How to find the right IT company
Published on January 19, 2018
Last modified on September 04, 2020
Published on January 19, 2018
Last modified on September 04, 2020
We have all tried to look for a programmer or IT company to handle development tasks for our website, webshop, mobile app, or business software. Often, the search for the right software company becomes challenging and gets postponed to the last minute, as the risk of making a mistake and choosing the wrong supplier is high. You enter the state of knowing what you want, but not what you will get.
Here are helpful tips on how you can get the right IT company for your needs.
How you want your website, webshop, or mobile app should be very clear to you. You should know the fundamental functions, main pages, and critical features that will fulfill your goals. Your IT supplier can suggest technical approaches, but you must know the characteristics of your end-product prior to contacting a software company. This is the primary list that you must have.
Find out who you need: is it a programmer? Or a digital marketing expert who understands SEO, Google Adwords, Facebook advertising? Or a technical project manager who will run the project to its full completion?
Then think about the phases of your project:
Identify specific success criteria that should be met by an IT company before you start searching. These may include:
It’s not a necessity to work with local suppliers. You can collaborate with offshore suppliers if you find them fit to do your IT jobs, using the success criteria you have set. IT projects that don’t require you to speak your native language or utilize your cultural knowledge are often best outsourced since it becomes cheaper when done abroad.
These are the tasks that should be made by a local specialist in your country:
And these are the tasks you can send offshore to save money:
This screening process is important and you should not skip. As mentioned above, client reviews and ratings are a dependable performance indicator of an IT company’s credibility. You search for these through Google, or directly ask your potential IT suppliers for client testimonials or for references whom you can ask.
Many companies display their customers’ feedback and samples of work they have done on their website. Use these to find three to four companies you can contact. At 1902 Software, we show both our clients’ statements and samples of projects we have completed.
There are many online rating platforms out there such as Google, Facebook, Yelp, and the like, which you can check.
Check the companies you’ve listed through online business directories or professional platforms to get important information. This will give you an idea on how the company is doing. Be careful not to do business with a company that’s on the edge of bankruptcy.
When doing IT development, be cautious not to work with multiple vendors for doing the same system because, if something goes wrong, both parties can play it safe and easily accuse the other as the cause of the problem. This scenario ends up in useless back-and-forth arguments, where your project ultimately suffers.
If you want different suppliers as a form of strategy, make sure that each work assignment is separate from the other. For example, engage the services of one software company for Magento development, another for WordPress development, and another one for Google AdWords, since these systems don’t normally overlap.
If you’re a medium-sized company without an IT department, you can hire a full-time employee who has extensive knowledge of digital/online marketing and a good understanding of technical things. This talent will definitely save you a lot of complications because he can be the key linkage between you and the right IT company for your complex projects. He will be able to communicate well with you on your IT tasks, and evaluate your actions better than a person with limited IT experience.
In addition, you gain a sparring partner who can help assess the solutions and cost estimates that you receive from your software company, and help you decide within the context of your business directions.
Lastly, hiring a full-time talent can help lower the risk of choosing the wrong IT company. If you lose this talent, you can revert to the IT company for help and vice versa.
Good luck with your search for the right IT partner!
If you’d like to know more about the end-to-end solution that 1902 Software can provide for your next IT project, contact us.