In today’s interconnected and remote working world, any business can find the best remote software developers and development teams at the most attractive prices to build their own business apps. However, the search for the right team can be a real challenge. For a new startup or business all the different technologies and engagement models can be quite perplexing, especially for a businesses who are looking for a software development company for the first time.

We look into the software vendor selection process for IT outsourcing:

Key ideas to keep in mind:

Before selecting any outsourcing company, businesses should take their time and turn the attention to their projects. The more clear idea you have about the type of project, what are the requirements of the product and expected outcome; the better it will be to find a right match for IT vendor.

Project Evaluation:

To understand their projects better, businesses can take the following steps:

• Define the type of a project – if it’s an MVP or simple project with minimum features to implement or a complex solution with flexible requirements;
• Evaluate the scope of a project – businesses need to decide on the future of the product, consider any feature enhancements, if any third party service integration and more. They should also check if any industry / domain specific compliances will be required for the app.
• Estimate the project budget – allocate a ceiling for the budget for small projects. For small projects with detailed requirements it’s easy to assign a ball-park budget. For large projects with changing requirements, the budget can be reevaluated with any changes in requirement as the project progresses;
• Define time to market – customers should realize if an early product release is a determining factor for the success of their business or they could afford more time for their app development;
• Establish deadlines – customers have to define the deadlines and share the expectation wit IT vendor;

Main vendor selection criteria to base your evaluation on

Once the basis project scope and expectations are documented, vendor selection can follow selection based on relevant experience, portfolio, reviews, and some other factors.

Here are some essential criteria for software vendor evaluation:

Experience:

Software vendors will have different levels of software development experience and domain expertise. To find the right one, businesses usually search for ones who have experience in similar domain / projects. For example, if a company specializes in SaaS applications, it’s very likely that its teams also develop various enterprise level applications.

Few business directories that can help with search for software outsourcing vendors with relevant specialization from trusted sites like Goodfirms, Clutch, Upwork.

Expertise:

It may be quite challenging for some companies to find tech experts locally. For example, they may need developers with a special technology stack, like MERN stack development or building microservices-based apps in Java. That’s why many businesses search for them abroad.
IT staffing or outsourcing companies have certified developers with expertise in various technology stacks and expertise.
Another point to consider is tech infrastructure. Software vendors should provide their customers with great hardware and software infrastructure as well as networks. This will ensure that the delivered apps are thoroughly built, well tested, and the data is securely stored and exchanged.

Portfolio and References:

Once shortlisted, the vendors can be further filtered by investigating further portfolios and references.

Once can go to the companies’ websites and evaluate:

• how well they are organized and developed;
• what projects they have in their portfolios;
• what kind of prior working experience they have.

Besides that, businesses can also visit trusted review sites like Goodfirms and Clutch, and validate with companies’ reviews.

Location & communication:

For overseas vendors, businesses need to make sure that the communication channels are well-established. It means that software development companies provide them with:

• means of instant communication, like Skype, messengers and corporate emails;
• work progress tracking apps, like Trello and Jira;
• apps for video conferencing like Zoom and Google Meet for planned meetings.

Besides the means of communication, the development team also need to have a strong level of language expertise and for effective communication.

Pricing:

Pricing for the projects can vary on the type of the engagements like fixed cost pricing, hourly engagement or T&M based engagement.
Along with a dedicated team, staff augmentation can also be done for other project critical roles such as UI/UX designers, cloud engineer, project managers etc.

Concluding thoughts:

The development of successful and robust business applications heavily relies on an informed choice of software development partners. To select software outsourcing vendors carefully, businesses can undertake several steps:

• thoroughly evaluate their development projects, project development models;
• wisely choose an engagement model;
• have a well-documented project scope to get an accurate estimate.
• Have a well-defined Service-level agreement (SLA)

All these activities can help businesses effectively minimize expenses, fast track development and choose an IT staffing vendor who is a right fit for their business goals.