While there are direct costs benefits outsourcing website development, there are things which needs to be checked before you select a right company. Most common problems faced are communication, poor work quality, delay in timeline, language barriers and lack of legal contracts
It’s quite normal to come across an email with list of website development services flashing in different font colours or a phone call from a non-English speaking country trying to speak with British or American accent and asking for a ‘Strategic Business Partnership’. If you do website design, ecommerce services, software or SEO you are most likely to face this in your daily or weekly routine.
There are thousands of companies operating offering technical website development services and it really is a challenging task to strike the right chord and find a company that sets perfectly in a jigsaw mirroring your company values.
We have listed below some most common problems that you are most likely to face and should be prepared to overcome them when you deal with an offshore website development company.
Communication:
Most of the countries where offshore website development centers are based do not have English as their main language. There will be candidates who speak exceptional English but not all. This may be time consuming as you may spend lot of time explaining your projects and getting regular updates. Be confident by having a Skype or phone call and have few initial interactive session ensuring that their technical skills, communication and project understanding is good enough to proceed to next level.
Project Planning, Cost and Scope of work Agreement:
Working methodology is more haphazard and without laying out complete project plan. When you get no documented scope of work confirmation and fixed time and cost to get your project developed, you are running a real risk of falling into conflict and especially if you made initial deposit you may have a failed project and lose money if you don’t get expected delivery of your web project. So ensure that you get a full delivery project plan with time and task milestones set and have affirmative acceptance of scope of work. You should feel confident that the website development company you are hiring understands your project as you do and they exhibit a plan to deliver it perfectly.
Quality Standards and Infrastructure
Most of the website development company will focus on winning the job rather than being honest in their skills and getting it delivered correctly. These days’ website projects are to be checked on various devices like tablets, smartphones and various browsers. If a company doesn’t have a dedicated quality monitoring process including complete functional testing, device testing and browser testing you may end up in having a frustrating time fighting and spending unnecessary time to get things done correctly. So it’s a wise thing to check what infrastructure they offer and how they ensure good quality code and pixel perfect website development.
Poor business culture understanding:
The urgency and credibility to deliver on time with good quality is an important factor for having a good reputation in market and a winning formula for getting in more business. There are number of offshore website development companies who may not be so careful and sincere to understand how important it is to maintain time and quality standards. It’s important that you work and select a company who has good reference and exposure to international business.
Project Confidentiality and legal contracts:
Ownership of the code and it’s reusability is a big question. Practically there is no guarantee and tracking that your code is not reused. Get a Non-Disclosure agreement signed mutually. Most established companies would have their own version and wouldn’t hesitate in signing such contracts. Also ensure that scope of work, changes and terms and conditions are well understood between both parties and avoid leaving any loop holes. Hurrying into development stage without any agreements will be a big problem. There will be unproductive and time consuming arguments about changes, scope of work and much more. It may be initially time consuming but it’s worth to have patience and get everything jotted down and signed on paper to avoid destructive and frustrating time later.
Our Thoughts:
A good website development company would have things in place to avoid all above points. There are literally new companies emerging every now and then as there is a soaring demand of getting engaged in technical website development partnership from creative web agencies, ecommerce companies, digital creative companies and consultants from various part of the world to outsource technical website development. If at all you are planning to use a website development company, our advice would be to have a Skype video call of Skype call first. Have few conversations around their technical skills, processes and cross check through references to know more about credibility of the company. The factor of ‘RELIABILITY’ is what you must feel confident about. Remember that you are taking a huge risk of working with someone you don’t see or know and is far away from you. Sometimes you may come across cheaper options but it’s more recommended to go with a website development company which is more established and has good reputation.