Each software development company offers its own design options, different platforms, and prices for its services. But how to choose the best option for creating a website or app for your company? In this article, we will consider how to choose the right international software development company.
Problems you can face with the wrong choice of contractor
By choosing developers who don’t have the necessary knowledge and experience to create a working product, you run the risk of setting goals incorrectly, delaying development, and ending up with a solution that doesn’t work. Here are the risks you can face.
Non-working product
The biggest risk is to spend time and money, but getting a product that works intermittently, does not simplify the business, and does not meet the original goals. Usually, a non-working product is the fault of both parties: the customer has high expectations, and the developers, on the contrary, underestimate the amount of work and do not calculate their strength.
The main reason is a misunderstanding between the customer and the contractor. It’s when the work is carried out not to the result, but to the end of the paid hours. In this case, for any minor deviations from the original TOR, the contractor issues additional invoices. There is a problem when none of the parties is responsible for the failure to meet deadlines.
Failure to meet deadlines
Inexperienced contractors are not able to adequately evaluate the work: they assure the customer that they will make the application twice as fast and cheaper than other development studios. This happens because the developers do not fully understand the complexities of the project and do not include additional time for design, testing, acceptance, and technical support. Such performers do not have knowledge in the field of software design and experience in creating a system architecture that is ready for scaling. And they also work on project documentation, which does not contain clear requirements for the product.
It happens that even experienced developers miss deadlines: when it comes to a large-scale project and its subsequent support, they can also make mistakes when estimating labor costs. If we evaluate the project offhand, the semi-annual plan may well turn into a year in fact.
To make it easier to complete a long and complex project, we divide all work into sprints – short time intervals for which it is convenient to complete the agreed amount of work. It is easier to work in sprints, as you can accurately estimate the deadlines and tasks and not violate agreements with the customer. On the part of the customer, working in sprints requires discipline in coordinating the stages of work. So we always warn about this at the beginning of cooperation.
Wrong goal setting
Before developing an application, the customer company must have a clear goal. Why a business app? How will it improve the lives of customers? However, many customers do not set specific goals before the start of work: competitors have an application, which means we need it too.
Try to answer the following questions, and then be sure to discuss them with the performer:
- Why do you need this product?
- What is your motivation?
- What metrics are most important to you: revenue, user base, time spent on the app, monetization, and brand awareness?
- What are the success criteria? How will you measure success one year after the app is launched?
It happens that a customer comes to the developers and says: “Guys, make me an application so that I can keep up with other companies in the market. I don’t expect it to have a big impact on sales.”
The developers make a simple application, and then the customer tells: “Users don’t want to use the application, it’s more convenient for customers to place orders on the site, and not in the application, you are to blame for everything.”
In such a situation, the developers are not to blame: the customer initially set the wrong goal for them. He could ask them to make an app to bring 20% of the order in six months, and the developers could dive deeper into the customer’s business, take into account all the nuances and make a product that fits into the customer’s ecosystem.
Difficult communication with developers
When communicating with developers, it is important to observe the golden mean: to keep everything under control, but not to act as a dictator. Excessive bureaucracy or an attempt at total control can become a problem if the customer wants to fully control all stages of development.
In another situation – the initiative is completely on the side of the performer. Cases when the customer is guided by the principle “We paid you the money, and you do everything by yourself” always lead to a negative result.
Application development is always a partnership in which the customer and developers are full participants in the process.
What pay attention to when choosing a software development company
When choosing developers, pay attention to the presence of reviews, similar projects in the portfolio, and the cost of work. Here are the criteria to consider when choosing a contractor.
Reliability
People write and talk about reliable contractors. Reviews and video reviews on the site and on social networks, participation in the ratings of mobile application developers, and a long period of existence on the market – all indicate that the performer has received recognition from customers and colleagues and knows his business well.
Experience
If developers have already made the product you want to create, they know all the pitfalls and understand how to optimize the process. Experience allows companies to take into account the knowledge of predecessors and reduce development costs.
Price
Compare the amount that the contractor wants with the price tags of other companies in the IT market. This will help to understand how adequately the contractor evaluates his work. As a result, you will not overpay for development and will not work with those who are ready to make a solution for a suspiciously low price and, most likely, will not show the desired result.
Transparency
Is the contractor ready to connect you to communicate with the team? Will they give you access to a task tracker to estimate the time it takes to work? Will you get access to the source code? The more transparent the relationship between the customer and contractors, the more likely the product will be successful.
Speed
Pay attention to how quickly the contractor prepared a commercial offer and how quickly the manager answered questions. This will help to understand how the processes in the contractor’s company are arranged. If everything was clear at the project discussion stage, most likely it will be so at the development stage.
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