The fear of trusting software development to an offshore vendor holds back multiple entrepreneurs. If you’ve put your foot down to outsource, make sure to make the most out of the communication. Initial inquiry can substantially pitch in here both to promptly provide cost and dev time estimation on the project and indirectly communicate you much about the vendor.
What information to include in the initial inquiry
The employees of R-Style Lab Business Development Unit – Nikita Dunets (Chief Business Development Officer) and Natalia Osipchik (Executive Business Development Manager) – have shared their profound experience on dealing with initial inquiries and have given quite a few valuable tips to consider. Most websites of outsourcing software development companies have alike features and in the contact area offer to provide standard personal info, like name and phone number. Besides that, make sure to include the following data when outsourcing: As evident as it might sound, providing your email address along with cellphone number will certainly speed up communication and offer your vendor a chance to forward any additional data and documents (like non-disclosure agreement (NDA), for instance) as well as ask any further follow-up questions and probably set the best time for an initial call.
Budget
Budget is certainly sensitive data that most of the customers hesitate to share. There is certainly a fear in the air that the project will be estimated within the indicated price bracket even though it isn’t as expensive. However, it’s important to realize that vendors are disinterested in such dishonesty as the cost of services (hourly rates of IT professionals in particular) are influenced by the market (with the marked difference between IT outsourcing and local software development in the U.S). The market won’t allow them to overcharge you as this will mean to lose clients and give in to the competitors. You can always get in touch with 3 – 5 vendors from the chosen region to compare the estimates. Professional vendors know how to offer an ultimate solution to meet your requirements, i.e. an MVP in case of any budget constraints or a fully-fledged solution. Some companies can even give you a hand in deciding where to start from as sometimes having a prototype is more than enough to address investors with your idea to be fully budgeted. Indicating your price bracket will be also of much help both when defining how much money you intend to spend on the entire project and allow your vendor to make an estimate. Based on that info you’ll see whether he can complete your project to the full within the claimed budget or communicate what set of features can be offered at that cost. “What if I have no idea how much can the solution I need cost?”, you may ask. Surely, no big deal, just click “other” (which is likely to be there) and carry on! Nikita: Budget can be certainly considered a red flag for a vendor that triggers his engagement in your inquiry. This effectively means that an outsourcing company that you intend to deal with invests its time and resources in giving an estimate to your project. Estimation is normally carried out free of charge. So, here’s a tip for you! When the contract has not been signed yet and you’ve got a vendor afire with enthusiasm, you can make use of services that provide professional and expensive technical experts of a company for free. This is especially important if you have certain doubts or hesitations. While this isn’t about writing a technical specification and/or project description for you (which surely won’t be done for free by any company), during the Q&A session you can get highly-qualified answers from technical engineers and team leaders. Quite a bargain, right! Project description This is one of an essential parts of your initial inquiry and another means to get an outsourcing company highly engaged with your project. Surely, you can always address a vendor with a pure idea in mind without its detailed description, which will become the beginning of clarification letters and calls about your project. Nevertheless, if you want to speed up the process of project estimation, make sure to include in the initial inquiry data as described in this piece. If you have a unique idea and certain fears about the leaking of any sensitive data (budget, know-how, just to name a few), make sure to request an NDA to be signed before going into details. Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean that no information should be communicated. You can always mention, which technology you request (mobile and/or web, for instance), time constraints if any and industry/category/genre of your project. By the way, for most of professional IT companies signing an NDA is a part of standard business practices. This document is normally attached in the initial reply or is often available on the official website of a vendor.
Natalia recommends including answers to the following questions in the initial inquiry:
Here’s a tip for you! If you want to compare software developers’ hourly rates, keep in mind that they can significantly vary depending on a region, i.e. from $100-250 in the U.S. to $20-50 in Eastern Europe, for instance. As a part of your outsourcing strategy, it’d be appropriate to compare estimates from 2-3 vendors from the same or close geographic areas. Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America remain the most popular outsourcing destinations. When having certain time-constraints, you can always (but not obliged to!) include a detailed technical specification in case you have it. Otherwise, there’s always a chance to sign an NDA first to be on the safe side. You may not include the following data in the initial inquiry:
Attachments This is really one of the nice-to-haves. Attachment of possible project specifications, sketches (even drawn by-hand!), design prototypes will certainly oil the wheels of communication when outsourcing. A tip for the finale! Make sure to check out that a potential vendor has at least a couple of working hours in your time zone to ensure adequate communication. In fact, if you’re dealing with professionals, you’re likely to receive an initial reply within one (but not more than two) business days. If you don’t, pause for thought concerning the chosen vendor and/or possible communication issues. Bottom line It’s crucial to understand that the more information you give to a vendor in the initial inquiry, the faster he can provide accurate estimates on the project (dev time and budget) and (equally important!) the more seriously your inquiry will be taken. The major objective of the initial inquiry is to build a positive image about your project and you as a valuable customer and trigger the attention of a professional vendor (to have an idea about mobile solutions that we offer, please visit r-stylelab.com). A highly motivated outsourcing company will surely put its time and effort in the estimation of the project to win your attention. This is a win-win situation when a valuable customer gets a professional vendor that is extremely engaged in the cooperation and project realization. *User story means a description of software features from the end-user perspective [1]. **Ballpark estimate means a rough evaluation or an approximate number, which is quite near to the exact number [2].
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