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Today, more and more companies rely on software solutions to manage a wide range of important tasks. However, as each business may have different technical needs, they often require custom development to ensure that software solutions help them achieve their goals and simplify their work.
Of course, most businesses won’t have top software developers as part of their existing workforce, so will need to outsource this work to a third party. This can certainly bring benefits, such as lower costs and increased efficiency, but if you’re not careful, these relationships can fail and start you from scratch, or worse. However, by following some key guidelines, you can avoid getting burned.
1. Know your goals
As with any other outsourcing relationship, before entering into a partnership, you must clearly define what you want to accomplish. What problem do you want your software to solve? What do you want it to do?
Your ability to answer these questions is critical because it will guide the developer in everything they do. Without a clear vision for the project, they will lack the guidance needed to deliver a satisfactory solution.
related: 7 Ways to Set and Track Your Most Successful 2022 Goals
2. Thoroughly review the contractor’s background
You want to work with the best people, and making sure part of that is doing thorough research to make sure potential partners are up to the task. Of course, this should start with researching how companies hire their developers and their qualifications. This may also require researching the type of software they use, and/or asking for testimonials from past clients, but a particularly key deciding factor is prior experience with projects similar to your own.
As a blog post by Tech9 explain“One of the quickest ways to determine if you should work with a potential partner is to find out if they have worked on similar projects before. Experience in your industry is also something you should consider. If the developer already has [such] experience, or if they’ve done similar projects before, there’s less downtime to understand the details of the business and more time to do a great job. “
3. Communicate well
Even with the selection of a quality software development partner, your work is not done – a task that requires a collaborative process. As a customer, you need to provide feedback and guidance to ensure the end result is as expected, and establishing clear communication guidelines is critical to ensuring questions and other feedback don’t slip through the cracks.as a The article is better programmingLi Lingyang provides the following real-life situations that illustrate the importance of being thorough in this way:
“I emailed my design feedback, but it was lost in the designer’s inbox. The wrong design was passed on to the engineer. Knowing the designer would give the engineer a walkthrough before building, I should have sent my Feedback is left as a comment directly in “
A comprehensive communication approach will help you avoid such incidents.
related: How to find the right technology to bring game-changing growth to your business
4. Ensuring data security is a top priority
According to Risk-Based Security, more than 22 billion records worldwide will be exposed in data breaches in 2021 alone 2021 year-end report. The same report details a 10% year-over-year increase in reported data breaches in the U.S. this year. However, it’s important to keep in mind that many companies don’t report ransomware attacks or other cyber threats when they encounter them, so the actual numbers may be much higher.
This is a crucial consideration when outsourcing software development. Depending on the scope of the work required, you may be sharing confidential data with developers when the last thing you need is their lax security, exposing the data to malicious individuals.
Security measures for developers need to go beyond using firewalls and ensuring cloud-based systems have proper security configurations. 2017 Big Theft Data Report McAfee revealed that 43 percent of data breaches come from “internal actors,” or employees. To make matters worse, half of these incidents were intentional.
Therefore, security-conscious software developers should train employees on how to avoid phishing scams and other security threats. They should also heed intentional threats to take action, such as revoking account access after an employee leaves.
related: 4 things your employees are doing right now that are harming your network
The right partnership is important
As with any other business relationship, successfully outsourcing software development depends on finding the right partner and then communicating effectively so you can collaborate. When you know what you want and can communicate it clearly, your partners will be better equipped to deliver the desired results.
