Outsourcing of IT needs is the most popular service demanded by small and large businesses. IT outsourcing allows you to significantly reduce costs and get professional IT support from application development to staff growth without significantly expanding the full-time IT team.
There are many IT outsourcing companies offering different services with different interaction schemes. But how do you find a reliable software development company that can deliver high quality at an affordable price? In this article, we’ll share some valuable tips on how to choose the right software partner.
Why look for a software partner?
First of all, you must understand why you are looking for an IT partner. There may be several reasons for outsourcing IT activities:
- creation of a new business application;
- improvement of an existing application;
- adding expertise to your business team.
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If you are looking for a software development partner to create a new digital solution, you should clarify the type of application you want to create – mobile, web, or desktop.
Next, you need to define the type of activity that you want your IT outsourcing company to do, such as front-end or back-end development or both, QA, DevOps services, and others. Or maybe you would prefer to outsource the entire development project to your application development partner.
You can also improve an existing software product or solution that you already have. For example, your mobile development partner can add missing or advanced functionality to your digital solution.
This can be transforming your mobile application into a cross-platform solution, updating the application design, adding AI chatbots, blockchain, IoT, and other valuable improvements.
Finally, you can consider improving the productivity of your in-house IT team by leveraging some of the narrow knowledge of your IT outsourcing partner. The outsourcing team you hire can help your in-house team develop specific functionality in your application, or manage certain operations while your team members focus on more business-critical tasks.
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Do a thorough research
Once you’ve decided on your IT outsourcing goals, it’s time to look for the IT company that best suits your business needs. Unfortunately, this is not an easy task and requires careful research. Many companies make the same common mistake when looking for their IT partners.
They only rely on Google search results. However, Google will only show you its best results, and will not provide you with answers related to your project. This does not mean that the companies you see will be the right IT partners for you. To do this, you need to do a deeper investigation.
Check out the reviews of the companies you found. You can read reviews on their sites, rating platforms, or professional developer sites like Upwork, Quora, etc.
Check links
If you already have a list of potential IT outsourcing partners, another helpful step is to ask for customer references.
You can get referrals about your potential IT partners by asking them for the contacts of their current or previous clients and writing or calling them directly. Before contacting them, you can formulate the questions you want to ask.
This way, you will receive detailed answers and a better understanding of how IT outsourcing companies organize their work.
Assessment prior to appropriate expertise
When looking for a long-term IT outsourcing partner, you must ensure that they can create a solution that meets all your business needs. In addition, your potential partner should have relevant experience in the niche in which you work, such as logistics, healthcare, banking or e-commerce, etc.
As a result, your chosen software company must have excellent development and business skills. This way, you will ensure that your long-term partnership will be stable and fruitful.
Explore case studies
Another effective step to researching potential IT partners is to explore their portfolios or existing case studies. Case studies show you how selected IT partners have dealt with the various challenges they faced in developing products and solutions for customers.
They mention technologies and tools that developers have used effectively, what tests they ran to make sure their applications run smoothly, and how they’ve all been used to achieve an outstanding user experience.
Don’t go for the cheapest options
While the lean approach is a solid business development strategy, it doesn’t work when it comes to choosing your future IT outsourcing partner. In most cases, the companies that position themselves as the cheapest usually have no technical experience and provide low quality.
IT services cannot be cheap as software development services are quite complex. In order to start working in an IT company, a software developer needs 5 years of training. And in order to become a mid-level specialist – another 2-3 years.
Moreover, effective software development requires a well-organized development infrastructure that includes costly advanced technologies. All of these aspects make software development an expensive service.