Rapidly evolving technology is revolutionizing the current business models and competitiveness of organizations of all sizes. The entire business ecosystem and its customers/ users have moved to the digital platform. Customers demand a superior user experience and organizations understand that digitization is the best way to meet this expectation.
Ideally, organizations should leverage their own expertise to build high-quality digital products for customers and handle their digital transformation journey. But at times, they may not have the desired knowledge and expertise to grow and thrive in a competitive market. Hence it becomes imperative that they have to collaborate with vendors who have the specific expertise to meet the business requirements. At times the objective behind partnering with another company is to reduce operational costs, to focus on core business, to provide enhanced service quality, to access the latest technology expertise, or to drive the digital transformation journey. Organizations must define a clear objective for selecting a software development company as they may make or break the future of the company.
In this article, we explore different factors that organizations should consider during the selection process of a custom software development company.
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Work with a team you trust!
Reliability, dependability, and sustainability are three significant criteria while evaluating a vendor to partner with. These act as catalysts to meet the requirements in the long run. Assess the vendor’s team to understand their hands-on experience and expertise, their presence in the market, global certifications they hold, and the geographical presence or accessibility will help you find out if they’re the right fit. Having a look at years they have been in the software/web development business, the size of the company, the reputation they hold in the ecosystem, and growth since inception will help to determine whether they are dealing with a reliable partner.
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Ask for client references & recommendations
Hearing from the clients whom the vendor partnered with will help you assess the credibility & expertise of the company. Platforms such as Clutch, GoodFirms, AppFutura, are some sources that will help you to get some real/unbiased customer feedback, customer testimonials, and reviews. Clutch 1000 listing allows organizations to find answers to questions such as “Will they understand my company’s unique needs? Will the final solution help my company grow? Will they even deliver what I asked for on time?” from a single platform. It is always advisable and essential to request a reference call with their existing clients to get a clear picture of the vendor’s capabilities, their quality, and approach towards each project. An excellent vendor would proactively set up reference calls with their clients to testify their offerings.
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Evaluate the portfolio of offerings
The vendor’s portfolio is a perfect reference point for organizations to evaluate the depth & breadth of their offerings. A detailed comprehension of services offered by the vendor will give you an idea to get prepared for all possible outcomes from this partnership. A deep dive into the challenges they faced, the solutions they offered will help to understand the in-depth knowledge the vendor possesses. Knowing the anticipated cost during the evaluation phase will help to assess the costs required for the current requirement. Organizations can ask for customer success stories, case studies, white papers to evaluate their exposure across different industry verticals and how they have offered and customized their solutions to best suit each client.
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Ensure excellent project delivery process
Quality, cost & time determine the success of any projects. During the evaluation process, the organization should evaluate these dimensions to make sure they have hands-on experience in handling projects like yours. Knowing the cost & time they take to complete similar projects will help to estimate and allocate budget required as well as plan for the delivery of services/products. A detailed look into the vendor’s perspectives and approaches towards project implementation can lead you to make better decisions. A right vendor will always come up with suggestions and advice the organization to adopt and follow specific strategies based on their experience with previous projects.
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Choose a company that has the upper hand in cutting-edge technologies
At times, companies easily get caught up in looking at innovative features that a vendor offers and lose sight of the real value additions or solutions to their problems. While evaluating the technology or technical expertise, companies can present the vendor with a real problem and ask them to illustrate how they would solve this problem. During the demonstration, their expertise in handling different tools and techniques, proficiency in using various programming languages can be gauged. The expertise and proficiency in solving the problem gives a glimpse of a vendor company’s culture as well, helps you to see if this culture goes well with your culture or not.
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Have a look at the company’s industry recognition.
While choosing an ideal software development partner, companies must have a look at the industry recognitions, awards & certifications of the vendor. In software development, many processes are subject to international certifications & compliances such as ISO, GDPR, HIPAA, FHIR. Organisations should ask prospective partners whether they possess the corresponding certificates. Quality international certifications and compliances will act as justification parameters, w.r.t project management, information handling, process management, & data security management. In short, it is essential to consider vendors who are compliant with industry quality standards and certifications to ensure the best quality services. International rankings & awards such as Clutch listing, Inc 5000 listing, Top Tech companies, Deloitte Top 50, etc. are few reputable ones in this field. An organisation can easily shortlist companies that have high visibility and credibility in the ecosystem from these listings.
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Gauge the partner’s geographical presence
Companies must evaluate the outsourcing partner location before signing off the contract. Favorable, convenient, and easily accessible geographical locations play a vital role in choosing software development partners. It is advisable to have a thorough evaluation of the vendor’s geographical presence w.r.t geopolitical stability, business environment & IT business landscape. Prioritise vendors who have a local presence and support systems like engineers, business analysts, implementation experts etc. to meet your business requirements precisely. Companies with a global presence will have a comprehensive expertise, which will ease the process of software development from business requirement gathering until successful deployment.
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Are you getting the right software development team on-board?
Ensuring the vendor team’s qualifications, certifications, and experience is directly proportional to your project’s success. In addition to providing the right mix of talents, companies must keep track of the vendor employee attrition rate. This helps to know if the chosen team is going to be with the project from the start till completion.
Companies must evaluate a vendor’s ability to handle projects of different scale. Having a look at the number of employees will help you understand whether they will provide dedicated support to your business requirements. Choosing the right sized company will give a clear vision of the vendor’s ability to extend the development team bandwidth to meet immediate requirements.
Concluding Remarks
For building a successful partnership, companies must do comprehensive research on the vendor, its services, client portfolio, reviews, and recommendations. Based on these criteria, one can choose a vendor who meets all business requirements to build innovative products.
With over 13 years of experience, blackrock Technologies delivered software development services to more than 500 enterprises and startups across a variety of industries. blackrock is consistently ranked in Clutch listings, bagged industry recognitions such as Inc 5000 list for our relentless customer focus, results-driven approach, and technology innovation. With the help of the right software development partner like Experion, we ensure that your idea gets translated into a market redefining product. Talk to our expert today!