Overcoming Objections to Bioinformatics Outsourcing

Think bioinformatics outsourcing is right for your business, but need to convince your boss or other stakeholders? Then you are in the right place! Below we provide solutions for common objections to bioinformatics outsourcing and detail the many benefits it can bring to your organisation. Read on for all the information you need to convince your boss!

Bioinformatics Outsourcing Objections

Cost

Cost is one of the biggest barriers to any outsourcing project. However, when it comes to bioinformatics, outsourcing can be more cost-effective than analysing data in-house. While internal teams may need to spend time setting up workflows and analysis pipelines, external providers will either have these already in-place or be able to set them up more quickly than internal teams, due to their experience and resources. This can make outsourcing a much quicker and more economical solution than in-house analysis.

External bioinformatics providers also have a wealth of expertise that they can draw on. They have large bioinformatics teams with years of experience across various different fields and types of analyses. Therefore, when you provide them with a project, they know exactly what to do and start as soon as they have your data. Internal teams, however, may be smaller with less expertise in the team to draw from. This can mean projects begin with some head scratching as the analyst tries to figure out “Where do I start?”. Time may be wasted researching different approaches and analysis methods. What’s more, further time may be wasted if a lack of expertise with a certain analysis type results in mistakes being made. Re-analysing data will certainly use up more time and resources, but it could also delay other projects.

Wasting time like this incurs costs. On the other hand, saving time helps you to reach your research goals more quickly and economically. Reaching your research goal as quickly as possible allows you to reap the rewards of your research, and start receiving return on your investment, as quickly as possible.

In-House Capability

When you have in-house bioinformatics capability, it is natural to think that bioinformatics outsourcing is unnecessary. However, an external bioinformatics provider can be a valuable extension to your in-house team. Like most research, data analysis requirements tend to come in peaks and troughs and when your own team are at capacity, bioinformatics outsourcing can remove bottlenecks, and ensure you meet internal deadlines. In fact, bioinformatics outsourcing is the perfect answer to unexpected resourcing issues. For example, if you are dealing with more analysis projects than normal but you know this will only be a temporary situation, bioinformatics outsourcing is a more sensible solution than spending time and money hiring additional team members when there is not enough work to justify their ongoing employment.

Using a bioinformatics provider also allows you to prioritise your resources. This enables your team to focus on high-priority projects, or those most suited to their capabilities, while your bioinformatics provider completes other projects on your to do list. Bioinformatics outsourcing can be particularly beneficial for more complex projects. For example, you may not have the in-house expertise necessary for successfully integrating multiple data sets and data types for analysis, while this is something that experienced bioinformatics providers handle regularly.

Finally, bioinformatics outsourcing can help with contingency planning. It helps by ensuring you are still able to complete time-sensitive projects even when unforeseen circumstances arise, such as team absences or simply due to staff moving on.

Loss of Control

Another common objection to bioinformatics outsourcing is about loss of control over the project. However, as the client, you do have control over  bioinformatics projects you outsource. You have full control over the scope of the project and can ensure any analysis contracts meet your requirements before you sign them. Sometimes, the loss of control objection to bioinformatics outsourcing relates to a perceived lack of flexibility. Project stakeholders may worry that they will be unable to make changes or increase or decrease the scope of the project once it has started, or that the services provided will be a “black box” type approach with no knowledge or expertise gained by you during the transaction. Many bioinformatics providers offer variable scope costing models which allow for flexibility as the project progresses. Also, for consultative services, all the methodologies, tools and approaches should be well documented so your in-house team can recreate or replicate in house if required.

The loss of control objection can also be due to a concern about lacking information as the project progresses. However, bioinformatics providers often have project management teams who are dedicated to overseeing your project and keeping you updated of project milestones. Often a project manager will also act as your single point of contact, ready to answer any questions you have throughout the project, as well as keeping you informed of project progression.

Will Outsourcing Bioinformatics Affect the Quality of the Analyses?

Quality is another concern that stakeholders may have about outsourcing. However, when outsourcing bioinformatics, if quality is affected, it is usually for the better, as we explain below.

Quality Control

Reputable bioinformatics providers will always have unbiased, strict quality control measures in place to ensure they provide the highest quality of analyses possible. These measures will include things like evaluating the quality of sequencing samples as well as taking into account the experiment environment, sample time points and scenarios. They will also check the quality of the platforms used during the experiment. Such measures allow your bioinformatics provider to isolate poor quality data to ensure the analyses they run produce quality results.

High-Quality Data Analysis Reports

You can also expect the data analysis report from an external provider to be of high quality. Bioinformatics providers always want their clients to be satisfied with the quality of the bioinformatics report they receive. This is because they know that if a client is not satisfied with their report quality, they will not place further business with them. For this reason, reputable bioinformatics providers place great focus on their report quality by investing in continually developing their reporting infrastructure. Before outsourcing, you can request a sample report to see the quality of the bioinformatics provider’s reports for yourself before making a commitment. If you would like to receive a sample bioinformatics analysis report from Fios Genomics simply contact us and let us know your research field of interest. We will then send you a sample bioinformatics report relevant to your research area.

Testaments to Quality

Another way to get an idea of the quality you can expect from a bioinformatics provider is to check their testimonials.  These will allow you to see how pleased previous clients were with the provider’s quality of work. What’s more, you can also check them for mentions of other things that stakeholders may be concerned about such as speed and customer service. You can view some testimonials about our work at Fios Genomics below.

We are regular clients of Fios Genomics and we value their professionalism as well as their timing in providing high quality reports.

Dr Valentina Paloschi, Postdoctoral Researcher, TU München

Fios provide you with a very nice data package, that is fully interpretable and allows you to draw meaningful conclusions.

Dr David Moffat, Director of Chemistry at Macrophage Pharma

I would recommend the company to anybody whose research needs competent and efficient data analysis support.

Dr Keith Bowers, Senior Business Development Manager at OracleBio

If after these checks, quality is still a concern for your stakeholders, you can suggest trialling a small project. This will allow your stakeholders to evaluate a bioinformatics provider’s quality before committing to larger more costly projects.

Benefits of Bioinformatics Outsourcing

In addition to being cost-effective, providing an extension to your in-house team and providing high-quality analyses, bioinformatics outsourcing brings further benefits to your business. These benefits include:

Lack of bias

An external bioinformatics provider is unbiased with no vested interest in your analysis results. This means that that their analysis conclusions will be purely data-driven. In turn, this gives you a clear picture of what your analysis results mean in relation to your research question.

External validation

Bioinformatics outsourcing also allows you to receive external validation of in-house results. This can be particularly important if you plan to publish your results.

Help with publishing

In addition to external validation of results, your bioinformatics provider can help with publishing in other ways. For example, they can produce publication-ready images such as heatmaps and volcano plots, to visualise your results so that they are easy to understand. Your bioinformatics provider can also be a great help with writing the methods section of your publication. At Fios Genomics we provide all details of bioinformatics methods used in our analyses and can help with manuscript preparation.

Data Storage

Another benefit of using an external bioinformatics provider for your analysis is that you can use their data storage capacity. At Fios Genomics, our analysis reports act as a repository. Fios reports will store your bioinformatics data analysis results, as well as the raw data you provided for analysis. What’s more, you do not even have to store the report. All of our bioinformatics reports are stored on our secure server, accessible via a password-protected HTML link.

Bioinformatics Outsourcing with Fios Genomics

Hopefully, you now have all the information you need to convince any reluctant stakeholders in your organisation to outsource bioinformatics.  So, your next step will be choosing which provider to use. At Fios Genomics we have 15 years of experience as a bioinformatics provider and a great track-record, evidenced by our 95% repeat business rate. We can analyse and integrate data sets of all sizes and data types and are happy to advise which analyses are most suitable for helping you answer your research question. You can view our range of bioinformatics services or contact us now to speak to a bioinformatics expert.

Author: Breige McBride, Content and Social Media Manager, Fios Genomics
Reviewed by Fios Genomics Bioinformatics Experts to ensure accuracy

See Also:

Bioinformatics Buyer’s Guide – Outsourcing Handbook

Bioinformatics Consulting – 5 Reasons to Choose Fios Genomics

What is Signature Generation?

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