Collaboration
For a long time the calculation seemed simple: programming is expensive, so you outsource it to where an hour costs little. Many companies know the consequences – long specifications, queries across time zones, results that meet the document but miss the actual need. Ebi F. Eilber, managing director of Cadida, is convinced: this calculation no longer works, and development is coming back.
AI takes over the routine
What was outsourced was mainly work that is easy to describe and process: code to specification. This is exactly the part AI is increasingly taking over. That shrinks the advantage of cheap programming hours. What remains cannot be bought by the hourly rate: creativity, expertise, innovation, quality assurance and product understanding. Whoever outsources today is no longer buying lines of code, but judgement: which solution will hold up? What must never happen? And how do you know a result is really right?
Added to this is what Eilber calls Germany’s strength in design: an engineering culture that turns an idea into a well thought-out, reliable product – carefully planned, properly documented and tested before it reaches the customer. He sees a sign of this in his own company: Cadida now even receives enquiries from companies in India – not because of cheap hours, but because of German engineering.
More reasons for proximity
- Expert discussion instead of handover: people who understand CAD, measurement technology or mechanical engineering ask the right questions – in the same language, in the same time zone and on site if required.
- Responsibility: under the Cyber Resilience Act, manufacturers answer for the security of their software throughout its life cycle. Whoever develops it has to consider vulnerabilities, the software bill of materials and updates from the start.
- Data protection: as soon as test or customer data containing personal data is involved, the GDPR requires additional safeguards for transfers to third countries. With development in Germany, this effort disappears.
- Protecting know-how: source code and expertise stay within your own jurisdiction and in your own hands.
What an extended workbench means today
An extended workbench does not mean delivering code to specification. It means thinking along as part of your team: contributing ideas, raising risks early, taking responsibility for quality. At Cadida, there are several forms of collaboration for this:
| Form | Suitable if … |
|---|---|
| Your team of choice | you need specific roles for a project, such as development, architecture and testing. Daily rates are tiered: the longer the collaboration, the lower the rate. |
| Monthly hour quota | work comes up regularly, such as further development, modernisation or quality assurance. The quota renews monthly. |
| Project based on a specification | goal, scope and deadlines can be described clearly. |
| Time and materials | the requirements are still evolving during the project. |
Making it work
- A dedicated contact who knows your project and your code – a developer, not a hotline.
- Short sprints with regular demos so you can steer early.
- A shared understanding of when something is done: with tests, review and documentation.
- The code lives in your repository, and knowledge is handed over continuously. Your software stays in your hands.
This turns the extended workbench into a partnership: your team contributes its knowledge of the market and customers, we contribute our knowledge of software, CAD and quality. AI takes the routine off both.
Typical mistakes
- Comparing only hourly rates instead of total costs including coordination, rework and errors at the customer’s site.
- Throwing the specification over the fence and only looking again at acceptance.
- Not involving your own experts.
- Planning quality assurance as the last step instead of from the start.
- Not settling rights to the code and the handover.
- Carrying yesterday’s cost calculation forward even though AI makes routine work cheaper.
How we help
- Collaboration: You will find our process, forms of collaboration and service promise under Collaboration.
- Team of choice and hour quota: request them directly in the Cadida shop.
- Getting started: A fixed-price consulting day clarifies which form suits your project.
- Your project: Arrange an initial consultation.
Assessment: Ebi F. Eilber, managing director of Cadida Software GmbH. Data protection: Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), Chapter V; Cyber Resilience Act: Regulation (EU) 2024/2847. Cadida: Collaboration.
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