What questions should you ask before settling for one software house?
The portfolio and the various services of a particular software house are an important factor that should be considered when selecting a programming provider. First of all, it is worth answering a few questions about the nature of the planned project.
What are the specifics of the company?
Can you indicate which particular competencies your project requires? Do you need professional advice, the employment of external specialists or do you rely on a comprehensive implementation of the entire project? It’s also worthwhile to determine if you need special technology and programming solutions that will make your project work. For example, if you need to authenticate mobile payments or back up user data, you should set it from the beginning. For example, if you have an online trading business, you choose the e-commerce software house specialised in this industry.
How big is your project?
Does your project require the involvement of the whole team or just a few people? If you already have specific skills to run your business, be sure to specify them and identify other possible areas of specialisation where you need help.
What budget do you plan to spend on the project?
How do you want to finance your business? Will the budget change over time or do you want to make that clear right from the start? You should also specify whether funding is external, internally, and how high your budget is.
How much time do you want to spend on the project?
Do you have a scheduled date to which you would like to be done? Do you work with stakeholders who can stop funding if you do not meet certain deadlines? Do you foresee situations in your company that could affect the start or stop of your project?
If you answer all four questions carefully, you can be sure that you have determined the correct course of action. This excludes companies that do not meet your requirements from the start. If you compare your answers to the results of companies that have done similar projects, create an initial list of potential candidates.
What to look at when choosing software house?
Portfolio and experience
- Did the company carry out similar projects to yours? Is he eg an E-commerce Software House specialist?
- Did she cooperate with well-known brands on the market?
- Does the company specialise in many different sectors or has it chosen only one field?
- Does it have projects related to UX and UI design in its portfolio, system architecture or applied technological solutions – which ones?
- Does the company also deal with mobile applications and PWA?
How to communicate with a client?
- Does the software provider get involved in creating the customer’s product vision and in working out the best solutions together?
- Does it translate specialist terms and proceed in such a way that the service is understandable and transparent for the client?
- Does he assess his solutions from a business perspective?
- Does he care about the client’s success and not only on the service?
- Does he use special tools to communicate with the client or does he give the client some insight into the work being done?
- Who will be qualified for running the project and how will you be able to contact this person? It is particularly relevant if the company you choose is located away from your business location.
Commands and references
Way of work
Competencies, technologies and security
- What programming languages do programmers specialise in?
- Does the company carry out work in the area of a frontend, backend or both?
- Does the company produce mobile applications, web applications and does it specialise in CMC and Internet solutions from Things (IoT)?
- Does the e-commerce software house pay attention to the efficiency of the system and does it care about its security?