Top 8 Decisive Questions You Need to Ask Software Vendors Share: CodeRiders Date Published 9 August 2021 Categories Blog Reading Time 4-Minute Read How do I choose a software outsourcing company? Where can I outsource software development? Find the answers to top questions that bother business owners. Hiring the right software development team is the foundation of your success. The software outsourcing process is like a pyramid where the base maintains the whole poise of it. Going through the list of top software outsourcing companies is not enough. Identifying whether a specific vendor is a good fit for your project is a must. This process is possible through fruitful discussions. A huge percent of software outsourcing failures comes from the misunderstandings and miscommunications of the two parties. In our experience, many frustrated businesses approached CodeRiders as they were desperately searching for an appropriate software vendor to finally solve and finish their previous partner’s mistakes. Overlooking and underestimating the importance of hiring the right offshore developers in the large pool of software outsourcing companies is a big “no”. In this article, we will speak about the top 8 questions to ask your software vendor candidate to begin an effective outsourcing partnership. If you also need assistance in how to find the right software vendor candidates, I suggest reading our previous articles about: Where and How to Find a High-Quality Software Vendor 5 Crucial Things to Know Before Working With a Software Vendor Otherwise, let’s dig into the top questions to ask your software vendor candidates before hiring them. Top Questions to Ask Software Vendor #1 Can you provide time and cost estimates as accurate as possible? Make a business and technical requirements document before asking for the time and budget estimates from your software vendor candidate. This is of critical importance as for giving correct estimates your future business partner should fully understand what you exactly need. If you do not have technical documentation or scope of work at your hands, you should better be ready for the “Time and material” engagement model. This means your software partner will charge money only based on how much time the developers will spend working on your project. They will define an hourly-based price or monthly payment. In this case, it will be almost impossible to provide you with the fixed time and budget estimates as there is no full and final version of the requirements. Of course, you can always ask for rough estimates or guesstimates, but don’t take that information too strictly. Be ready, that it can change any time you add a new requirement or ask for something else. A quick tip: You can also make an evaluation sheet afterward, and write down the pros and cons of each candidate, their provided solutions, to choose the right software outsourcing company for you. We at CodeRiders start our software development partnership by learning about the issue, consulting, and offering solutions just like in the below picture. Top Questions to Ask Software Vendor #2 Do you have case studies to prove your professionalism and experience? It is natural that after filtering out the top software outsourcing companies in the market, you research their online reputation before contacting them. However, checking it online doesn’t mean you know all about them. There will still be some other information that is publicly unavailable but is useful for you, such as full descriptions of their previous projects. You can either check descriptions about the previous projects with reviews from the clients or ask the vendor to present you the project via a call and live screen sharing. You can even ask contacts of their previous clients if there is no NDA and if it is sharable information for them. If a software vendor signs a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with their partner, the vendor agrees to keep the partner’s name and other details in private. If your software vendor candidate refuses to present some of the previous works due to the signed NDA, don’t consider this as a red flag. Instead, note that the client keeps it professional and does not send non-sharable information for their benefit. Top Questions to Ask Software Vendor #3 Which industries do you specialize in providing software solutions? This question is the continuation of the previous one. Besides, figuring out your software outsourcing company’s experience level, it is important to check if they are comfortable with providing software solutions for your industry. For example, if you are in healthcare and hospital management industry, you can ask your software vendor candidates the following questions: Are you familiar with the HealthTech and Telemedicine industry? Continue reading the article on CodeRiders’ blog.