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As is often the case, business owners experience that a seemingly good and reliable custom software development company delivers bad code or undermines the implementation of the software. It may also happen that everything works well at first, however, you may discover inflexibility, malfunctioning, or it is difficult to maintain the product when you try to implement new features into the existing software solution.
In this article, you will discover a step-by-step guide helping to choose the reliable custom software development companies after fail, paying attention to various details from price and time estimates to the experience and skills of a team.
A new vendor for software outsourcing
Changing vendors is never easy, even in good times and especially for a product as “foundational” as major software.
Duncan Jones, an analyst at Cambridge
However, sometimes there’s nothing left to do than change your current software development company. It may happen due to repeated SLA failures, a lack of internal or external communication, performance issues, or a lack of understanding of your business processes. This negative experience will create difficulties in building custom software development processes properly.
The process of finding a new software supplier should be based on shortlisting the business goals and requirements. Further, the hiring process should move on by carrying out a thorough Vendor Portfolio Analysis.
Software failures case studies
Sometimes software projects may fail, because of the wrong approach to the choice of the potential custom software development vendor. Let us analyze the software failures reasons and try to single out why these strategies are wrong.
Choosing software outsourcing companies that offer exact time and budget estimation
It is clear, that customer wants to have a clear budget estimate and timing, expecting that the good custom software development company will give the exact information on the custom software development project.
However, as it may turn out in the future, such a strategy may lead your cooperation to fail. Because even the most experienced custom software development team will not provide you with the exact details. There are too many unpredictable factors, which could influence the software development process.
A detailed project estimate demands the discovery stage and a discussion with a potential software development vendor. It will enable a software supplier to create the technical specifications, including tech stacks, specifications, features, and third-party integrations.
Only after those procedures, the software development team may provide you with a rough estimation, that still may vary in the future.
Orientation on the hourly rates to count on the final budgeting
Choosing a custom software development company offering the law rates does not guarantee that you will spend less money in general. Thus, there are factors that matter more than low rates. The list of such factors includes advanced management skills, high implementation speed, ability to stick with the deadlines, and build good architecture.
As it turns out in practice low rates mean lacking these necessary skills and expertise for a successful project finish. Thus, it is more efficient to orient on the skills of the development team, their tech abilities, management skills, and effectiveness of the cooperation.
You look for a tech developers team, which will execute pending tasks
In some cases, customers are looking for a software development team, which will simply execute a series of processes related to project management and execution. However, the task of the team is more responsible – they should be flexible, creative, and possess the necessary expertise to cope with unplanned issues.
Proactive and experienced software development vendor will be ready to predict and cope with the potential problems, implementing the recent practices and technologies.
Fixed-priced model is not a guarantee that you will exactly meet the planned budget
Many clients choose to cooperate with the software development team by offering fixed priced cooperation model, hoping that it is a guarantee of stability and continuity. However, actually, this model limits flexibility and does not allow adapting to a dynamic market environment. You will not be able to quickly scale up your product in case of necessity.
All these scenarios above prove that it is always better to approach the choice of custom software developers more seriously, taking a complex approach and thinking globally. Of course, you cannot forecast all the possible scenarios that could occur during the development stage, however, it is better to always choose quality over price and flexibility over stability.
Software outsourcing vendor selection criteria
You need to go through the evaluation, analysis, and negotiation periods while hiring the custom software vendor for your project. You need to specify certain standards for selecting a software development company from the outset and treat them as a key point for orientation during the hiring process. Here are the main software vendor selection criteria to focus on while choosing the new vendor.
Communication process
Inefficient communication influences many cooperation aspects and software development processes. Understanding the client’s business requirements and business strategy is impossible without the eagerness of the vendor to clarify all the issues and nuances related.
Establishment of the efficient communication ensures the productivity and comfort of the cooperation. It serves as a guarantee of the success of the project ensuring you are on the same page with your client.
The scale of projects finished
The scale of previous projects as well as the portfolio of the vendor matter a lot. Try choosing the vendor, whose company size is similar to yours. It will ensure that the potential partner will have the necessary expertise as well as will treat your project seriously, paying all the effort and treating you as a very important customer.
Budgeting
Budgeting plays an important role in the decision-making process. To choose the most cost-effective partnering option, depending on the engagement model you will choose, the scope of your project, and the final goal.
The dedicated team development model is the best option for long-term projects with changing requirements. You get a team of development specialists, who are fully focused on your project and have full control over the process.
Technology stack is a priority
The first criteria you should focus on while analyzing the vendor’s portfolio is technology. The rich tech stack does not guarantee good quality. Correctly chosen technology background means quick and easy scalability of your product and high security of the App.
Examine whether the potential software development partner has a proven track record of working in the tech area you need. Prefer choosing a mature vendor with diverse tech expertise, so that you can scale your product, and implement new technologies when needed.
Examine the portfolio
The success case of the potential vendor are the best proof of demonstrating the hands-on experience in similar projects in your software development industry. It will not pose a challenge to build efficient cross-team cooperation at technical and organizational levels.
For experienced vendors, it is easier to implement the same coding practices, establish smooth knowledge exchange flow within the teams, maintain healthy communication and ensure the transparency of all internal processes.
Agile custom software development practices
The implementation of the agile development practices ensures the fact that the potential partner is flexible enough to embrace the change as your business grows. It means the technology partner will be able to quickly adapt to changes, scale up your product, and implement new technologies and features.
Thus, it will be a great benefit in case a partner can offer you various pricing cooperation models in case the requirements of the project will change so that everything will suit you at any point.
Knowledge transfer and easy exit process
The availability of experience of accepting the project after the other vendors is also one of the criteria. When the customer decides to switch software vendors at a short notice, it is of the utmost importance to organize the knowledge transfer to avoid knowledge loss and miscommunication gaps.
All the abovementioned criteria will help to conduct a detailed yet succinct overview of a potential software development vendor.
Steps of the establishment of cooperation with a new vendor
As soon as you will choose the new vendor, you are eager to work with, it is necessary to take a few steps to prepare for a smooth transition process.
- Formulate a clear project vision, describing the main functions and the core goal of the project.
- Create an RFP(request for proposal) and provide enough info for a preliminary estimate. After you will collect the responses from your vendor, you will have enough info to make the right choice.
- Find and shortlist the potential vendors. Orient on the referrals, listings (Clutch, Good Firms), Blog and Use Cases, expertise in various industries.
- Reach out to the potential candidates to discuss the software product details.
- Conduct an interview to be able to evaluate and compare vendors. Listening to various opinions and approach will enable you to choose the one that suits you the best.
- You can test the vendor in action and see, how he copes with your project in practice.
- A good vendor will ask you many questions about your software project and pay attention to each detail. He will contribute to your project, and be inquisitive, involved and proactive.
Software vendor evaluation spreadsheet
As a bonus, we offer you the software vendor evaluation spreadsheet, which will assist you in the choice of your new software vendor.
- Verify the company’s size, and similar experience in software development and discover previous clients and references. It will serve as proof the potential vendor will understand all the project requirements and details.
- Specify your functional and non-functional requirements in the RFP (Request for Proposal). Request all the necessary details from a vendor and ask questions. This will serve as a basis for future comparisons of potential vendors.
- Dive into the details, requesting the portfolio, and past clients reviews, and discuss the core development, project management, and software deployment process.
- Discuss the methodology and main KPIs. Also make sure to consider time zones and working schedules.
- Go for real-time meetings with the potential software development partners. Discuss the possibility of value-added perks. Discover whether the potential vendor is ready to share the best software implementation practices, offer workflow optimizing methods and warn about the possible pitfalls and difficulties.
- Estimate the cost-efficiency. Shortlist only those candidates, who are technically skilled, enthusiastic, and reliable.
- Take into account the soft skills. Consider the personalities of the key project team members and trust your internal feelings and intuition.
This practical step by step guide will serve as a basic comparison scheme and will considerably ease up the selection of a software development vendor.
Altamira has a unique value proposition for our customers
We are a custom software development company providing a full spectrum of the app and web development services. Our team has successfully helped many customers to build relationships with us on trust and expertise offering the best custom solutions. Client-centric approach, transparency of processes, fast time to market, and individual value propositions make us the best choice for companies facing difficulties.
Our last experience
One of our last projects came after the Pakistanis. The customer had a negative cooperation experience and was seeking clear communication and efficient cooperation built on trust and expertise. Having the extensive experience in accepting projects after failure, we knew the most important aspects were:
- to understand what the client expects from us and what we can do to satisfy those expectations;
- to analyze the reasons why the cooperation with the previous team failed;
- to understand whether the client is ready to rewrite the solution from scratch or he wants to fix the current solution.
Our client had a limited budget and based on the results of the review, our team identified the problems and ranked them according to their criticality – what needs to be done before the start of new development for 100%, what can wait (but needs minor improvements). It is very important to discuss with the client all the risks that may be caused by the legacy code.
Why choose us?
Our expertise, flexibility, and individual client-centric approach allow us to establish efficient cooperation based on trust and understanding of the clients’ needs. Even after fail, we prove or clients that it is possible to find a software development vendor able to satisfy their expectations to the fullest, mitigating the risks and planning the time and budgeting.
We have already helped many customers, who turned to us with problems created by previous vendors. There were situations when it was much easier and cheaper to build the new software solution from scratch rather than fixing the architectural issues. However, there are cases, when current software solutions can be scaled up and refined in a cost-efficient way. Our team will offer the best option for your particular case.
To sum up How to choose a software development vendor
After a negative experience, it may be difficult to find a new software vendor and build cooperation built on trust and expertise. However, awareness is the weapon. By being familiarized with the wrong strategies for choosing the software vendor, you can mitigate the risks and avoid choosing an unreliable partner. A step-by-step guide will help to choose the best possible option and built cooperation, taking into account all the important nuances.