Software Development Company

Introduction

Successful partnership starts with the right choice, and that should be your priority. Find a partner who understands your vision and focuses on achieving your business goals.

Learn how to find that kind of company and how to establish successful partnership with them.

How to choose a software development company?

While choosing a development partner, pay attention to those aspects:

Choose the cost-effective offer, not the cheapest one

If you choose the cheapest offer, you will ultimately pay more at the end of the project. Why? Because of the technological debt, lack of source code ownership, mistakes made due to poor communication.

Cost-effective doesn’t mean the cheapest one. You need a team that offers technical and communicational skills, as well as understanding of your business goals and product specifications.

Look for the ones who challenge your vision

You want a straightforward partner who is able to say “No” if needed. When it’s a waste of time and money to develop this feature, or another technology would be a better solution.

A partner who understands your business

A perfect partner should understand that it’s not all about technology and code behind the product, but it’s about business.

A good software development company should challenge the new features you develop, help you focus on priorities, advise you from a technical perspective. Do as much as they can to make your business succeed.

Hard facts about software development outsourcing

It’s more than just writing code. Software developers are responsible for much more, starting with customer experience, ending with your ROI.

Software projects are costly. In most cases cheap companies are weak so you shouldn’t look at outsourcing like on reducing costs.

Software outsourcing may fail. There could be a lot of reasons: from business operations out of sync with project requirements, management failures to poor specifications and measuring metrics.

Things to know before hiring

There are a few different types of outsourcing

Have defined expectations and communicate them

To choose the right technology you need to know what functionality you expect from your app.

The better defined your project is, the easier the company selection and hiring will be. Establish what’s the purpose of your application, who’s going to use it, how does it help, who are the competitors, what platforms will it run on, etc.

Be prepared for close collaboration and frequent communication

Remember, that you’ll be working with people. Close collaboration will make it easier for you to explain the nuances of your requirements and keep the finger on the pulse.

12 keys to a successful partnership with a software development company

1. Make your expectations clear
2. Know your strengths and weaknesses
3. Make sure you know what you need
4. Appoint decision-makers
5. Prepare for the change
6. Be aware of potential problems related to time-zone difference
7. Make the contract as complete and explicit as possible while creating room for future change
8. Get ready to learn from your vendor
9. Don’t micromanage, communicate
10. Don’t fall for the lowest bid
11. Have the right toolset to support communication and collaboration
12. Don’t switch providers without addressing root causes

Next steps

That was only a tip of the iceberg. If you need to explore that topic more, proceed to the next chapters.