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Finding the right software development partner is only as critical as the technology they develop is for your business. For many businesses out there in 2022 it means fairly critical.
Companies of all scales and in every industry need to go through a digital transformation to as much as survive, let alone maintain their market share or become a leader.
According to BusinessofApps, app downloads in Google Play Market were on the rise by 3%, continuing an upward streak since the emergence of mobile applications. This is despite the dense saturation of the market with mobile applications and the post pandemic market slack. The Q1 of 2022 further continues the upward trends at 8.5 billion apps downloaded in the first three months.
On the other hand, the proliferation of technologies like cloud computing, IoT, big data, and AI, is helping more small and medium businesses access affordable SaaS solutions that enable the transition from offline to online. According to Flexera’s 2022 State of the Cloud Report, public cloud services are used for a wide range of purposes, from data warehouse [55%] and serverless [36%], to stream processing [31%] and push notifications [41%].
Spurred by both growing demand and increased technological possibilities, digital transformation is becoming more accessible and actionable for many startups and established market leaders alike.
However, many of such businesses are good at what they do, – healthcare, education, finance, retail, – and not the technological part. This is where owners and c-level executives need to pay a sizable portion of their attention. They need to select a reliable software development partner to ensure decades of trials, experiments, and growth.
As a software development outsourcing partner for a host of clients, including Fortune 500 companies, Dev.Pro has first-hand experience with the pains and challenges organizations face when hand-picking the perfect vendor for this role. Here’s how to get it right.
What is a Software Development Partner?
When it comes to role distribution, responsibilities, and SLA between partners, things can get complicated. Let’s start with a brief definition:
A Software Development Partner is a company that contractually undertakes a range of duties related to software development of an existing or upcoming product by another legal entity. This can include tech stack & architecture consulting, MVP ideation and design, development, testing and deploying the product, maintaining the product after launch, and upgrading it as needed.
It’s worth noting that such a partnership can consist of several different forms of engagement: from A-Z project execution to time-and-material based outsourcing cooperation.
Characteristics of Collaboration Between Software Development Partners:
These are three main features of this type of engagement between a product company and a software development firm:
- Exclusivity of the contracted personnel, where contractors devote 100% of their time to a contracted client and often are immersed in the brand’s culture.
- Long-term plans for the project, where both teams aim to develop a product at any stage to the extent where it is successful enough to transpire to another stage or evolution.
- Synergistic effects that arise from the product owner’s knowledge of the industry and are multiplied by the technological acumen of the software development vendor, where 1+1=3.
Theory aside, let’s go through the exact blueprint of a selection process that can yield sustainable results.
In an ideal scenario, a c-level team will spend a serious amount of time and effort investigating the options for a vendor position as early as possible. This will give them full trust in the partner later on and ensure that the client only needs to occasionally conduct helicopter checks of the vendor’s progress.
Getting it Right: Selection Criteria for a Software Development Partner
What do you look for when searching for the right outsourcing development company to embody your business concept in mobile apps and web platforms?
1. Budget Match: Beware of Survivorship Bias
This is one of the more obvious factors, but should never be the deciding factor though.
If you are a startup with a low five-figure angel investment secured from your nearest networking circle and a goal of building a Facebook rival in two years, chances are you will need to trim down on your aspirations sooner rather than later. According to CB Insights, the primary reason for startup failure is insufficient funding or the failure to raise more capital — a surprising 38% of startups collapse for this reason.
These are rules of a thumb for you to consider when considering financial side of things:
- The cheapest option is never the best option. However careful we are to use absolutes like “never” and “always”, this is the case of proper usage.
- Technical experts are not a good area for cost reductions. There are ways to find the best staff at cheaper rates, however.
- The choice of engagement model is critical for understanding of the final amount to execute a project.
- The more RFPs you send out, the more project estimates you will get in return. The process will also offer insights into the going market rate, fine print, and existing models of cooperation.
- Always compare apples to apples when deciding on the budget. Make sure you are talking about the final amount per project / per hour etc – only then do you start filling out comparison sheets.
- Beware of suspiciously low rates — they are usually suspiciously cheap for a reason: you may be dealing with an inexperienced team [who will not be able to deliver on these modest estimates at the end], or outright crooks.
- Spend time asking questions before signing the contract so you get your math right.
To estimate a project correctly, ask your prospect software development partner these questions:
- How much did a similar project in your portfolio cost?
- Did you have to change contracted rates at any point and why?
- What conditions trigger extra billing outside of the scope of the contract?
- What penalties do you think are reasonable if you fail to meet the project timeline?
Now that financial part is covered, let’s get down to what really matters.
2. Profile Match: The Heavyweight Factor
While the product owner should carry most of the responsibility for ideation, market fit, and keeping with the industry trends, it helps if your technical partner has relevant experience in your industry.
If you are in FinTech, look out for software development companies with an extensive FinTech portfolio. If you are in the food industry, shortlist Restaurant Management software development companies.
Not only will you save time explaining the basic principles of how your industry works, you will benefit from the the development team’s experience on similar projects.
Many contracts have a non-compete clause. If you are developing a POS system, chances are that you will not be able to hire the same POS development company as your competitor. But you can certainly look for teams in adjoining categories, like restaurant IoT, robotics, or reporting.
3. Tech Stack Match: Hireable Engineers vs Company Profile
Your company has its reasons for using GoLang, Python, or C# as its primary programming language. Part of your existing infrastructure may be located on Microsoft Azure private clouds. You may have dozens of arguments for why you prefer Kubernetes instead of Docker.
Long story short, tech stack and tool kit selection is a serious subject that needs an earnest approach.
Depending on the complexity of your infrastructure, legacy, cloud service suppliers, modernization or migration ambitions, you will have hundreds of answers for each technical question.
A savvy weathered software architect will be able to conduct a full audit of your existing technology stack, review your product requirements, budgets, and deadlines and align them all providing you with a few toolkit versions, project architecture, as well as ballpark estimates of upfront costs and monthly expenditures.
We don’t need to remind you that cloud cost optimization is its own discipline in 2022. FinOps practitioners are a rare breed in the tech talent pool in that they are capable of positively impacting your bottom line for years to come.
On the other hand, Dev.Pro’s recruitment engine proves that we can usually find the right software engineers to match our clients’ needs and tech stack requirements.
4. Stage Match: The Healthy Ageism
When considering how to choose the right software development partner, it’s OK to be somewhat ageist. When it comes to a company’s maturity, of course.
There are two aspects to consider when looking at a company’s age: you should be mindful of your own experience as well as of the years on the playing field by your potential technical partner.
The logic is simple:
The older your potential partner is, the more experienced and high-rated they are likely to be. The younger your company is, the more likely it is that you will need all the experience a contractor may offer, but may not be able to afford the price tag.
On the other hand, young companies may be established by the people who grew out of bigger companies and are willing to take a smaller margin for a case study in their portfolio. It is safe to suggest that a company that has reached the 5-year milestone on the market is there to stay. However, we have met amazing younger companies on both sides of this business equation.
5. Size Match: Boutique Software Development vs Conveyor Factories
Bigger clients have the luxury of not minding the size of their partners, as they know that some operations are rather boutique and niche in nature.
Smaller companies may have concerns about getting lost among an armada of clients if they decide to partner with a bigger player. Should you end up contracting with a bigger development firm, one of the advantages is that you have the luxury of changing your project manager if you feel neglected.
Scientifically speaking, there’s no one-size fits all answer here and we’d place this factor as minor on the scale of software development partner selection criteria.
6. Time Zone Match: How to Find Software Development Partner with Healthy Overlap
Having your extension team or dedicated team in the same time zone as your headquarters is located is super convenient. But it is also rather pricey.
A healthy overlap of 3-4 hours of working time between teams is ideal, so that teams get in the habit of organizing their work around these overlapping hours and can do prep work during the rest of the work day. It also works as a stimulus to get things sorted by a specific time of the day. Many of our contractors find this time zone limitation to be a productivity booster.
Dev.Pro is owned and managed by a US company, but started with its staff in Ukraine. Now the company is scattered across the 5 continents and over 50 countries. We find that our global talent distribution is beneficial for our US clients, which always have a healthy 3-4 hours of time for meetings and discussions.
7. Culture Match: A Minor Factor for Bigger Enterprises
There are a few reasons why this is a minor factor in 2022, including globalization and the omnipresence of offshore and nearshore software development partnerships. The majority of the people will now watch the same Netflix movies at the same time and celebrate common holidays like Halloween.
However, some smaller companies focus on a family-like feeling and therefore have cultural fit as a prime factor. These companies want to minimize potential conflicts based on minor differences arising from differences in public holidays, time zones, and subordination ethics. Bigger companies may be more open to becoming a melting pot of cultural nuance and may therefore be more willing to embrace diversity.
8. Value Match: The Basis for a Sustainable Partnership
Although we place it as one of the last parameters on this list, we at Dev.Pro believe a value match is critical. At the start of the war in Ukraine, we received an outpouring of support from our long standing partners, since we shared the same ethics.
There are a few things that we invest time and effort into when we become a partner in software development:
- Delivering on our promises
- Owning any mistakes and making amends immediately
- Being transparent every step of the way
- Appreciating the budget and timelines of our partners
- Always proactively offering multiple solutions to emerging issues
We have found that human contact has become even more valuable with the onset of the 100% remote era, so these values serve as the intangible grounding fabric to our globally distributed team members.
9. Aspiration Match: Looking in One Direction
Looking in one direction is far more important than looking at each other.
For more than a decade, Dev.Pro has helped businesses turn their business visions into software solutions.
We have shared the jitters of startups when they are about to receive their funding, the excitement of scaleups when MAU growth is unstoppable, and the matter-of-fact acceptance of a “well done” when things go as planned on a Fortune 500 project.
When you are looking for a partner for software development, you are looking for a business that will be there for you for better or worse, can help you overcome daily and global challenges, and lead you through technical intricacies with ease.
How to Choose a Software Development Business Partner: Afterword
When selecting an outsourcing partner to cover the technical side of things for your project, you will need to conduct many investigative actions, comparisons, market analyses, and check a host of references.
But.
From the 10+ years we have spent in the industry, these rule of the thumbs apply in every case:
- Time and effort spent selecting the right technical partner are proportional to the ease of cooperation and outcome of the project.
- If the c-suite focuses on the selection process, they find themselves in position to spend less time micromanaging later.
Moreover, it’s a two-way road for us at Dev.Pro. We are also selective about who we partner with.
As much as our sales and technical teams like a challenging project, our c-level team engages actively in the contracting process to ensure we will be able to help a project deliver on the promises to the stakeholders.
If you are looking for more info on the subject, we’ve written a few how-to-guides:
Ready to start your comparative analysis of shortlisted suppliers?
Consider if Dev.Pro could be a good fit:
Check our portfolio, LinkedIn Page, and Clutch references. Have questions? Discuss your project with our team.
