Three things you need to consider before choosing a software company

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Everyone wants to grow their company and outwit their competitors. Most likely, you’ll invest in IT solutions to solve some of the problems and improve overall workflow and operational processes.

And this requires working with a software company, which can be either very smooth or very painful experience. Here it is: 3 things you should pay attention to before hiring a software company.

1. Look for partnership

Building and implementing new technology solutions takes much time and we’re talking about months at best, years in case of bigger systems. This means you’ll most likely work together with the software company you choose for the whole project and during that time that company will cover more and more areas of your venture.

That’s why, it is best to choose a software company that shares your company’s culture traits, uses similar work methodology or you can imagine them to be a trustworthy partner (beside their skill in software engineering). That’s right, look for partners, not subcontractors. Look for someone that can think like you and care for mutual success.

2. They need to understand business

There are dozens of good software companies out there and all of them really understand IT. However, it is not enough. To prove a good match for your own venture, you need to find someone that understands your business characteristics and goals. They also need to understand your industry’s culture and quirks.

The first sign that your potential software solutions supplier understands your business is when they advise you towards different solution to your problem in a factual and logical way. Remember, that they are experts in such solutions and at the end of the day they are responsible for delivering your business objectives.

3. Clear communication

To avoid any unnecessary issues and difficulties, you have to expect clear communication with the software company. You have a Project Owner on your side and a Product Proxy on their side. Then, you have to ensure that both parties communicate regularly. Professional software factories will always use an online software for managing a project to make sure that information exchange happens there instead of on email only. Such a software also helps to make requirements and pipeline clear to understand for both parties. You’ll also have to invest time in routine catch-ups either on the phone, through some kind of hangout or in person.

To ensure that a sprint is a success (all required functionalities meet your expectations and are working fine) we have tools like Backlog Grooming meetings. They usually happen before each new sprint and allow Project Owner on a client side to work with the development team and describe thoroughly requirements to various tasks from backlog.

Keeping-up a good relation and communicating often is necessary to receive a final product that you need.. Ask a software company you talk with about your long-term co-operation, what software for managing project they use and how they would communicate with you. If their answer satisfies you, you’re probably good to go.

The knowledge is power. To find more guidelines on choosing a proper software company try this article.