Tips to Choose the Right Web Development Outsourcing Partner
The advent of Covid 19 has changed the mindset of the world, all the traditional methodologies which were once thought to be new and progressive have now been obsolete with the “new Normal”. While it has affected the health condition of people all over the world, its adverse effects on Economy has been worse.
Looking after this global downtrend one of the obvious things that will rise in getting services online. With the growing preference of people shifting their purchases and everything online it is most important for internet based companies to serve their clients with the best services online in order to make sure they retain their clients.
Software and web development companies always face the challenge of meeting their clients requirements with different tech tools for which they lag resources at all times. This is how outsourcing come to the story. Outsourcing means finding a similar company offering the services which another company does not want to hire resources for. Website development are always looking out for outsourcing partners to outsource their extra projects and it is always important to hire the right agency to get success. Here are few tips to hiring the best agency to outsource website development services.
1. Hire an Experienced Team instead of Multiple Contractors
While making a decision on whether to hire a freelancer or a team is difficult decision due to budget concern however it is always better to hire an experienced team with multiple people with an exposure in different platforms.
Hiring a single Contractor who specialises in one or two specific areas can deliver projects related to those areas and other issues has to be address separately. Working likewise becomes difficult since you have to explain the concept over and again to a new contractor and also maintain a proper track of multiple projects with different contractors which at time becomes exhausting and beats the main purpose.
It is always better to find a team with diverse exposure and knowledge to outsource activities compared to a single contractor as these teams are more professional in terms of specialisation and even meeting deadlines which is very important.
It is always good to work with a team of experts than to believe a single contractor who says he knows everything is just a jack of all trades. A team definitely has diverse experience compared to a contractor since it consists of multiple talents under one roof.
There is also a plus point that since an entire team of expert works on your project, multiple tasks can be completed at a same time following a proper deadline. Also if one member is unable to take up something another person can take up A team of professionals also has stellar communication and time management skills, making your life easier.
2. Technology Stack
Web Development might seem to be a small task in todays’s world of no code era but when we talk about developing a professional than choosing the right technology stack becomes very important. The main challenge is there is an advent of new technology every time and again and different functionality requires different technologies to work on. As for an example open source like PHP and wordpress have become very popular since they are simple hence provide a very excellent way of customisation. On the other hand shopify and bigcommerce are more popular for ecommerce needs.
Technologies like React, Node, Angular etc are helpful for building for complex websites and are fast loading. Working and choosing a partner who has expertise in multi-stack technologies becomes less time consuming and more efficient as far as delivery is concerned. This is why its very important that the web development outsourcing agency comprises of multi-stack skill since you don’t have to approach different places to work on different areas.
Make sure to find a partner with multi-stack Skills.
3. The Process and ways the Industry works:
Following a set process in web development is very important. Most of the agencies or partner lack this. They take up projects and are unable to deliver due to lack of tools and process they follow. It is very important to make sure that the hired agency has a set process in place. Most professionals are very secretive about the information on how they maintain good practice.
The partner you are looking to hire should possess different tools, few of which are mentioned below:-
- Web Application Frameworks – Laravel, Express.js, Spring Boot, .Net Core, Django, Adonisjs
- CMS Frameworks – Adobe Experience Manager, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Drupal, WordPress
- Headless Frameworks – Strapi, Storyblok, Contentful
- eCommerce Frameworks- WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento,
- Front-End Frameworks – Next.js/React.js, Nuxt.js/Vue.js, Angular, Svelte,
- Cloud Services – AWS, Azure, GCP, Digital Ocean,
- UX – Balsamiq, Figma, Invision, Sketch, Adobe
- IDE – VS Code, Jet Brains
They should be able to follow a proper communication channel and can use collaboration tools like skype, zoom etc to inform clients about their regular activities. Moreover once you take a look at the standard of development that an agency maintains with is clients will give you an idea on how good they are in delivering their projects. Although it is evident that the delivery is different for different projects but a professional tech partner will always deliver professionally.
4. A good team is what it needs to be
Flexibility and Adaptability is something which is an important aspect in any type of activity. When choosing an outsourcing partner look for a partner team which is flexible and can adapt to required changes time and again. The partner’s team should be able to understand your requirement and work as per the required job specification instead of pushing in their own terms and policies.
Since web projects needs to be worked on with the collaboration of team work. Both the partner and the outsourcing company’s teams should be flexible enough to handle queries. The inhouse team can share ideas and the partner should understand and take up from there. It will make things easier.
The flexibility should be adapted by both teams and the personnels working on it should keep up the technology needs.
5. Flexible Pricing Options
The primary reason behind hiring a partner agency is cost. It is always costly to maintain a team of people with high-skilled in technology. The benefit of outsourcing is cost saving and the agency should have multiple pricing plans to avail which can be flexible to adapt.
Some of the Common Pricing Options can be
- Fixed Price on Milestone Basis on completion of each part as agreed upon
- Hourly payment for particular time worked on
- Hiring dedicated resource for a particular period of time efficient in a particular role.
6. Choosing a team that offer than only website Development
It is always easy to hire a single team for multiple activities, it makes it easier to interact and relate things as compared to hiring different partners for different roles. Although your basic requirement might be only website development but hiring a partner who also specialises in SEO and content Creation will be really of great benefits. SEO is important for your website to get requisite traffic on your website.
If the hired agency also specialises in SEO you can make sure they develop a website that is Technically complaint with Compelling content and thus can start attracting audience once it goes live. Once the team works on both the activities they will make sure the website appeals to the required target audience.
Not only is hiring a combined team good from marketing point but it is also helpful in saving cost substantially since most of works on technical parts are already completed during development and rest can be cheaper once you promise to hire the team for multiple projects at a time.
7. Communication and Project Management
While hiring a outsourcing partner it is very important to see if they are involved in white label communication. The partner agency should be willing to directly Communicate with your clients regarding their project. It helps in saving costs since you are saved from hiring another project manager or coordinator. Also make sure to choose a partner with effective communication in English, cultural aspect and should have proper information on the project details and deadlines.
8. Bridging the gap between promises and Deliverables
While Finding a partner to outsource a project it is mostly found that most of the companies make promises but deliver less than what is expected from them. That’s why finding and headhunting for a partner who delivers more but under promises is very important.
Any partner believing in these approach will surely deliver their clients value for their money. They are always looking for long term projects and mostly meet up the business goals and uphold the brand value of their agency.,
9. Single Point of Contact for a project
There is a high chance that once you hire an agency you would want them to work on multiple projects at a time. If you are assigned with different contact points at different times than it is obvious that it become time consuming and may lead to delay in delivery.
While Choosing partner please make sure to get a single point of contact to discuss all issues problems and that person should be responsible take up everything with the agency and should get back with the best possible solutions at times. This helps in smoothing the process.
10. Avoiding long-term Agreements
Long-term agreement and Monthly fees are very common in these types of Industries. The fees and the cost depends on the type of work and hours worked. But getting into a long-term contract by paying a bigger and hefty amount may not be a good idea. In this time it is always best to hire a partner who does sign any official contract for a long-term commitment and you always have the freedom to increase, decrease or stop outsourcing the project as per business requirement and as per the cost permits.
11. Real-Time Communication
We are passing through rat race with a world believing in faster results. Same should be in the case of hiring the right partner agency. Customers mostly look for immediate results and real-time communication and tracking is very important and need of hour. Your partner should be available for sharing feedbacks on progress and also should be willing to listen to feedback time and again and take up things accordingly. The partner agency should remain connected through skype, watsapp etc.
There are multiple tols available in the market to track process and progress of the project and for sharing regular work updates and can help in improving productivity and lead to transparency.
12. Customer Support and after sales
Customer support is very important for any service or product offered in the market. Once you are outsourcing the website development project it is evident that there will instances where you are firefighting things and need to get things dine quickly.
The ned for a good customer support team comes here. The design or development agency should have an extended customer support team for effective communication outside regular timings and should be able to even provide after sales support for customers. The customer team should efficient enough to handle things and get the issue resolved during project continuation and even after that.
13. Proven Experience of Working with Agencies Like Yours
Once you are deciding to hire an agency for outsourcing your website development needs you need to make sure the partner agency has the required knowledge and experience dealing with similar projects in the past and can deal with difficult operations. Just good skills are not enough its important to have requisite experience.
The real-time experience gives the team with better flexibility to handle technical intricacies involved in the project. Please ask the agency for their portfolio and also a brief about the completed projects in similar lines.
14. Security
One of the most important clause is security. Web development agencies mostly work on involving in business activities and develops things which are confidential. It is important that they can keep all the information confidential. The partner should be willing to handover codes and also should Sign and NDA to make sure the concept in not spread.
The agency should be professional enough to maintain security of data and taking care of integrity and keeping things safe even after the project is already delivered. Drawing up a data handling and exchanging plan is also important to make sure all the security measure are taken by the company.
From Scalability to cost saving to other varied benefits, outsourcing web development projects is a successful business model that’s running all throughout the globe. However the success completely depends on choosing the right partner who can help reach the target deliverable. It is always better to choose a good service instead of a cheaper one. The article has tried to put few information that will help in decision making.