Outsourcing IT technology has recently become a desirable option for business, which isn’t strange because of its advantages (which you may see here). To ensure that your cooperation will go smoothly, it’s worth discussing four key issues described below before you sign a contract. This way, you’ll ensure that the team you select meets your expectations, and the second side gets to know the scope of their tasks and obligations.
Step 1: create a clear plan and clarify your goals
Many ordering parties are often surprised that an IT company expects them to create a product specification or concrete determination of their goals. However, it is a key stage to check whether the chosen experts will be able to meet our expectations. No project will be successful if it doesn’t have a strictly defined road map. It will also be challenging to execute specific results without establishing the indicators to measure them.
Step 2: Check their experience and technologies
Choosing your project team, consider the company’s practical experience and the technology they use. If you select a big IT company, you must remember that even the richest portfolio on a website may be out of date. Also, the employee rotation in such companies is so big that the current team may not know answers to some problematic issues and therefore fail. That’s why it’s critical to verify what tools the team uses (e.g.. PHP 7, Python, My SQL, JavaScript, or HTML5) and what technologies they prefer at work (e.g., Swift, Slack, Redis, or Kotlin). This is to minimize any misunderstandings or errors, and you’ll be sure that you get the services of real experts.
Step 3: Get to know the team and ask about finances
Interpersonal communication seems not to have a fundamental role in IT projects, but it’s untrue. We’re all people, have specific characters, habits, or stereotypes. While deciding on working with an external team, meet them, get to know the whole crew, and see who will be sitting on the other side of the screen. For the project’s sake, you need to trust each other and build rapport to cooperate smoothly. While meeting in person, it is a good idea to ask about settling accounts (in tranches or in total) and the model of cooperation (in-person meetings or via Slack/Microsoft Teams). It’s also good to discuss the partner’s business stability and make sure they have enough financial background for the next months. All plans for takeovers or changes in ownership structures should be communicated ahead to avoid possible holdups in work on the project.
Keep in mind that the size of the company is key when choosing your outsourcing partner. Sometimes the approach “the bigger the company, the better” doesn’t work because big companies have a hard time focusing fully on every client. Usually, smaller clients get a team of less experienced developers because the seniors work for crucial projects, even though they pay the same, hefty amounts. A smaller IT partner is often more flexible, can adjust a budget for the client, and strives for close, long-term business relations.