the senior people. Smaller companies usually get less experienced people.
4. Your own staff? This is what most small businesses do and this can be the most expensive. You must pay him/her even if there is no work to be done.
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