Software development is a sought-after service both for individuals who want to create their website, a start-up, or an interesting idea and for medium and large businesses. These days, no big company, be it the pharmaceutical industry, the agribusiness sector, retail, or the heavy metal industry, all need IT services, otherwise, they will lose the race against time.
The Internet of Things has not been a novelty for a few years now. And the main providers of advertising are Google and Meta.
But what is the right way to move towards digitalization? In this article, we’ll help you decide on both the type of contractor and how to choose one.
Software Development: Who’s Up Against Whom?
The software development market has a huge number of offers, but that doesn’t mean you should necessarily choose the cheapest solution possible.
If you come from the web and marketing industry, you probably know that it is sometimes much more profitable to hire workers from India, Ukraine, or other places with relatively cheap labor to do more monotonous jobs, such as creating basic websites. Link building, simple graphic design, and even content writing.
The problems start when your project becomes more complex because even small misunderstandings in the media can cost you a lot of money.
Who Better To Work With?
Our first thought is to work with a small software development partner or a medium/large company, but there are two other options:
- One is to work with an external freelancer (or a small group of developers).
- The second is to hire an employee from a full company with all the implications (income tax, social rights, holiday pay, severance pay, etc.).
The employee can be very familiar with the company and its DNA, which is also the best way to monitor its performance.
The process is also much more technologically transparent, so we can be sure that the software created will be adapted to the latest hardware and development environments even after a year or two.
On the other hand, sometimes an employee can spend a lot of time on all sorts of activities and breaks unrelated to their work.
This is probably a phenomenon in any organization or company with employees. Nevertheless, let’s assume that you have hired a dedicated employee just for this task. In that case, you need to thoroughly check his motivation level based on inquiries from previous employers, assessment centers, etc.
Another option is to work with freelancers who are essentially ‘lone wolves’ when paid per project.
As mentioned, the offer is very large. You can find a specialist in any programming language or platform worth something… Moreover, the price is usually lower than a similar project at a large software company.
But there are disadvantages too: The freelancer has less commitment to the project, which can hurt long-term support and the ability to maintain the development and release future updates (even if the source code remains with you).
Even confidentiality contracts (NDAs) are not always sacrosanct, which can be very dangerous in a competitive environment.
To Conclude
Aside from developing the initial software concept and testing its feasibility, the actual development of the software is probably the most important part by which anything can rise or fall. Suppose you have done all the tests correctly and compared the various options.
In this case, you will save yourself the headache and financial embarrassment of late and critical stages of project success.
