Your IT outsourcing vendor can bring you enormous benefits. However, finding the right partner is not easy at all, especially when IT outsourcing providers are mushrooming around the world. In this article, GCT Solution will suggest 6 critical questions to ask your potential IT outsourcing vendor before deciding to sign any IT outsourcing contract.
6 Key Questions To Ask Your IT Outsourcing Vendor Before Signing IT Outsourcing Contracts
1. How do you often communicate with clients?
This is the most important question you should ask your IT outsourcing vendor. Especially, in case you outsource an offshore IT outsourcing provider, communication methods must be defined clearly even in the initial days. Thorough communication enhances workflow, documentation and modifications for projects.
What should you expect?
Your potential IT outsourcing vendor should have an established process for communicating with clients, as well as should be able to communicate clearly and patiently across platforms. Transparent communication is essential to turn your ideas into reality. Which platforms will they use? Will they respond to you immediately in working hours?
2. Do you have any case studies from other clients?
A great IT outsourcing vendor will not convince you just by words. They have a number of successful case studies to support their viewpoints. Their quality of software product, timeline and resources for a project, etc, should be clearly present to you.
What should you expect?
Ideally, your potential IT outsourcing provider will show a brief of their case studies on their website, or in their portfolio, so that you can easily access it. In case these documents cannot be published because of NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), their sales representatives should show you case studies in the meeting, or e-meeting.
It is better that they have some experience in your domain. However, you should not consider this the only, or major factor to make a decision. It should be a bonus point only.
3. How can you estimate the timeline to complete the project?
Software products, such as mobile apps and web apps, often take longer time to build, and often become more complicated than planned. Small, incremental but frequent modifications lead to a plenty of additional work.
What should you expect?
These additional costs can be well controlled by updating schedules and specifications regularly. Before you require an extra feature, you must ask the development team about their scope of work, conduct their viewpoint and require the PM (project manager) to rearrange tasks.
4. How many developers or engineers do you have?
The more developers the IT outsourcing vendor has, the more resources they can provide your project.
In major cases, a software development project often lasts longer than their original timeline. With a smaller company, your new projects may not start on time.
What should you expect?
With a big IT outsourcing provider, you can easily gather middle or senior developers into your project. With many years of experience, they can have skillful technical stacks, deep insights and professional attitudes.
5. What development methodology do you apply?
The development methodology shows the navigation through the complex process of software development. Agile and Waterfall are the two most popular methodologies in building software products.
Waterfall vs. Agile comparison
|
Waterfall |
Agile |
|
|
Timeline |
Fixed The start and finish of the project are already planned from the beginning. |
Flexible The schedule can be changed during development progress. |
|
Client involvement |
Very little Once the goal is agreed on, you, as a client, are not involved in the process, apart from handing over deliverables, because the project requirements are outlined from the start. |
Very active You, as a client, need to be involved in project management. Your main role is to constantly give feedback to the software development team. |
|
Flexibility |
Not really flexible Each phase must be completed before moving on to the next one. The project process from start to finish is planned ahead of time. |
Flexible Agile welcomes experimenting in different directions, incorporating new features even at the final phase of the project. |
|
Budget |
Fixed It is because the project is determined from start to finish, there is less room to change the budget for the project. |
Flexible It is because Agile is open to adaptation, encourages experimentation and improvement, even in later phases of the project. |
What should you expect?
We encourage you to choose the IT outsourcing vendor using Agile methodology. They can adapt to change at the end of each sprint, without rewriting the entire process.
At GCT Solution, we use Agile methodology. It is flexible, saves cost and enhances communication. Daily report is a must to keep track of progress. Each sprint lasts for a week or a certain number of days. After a sprint, we have a meeting to review all of the work delivered, and discuss anything we find unreasonable or difficult.
6. Will you build an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)?
When it comes to software development, many businesses have to wait too long to launch the product to market. However, some products take much more time than estimated because bugs are found at the end of the development process, which requires a lot of time and effort to fix. Or some horrible errors are found after releasing the product, leading to bad user experience (UX).
Therefore, you need to build an MVP. MVP is a product with sufficient features to attract early-adopter clients and verify a product concept early in the development cycle. Find more about the benefits of MVP in software development here.
What should you expect?
Your IT outsourcing vendor should have a plan to build an MVP for your software product. MVP illustrates core features and functions of the software, so that you can bring it to users and collect feedback, then make some improvement based on it.
Final thought
Finding a suitable IT outsourcing partner is not easy at all. Hiring them costs you a lot of time and money. Therefore, you must ask critical questions to make sure that you are going the right way and making informed decisions to sign the long-term IT outsourcing contract.
If you are seeking a seasoned IT provider, GCT Solution is the ideal choice. With 3 years of expertise, we specialize in Mobile App , Web App, System Development, Blockchain Development and Testing Services. Our 100+ skilled IT consultants and developers can handle projects of any size. Having successfully delivered over 50+ solutions to clients worldwide, we are dedicated to supporting your goals. Reach out to us for a detailed discussion, confident that GCT Solution is poised to meet all your IT needs with tailored, efficient solutions.
