Q. How many software engineers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A. None. That’s a hardware problem.
This classic joke underlines the key problem web agencies often have. In today’s web development industry, clients may rely on multiple services and vendors to obtain the results they’re looking for. Yet nonetheless, developers often fail to collaborate with designers or SEO experts.
So how many web agencies does it take to create a truly beautiful web experience?
Sometimes, more than one.
In the world of IT, collaboration is a must. UnlimitedWP often collaborates with other agencies in order to put our industry-leading development skills in the service of web designers and marketers whose clients demand state-of-the-art results.
Considering the evolution of the web agency space in recent years, there are greater incentives to work together than ever. Agencies that silo themselves against collaboration have a harder time creating top-quality results than those that thrive through collaboration.
Why Does Agency Siloing Occur in the First Place?
“If you are not taking care of your customer’s need, someone else will”
– Bob Hooey
It’s not hard to understand why an agency would want to silo itself against collaboration with other agencies. It has its roots in the Waterfall Method of software development, first described in 1970.
The Waterfall Method spent many years as the dominant method of approaching software engineering projects. Under this approach, a different team handles every distinct part of the project and hands it to the next in a conveyor-belt assembly-line fashion. Every team uses its specialized knowledge to add to the value of the overall result.
The problem is that this method rarely responds to clients’ needs in an integrated way. Instead, it pieces together fragmented segments of demonstrated expertise and hopes that the result is what the client originally wished for.
Clients can unknowingly contribute to this situation by hiring separate teams for web design, web development, and SEO. In this case, the client knows that each of those teams is capable of delivering excellent results, and often takes it for granted that each agency will communicate throughout the process to make those results happen.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way. If the web designer and content writer don’t talk before the project starts, there is a good chance that someone will have to revise their work to fit the other’s template.
There are two ways to address this issue.
- Web agency can reach out to the client’s other partners and spend some time setting forth standards and guidelines for the project before it begins, or;
- Web agency can take on entire projects on the clients’ behalf and then choose their own third-party white label service providers as needed.
The second option avoids miscommunication and unintended crosstalk by keeping the client-agency relationship limited to a single point of contact. The rest of the work performed goes through this point of contact, who retains primary responsibility for the project, and clients get the result they’re looking for without having to know who the other agencies are.
White Label Developers Keep Standards High
At UnlimitedWP, we have worked with numerous third-party designers and web agencies on clients’ behalf. As expert web developers, we enjoy working alongside web designers who have projects underway, lending our expertise and value-added performance to designers and clients who can benefit.
When we work for a major client, we’ll begin any project by contacting the best designer for it and letting our team focus on higher-impact development work. White labeling is the best solution to web agency siloing because it provides the client with the best in doc, best-quality added so quality result at the best price.
The underlying principle is the same one university students across the world learn in Economy 101 – comparative advantage. When designers allocate time and energy to creating the ideal design for a project and we dedicate all of our resources to developing the project according to that design, everyone wins – especially the client!
Here are some extraordinary projects we completed in collaboration with web agency partners:
- Ready-Made Furniture
- The Event Work
