Choosing the right software development company is a complex process.

If you want your partner to ultimately live up to your expectations in terms of quality, professional mindset, culture fit, you need to specify certain standards from the very beginning for choosing a software development company. In this article, we'll take a look at the top 7 criteria companies should consider in their supplier selection process.

1. Communication
When companies are looking for a reliable software development company, among the first criteria they consider are company size, pricing models, experience, etc. Rarely do they identify communication as the main factor. Here we highlight this criterion to emphasize its weight to the overall success of the project.

In fact, ineffective communication can span many aspects, including poor English proficiency, lack of emotional intelligence, cultural differences, and more. But let's approach this from the other side, paying more attention to understanding the needs of the client. The desire of the seller to clarify all the nuances with you ensures the comfort of your further cooperation with them.

2. Company size
The size of a software company, as well as the scale of its projects, is of great importance. If the provider is too large and works primarily with large enterprises, it may not pay enough attention to your specific needs. If the company is too small, it may not have enough experience to operate on such a scale.

Another aspect that is affected by the vendor's size is its ability to scale up or down the development team. Medium and large vendors have more internal resources and more external candidates. This way, they can easily expand the development team to handle the growing workload and move people to another project if you need to shorten the deadline.

3. Pricing
Pricing is certainly not the first criterion to look at, but it plays an important role in the decision-making process. Nobody wants to buy the cheapest service, or rather the most economical one. To avoid wasting money, you must clearly understand the scope of your project and your ultimate goal. In fact, the project budget is determined by the interaction model you choose.

For example, it doesn't make sense to hire a full-time IT architect or UX designer if you only need their services for a certain period of time on a project. On the other hand, it doesn't make sense to pay developers or quality assurance specialists by the hour if they are going to be fully involved in the project and work a 40-hour work week.

As for the fixed price model, it works well for companies that have a complete understanding of the product and clearly defined requirements. In contrast, the dedicated development team model is the optimal choice for long-term projects with changing requirements.

4. Specialization
Businesses go to great lengths to find a software development company that specializes specifically in a particular area and technology stack. Let's say you want to expand your internal team with Java developers who work with microservices. You should first consider those vendors who can provide you with this experience and rapid staffing, regardless of all other criteria. Therefore, when you are looking for a specific set of skills, you should choose those providers who have experience in this area.

5. Experience
Before you start working with a particular supplier, make sure that the company has practical experience in similar projects in your industry. Obviously, those who develop fintech solutions and specialize in insurance, crowdfunding and P2P lending cannot be equally good at car software development services. If you need help from fintech developers, you can check out the list of banking software companies.

The same applies to managing large scale projects with multiple distributed teams. A company that does not have previous experience with remote teams would find it difficult to establish effective communication between teams at both the technical and organizational levels.

6. Feedback from customers
When choosing a software development firm, visit popular review platforms such as Clutch, GoodFirms, AppFutura, and more to get real customer reviews of various vendors. In addition, it is important to seek references from real, previous clients who can give you a true insight into the company's processes and service quality. If a company is looking for professional growth, you can easily find it in the lists of the most in-demand software development firms.

7. Flexibility
Knowledge of agile development techniques is a must for any software development company today. Yet this is not what we mean when we say that a supplier must be nimble. Here we would like to highlight the importance of business agility.

When choosing a software development firm, make sure it is flexible enough to accept change as your business grows. This applies to many aspects such as scalability, adoption of new technologies, offering different pricing models, knowledge adoption, etc.

First, the supplier must be able to quickly adapt to your plans and strategies and scale easily as your business evolves. Second, technological progress has become so fast that the technologies you use today may be obsolete tomorrow. Therefore, it is important to choose a software development firm that can keep up with innovation.

Conclusions

No one ever enters into a partnership with a software company without doing a thorough research of the company, its services, portfolio and references. However, companies pay little attention to such criteria as communication, culture, agility and employer brand, which are actually decisive in building a successful partnership.