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If you are here, probably you run a company and care about its development. You have ambitious plans and opportunities - potentially, you want to tackle a new market or hire more employees. That's why you have decided to outsource dedicated software which would facilitate achieving your goals. How to choose the best offer?
What to look for when comparing offers?
There are many software houses on the market offering their services. When preparing their offers, they display the biggest advantages of the proposed solutions. It is often the price or the degree to which they can tailor the software to your needs.
Experience of the company and the implementations
These are not always highlighted, even though they are an important guide for the customer. The possibility to look into some projects of a software developers team allows you to decide whether the applications they can offer meet your expectations. What is more important than the size of the company is its customers' satisfaction. It is worth to look for the customers' opinions on the Internet, if possible. Looking through some completed projects, it is good to see if those are designed with RWD. If so, those will respond to the screen of any device you use them on.
Stages of developing bespoke software
Does the software house give you clear information on them? Does it say how long each of them will take? That proves how professional and structured approach the company has. Preparation of the solution should consist of the below stages:
-Identification of your needs.
-Signing a Software Development Agreement.
-Preparing the documentation and the mockup of the application followed by a discussion with you.
-Development of your application by the software developers.
-Testing of the solution in the software house as well as by yourself and your team.
-Making potential amendments.
-Delivering the application to you.
-Implementation of the solution in your company.
Skipping one of the stages may leave you with under-performing software or your employees unsure of how to use it effectively.
When it comes to the stages of developing a solution, what also really matters is the time devoted to each as well as the way of accomplishing them. The essential questions to ask are:
-How long does it take to prepare the documentation and the mockup? Is there a time limit and what happens when you exceed it?
-How and how many times is the solution tested?
-Does the advisor manage the project until it is fully completed or is the project handed over to another person once the mockup has been done?
-Who acquires the ownership rights to the developed solution?
To avoid imprecise information regarding these questions, all the above issues are described in the agreement between you and our company. At Kamee we ensure unlimited time for preparing the mockup, where you can make changes as long as you need to. When the application is ready, we test it twice, creating two independent teams, which examine the software efficiency. The third test is done by you. Our advisor acts as a supervisor, accompanying you throughout the whole process of developing and implementing the solution. We give you the complete documentation and the source code along with the right of ownership of the dedicated application.
Degree of integration and possibilities of development
Is it possible to integrate the bespoke application with other external systems, e.g. email, invoice or warehouse management software? What are the possibilities of adding new modules in the future? For some software houses, these two matters are problematic for two reasons:
-Integration is a time-consuming process, which in case of many companies means the cost of this service is very high.
-Depending on who holds the ownership rights to the application, it is not always possible to outsource its development to another company.
To make it possible, you have to have the source code. However, if you only buy a license for utilizing the solution, you have no source code, which means any further development of the solution can only be made by the author of the application. In this way, you cannot outsource the development to another software house.
Is the price a priority?
Although it is an important factor that you have to look at when choosing a software house, it is not the most crucial. Skipping the above elements of the process of tailor-made software development may leave you with a solution which will turn out less cost-effective in the long run.
More articles:
9 things you should know before you talk to a software house
What to ask about when choosing a software house?
How to choose a software house?
Why is it worth to work with programmers who use Ruby?
See our work:
Intranet - E-commerce - UK, US, Brazil, Singapore, Russia, Turkey, UAE, Poland
Bespoke system for an HR company - Wurselen, Germany