In this age of Hyper-Marketing, everyone calls their organisation “Best”. Potential clients become confused and why shouldn’t they- there is so much noise around this. This becomes more difficult when the client is looking for a Technology partner based overseas. Lets face it, even awards have multiplied these days. So even if an organisation is using some awards( unless renowned), to position themselves as leaders, one can never be sure of it.
With this article, we hope to bring objectivity in this grey area. Using fact based criteria, we can determine if an app development company is best for your specific requirements.
So while you are in discussion with the team of these companies, you can base your enquiry around the following pointers.
1. Quality Vs Quantity of Work
Almost all app development companies have an amazing portfolio to showcase. You can see the diversity of their work cut across industry and technology.
But does quantity suffice?
In our experience, while quantity matters, we should never compromise on the quality. It is the quality of the work that ultimately determines the altitude of the product’s success. So can you estimate the quality of their work- well, here a few quick pointers :
- Traffic on the app – Was any of their products able to touch the million users mark? This matters because it tells you if their engineering team is capable of handling huge traffic. Because, otherwise, your app is bound to crash and deliver a pathetic user experience.
- Play Store reviews – Who better to judge the quality of the work than the end customers. Do give a quick glance at the play store reviews – at least on their best project
- Look and Feel of the Product – Behave like a user, while examining the user. Did you fall in love with the UI(colour scheme/logo etc) or the UX of the product? If yes, then this is a win for the organisation. Else, …..
2. Size matters(Years of experience)
You may be putting your hard earned savings into this project. So, it is essential that your project is handled by experienced players of the domain.
These days, some organisations get your project done by fresh graduates. This may not always end up bad, but there is a high probability that things may not go as planned. Some possible outcomes –
- You get a great app
- You get an average app, but it is delivered much after the deadline ( Experience could have expedited this)
- You do not get your app at all ( in some cases you may be refunded)- but, your go to market time and other opportunity costs are now messed up.
So, you need to ensure that people who are handling your project have great experience in their fields. We recommend that the technical team should have more than 5+ years of experience on average, while other teams should have at least 3+ years of experience.
3. Leadership of the Organisation
This one is my favourite. We read so much about how the right leadership can steer towards its end goal, with minimum efforts.
You need to be very confident about the leadership of the organisation you give your project to. This is because, not only are they driving the team that will work on your project, but also they deal with you, with respect to the commercials and overall delivery of the product.
There is an easy way for this. Before you award your project to some organisation, you must have a good chat with the people who make decisions there. Talk to them about their work commitments and principles in general.
If the leadership is creating a situation of win-win for you and the organisation, you can go ahead happily.
4. Testing Framework
Coming back to the technical aspects, the testing framework of the development company must be great. It helps to avoid market bugs, which doom the destiny of your product.
Some of things you can look for are :
- Tools being used – This is especially useful for Automated testing. This helps find bugs, which would generally not be found manually- and strangely, they are reported by customers.
- Test cases Comprehensiveness – This is very important. The depth of the test cases tells you that the team has understood your app well. Further, it relaxes your mind as business owners, that your app will do good in the market.
- Bug Fixing Frequency – Look at the process of the organisation. When do they start fixing the bugs? Ideally, this should be done along with the development cycle, as otherwise, critical bugs found at the end, may demand changes in the architecture of the app/
5. Effective Communication
You can never communicate everything. There always will be things that were not said. If the Business and Product team is unable to gauge your idea well, you should not go ahead.
This can easily be understood by looking at the initial Scope of work and functional document that their team shares with you(after discussion about the requirement with you).
So, the most important team whose communication skills you cannot compromise upon – Product guys. This team will coordinate with the Business Analyst, Designer, Developers etc.
If you are comfortable with this team, you can definitely go ahead.
Read: Top 5 Reasons for Outsourcing Mobile App Development
Blog: https://steadyrabbit.in/blog/top-5-reasons/
So, our analysis says that there are 3 broad categories of businesses seeking to outsource mobile development.
Why?
IT Services providers too are a business as you are . They want to make a mark in the industry with high quality. They do so by creating a robust hiring process and retaining the best and diverse talent of the industry.And, all this for their own goodwill in the market. While if a new business owner wants to hire a team, it will be difficult for her/him to attract diversity unless of course.
She/he has large pools of funds and a good brand image in the job market.
Read: How to spot top app development companies?
- Go To Market Time
Conclusion
There never is one thing that makes a product or development company “Top”. It is a bunch of things that, when done timely, help you achieve success. We at Steady Rabbit, have been through the product journey(Our last product was loved by 30 Mn Subscribers), and are now leveraging our learnings in the IT services industry. Take a look at the bunch of things we did.
https://steadyrabbit.in/success-story/
Connect with the best and get your requirements fulfilled.