With the onset of the e-commerce industry in the past decade, new companies working on the website and mobile app development have sprung up like mushrooms in every corner of the world.
Finding or hiring a developer is easier than you can imagine. What is difficult is to find the right company suitable to do the job for your business. And by the right company we mean which can add value other than just development to your business with their experience and expertise in e-commerce.
We have been around in this trade for more than a decade and we have completed several e-commerce projects with challenging requirements. With our experience, we can suggest what you should look for when finalizing on hiring a development company for your mobile app development project. It is not only time consuming if you do not know where, to begin with, but also very challenging to get the right fit.
We have therefore come up with a process which you can consider following when you are on the lookout for hiring a Mobile App Development Company for launching your new app in the market.
- Locating the Developer or Development Company
There are numerous platforms online which facilitate finding the right company for your mobile app development needs. Before you start looking out, make a list of features you require in your app. Depending on the technology and operating system of your mobile app, you can narrow your search to find technical experts in your location.
Decide on whether you want to hire an independent developer specializing in mobile application development or you are looking for a company with a team of strategists, consultants and designers to do the work for you.
For freelance workers, the best options are Upwork, Toptal, Freelancer, Flexbjobs, Guru, and Project4Hire. You can also contact some freelancers on LinkedIn and Outsourcely as well. Their ratings are according to their past clients and you can also ask them to show their recent project to assess their skills better.
If location is not a constraint, you can get top end skilled developers at low rates and get your app within no time. They are flexible with time-zones and schedule to provide you the services on time to fit your requirements.
Another great option is to contact an HR agency to find a startup with a small yet dedicated team to work on your project. HR agencies have a strong network and can assist you in finding the right match to suit your business challenges and get your work done on time. You can save a lot of time and effort as they will do the hunting for you and you just have to explain your requirements to them once.
- Screening their Work
Whether you want to go ahead with a freelancer or a team of developers working in a company, checking their past projects on mobile app development is very important. This will give you an idea about their knowledge, expertise and what you can expect them to deliver. We are not saying that if they haven’t worked on similar requirements like yours, they cannot do it for you. There is always a first time for everything. But make sure you have the bandwidth regarding time to bear their learning curve, else you will feel frustrated if they cannot give you the desired result in the first go.
If you are tight on the schedule, then it is better to go with someone who has successfully completed a similar project in the recent past and is willing to add more value to your project with their experience.
Another way to test their abilities is to give them a test project and see how they perform. It should be a standalone project in general but complex enough to see if they are ready to put in some effort to your work.
- Engagement Model they work on
When engaging with a company, check on their engagement model and how they serve their clients for mobile app development and other services. What is their process and how they adhere to the standards? What is their communication strategy and whether they will provide you with a dedicated account manager and team to work with you? Ask them as many questions as possible to get clarity on matters such as development process, project schedule, iterations or prototyping, and communication methods and frequency.
They should involve you in the project as much as possible to get the desired results on time, especially if this is the first time you are dealing with them. The company which involves their client at every step is transparent in its dealing and understanding of the proceedings. Their clients are most satisfied and are more likely to return to them with more projects.
- How they add value to your business
Before starting the project, take the consultation the development company offers to provide. Discuss your requirements in detail with the mobile app developer and understand how they can fulfill it for you. Talk to their strategist and understand their process. They should be willing to become your partner in your success and not just develop the app for you and move on. Their processes and engagement procedures should be customer centric and they should focus on how they can serve their clients better. Their team should be dedicated to making your mobile application creative, scalable, reliable and interactive.
If they can relate to your business, they will surely be able to add value to your business through their expertise in e-commerce and understanding of the market. They should be able to guide you in the right direction in case your ideas do not add up for a successful launch. These traits make a development company desirable by clients.
- Terms and Conditions
Last but on the least in this list is the terms and conditions your developer works on. Considering you have zeroed in on hiring a development company to design and develop your mobile application, reading their terms is necessary before signing them for the contract. Check for their payment terms and if they are flexible with it. Compare their rates but don’t get driven by the cost alone. If they are offshore, then they will anyways be low cost compared to your local vendor.
What would be the stages of development and how they want their payments to be made? If your development partner is local, it will be easy for both the parties on the financial front. However, if your developer is located offshore, clarify the mode of payment with them beforehand to avoid any delay in services from their end due to receiving of funds on time. Since mobile app development does not end with just designing and developing the app, check for their maintenance and support plan for their clients. Are they supportive post-development and deployment of the application at the client’s end. How do they provide support and resolve issues that arise after the mobile app goes live?
Conclusion
A good way to extract maximum value from your developer is to build a relationship with your developer and the results quickly. Research thoroughly about them before signing the dotted line and investing your money in their services.
We at WebBee Global provide end-to-end e-commerce services including website designing and development, mobile app development, drop shipping, integration with ERP and CRM platforms, and digital marketing for clients across the globe. We are conscious about the above pointers and have trained our staff to cater to our clients accordingly. We believe a satisfied client brings in more business than any other medium of marketing can. Therefore, we invest in our client’s satisfaction by thoroughly understanding their requirements and delivering the results which are original in nature, scalable, reliable and affordable for them.
Our strategy is client-oriented and we devise our plans based on their requirements and challenges they are facing. Our plans are executable and overcome challenges in innovative ways to give our clients maximum returns on their investments.
Our dedicated team not only works on implementing creative ideas and making them a reality but also provide support post-deployment. We are a pro in solving issues arising while the mobile apps are live and minimize the downtime for the businesses to keep running.
