10 Things to Consider When Hiring an IT Consultancy Firm!

The IT industry is rushed with lots of companies, each claiming them to be an expert. But behind the curtain, there lies a catch that you would never know until you land there. Hiring an IT consultancy firm after getting fascinated with the jazzy aesthetics of their website design or after getting convinced to the attention grabbing sales pitches doesn’t make sense. So, then how would you ensure that they would fit rightly in improving the productivity of your business? There are certain things that you need to keep in mind to make a good hire at the very first attempt. While most IT consulting companies may seem similar to you on the surface, but in reality not every software consulting firm has an equal expertise. Investing in the right IT consulting agency is the key to avoid frustration in the future. Take a look at the below mentioned things to ensure a great hire: 1.Check If Company Operates In Your Desired Platform! The moment you chose to make a lead in business by leveraging technology, you will be exposed to a gamut of options. Should you go for a conventional website design or web application development for getting the technological edge over your competitors? The first and prime thing is to decide between the two. Analyze your business functions, if you are a service based company, SaaS would be great for you. However, if you just started out with the product selling and have a limited budget, web development may be more suitable for you. Make sure the company you are going to hire offers the service that you are going to choose. Not every IT firm develops SaaS web applications, so better ask that upfront before making a hire! 2. Ask For Client References! References saves your time and efforts, but unfortunately many people tend to skip this crucial step. You may vouch for those flashy portfolios of web/software development, but you would never know if they had delivered them on time and budget. Who knows if those stellar results have been created out of a dirty war between a company and client that might have made client’s life miserable? To make faith, companies must provide at least 2-3 references out of those elegant portfolios. Asking for the references from your friends is the best thing that will help you escape that glittering side and meet the reality note. 3.Inquire Who is Handling Your Web Project! Never expect that your project will be handled by the same team which is behind designing the pixel perfect designs on a firm’s website that have got your attention. So, don’t hesitate to ask about the professionals who will be handling your project. Since you would be getting references from the clients, you could directly ask a client to name the active member of the team to include in your project. Before signing up the contract, make sure that you talk directly with the prime members to let them know your vision of your project. Make sure you understand their core competencies. This way you would come to know if the IT firm has really got the skills that could deliver you amazing results. 4. Know The Pricing Including Hidden One Before You Start! Pricing directly affects the quality of your project deliveries, that means if you are paying less, you would be getting low quality work. You would get what you pay for. Narrowing budget often hangs the project in the middle and will leave you nowhere. Understand that your aim to build something outstanding requires a high level of technical expertise that needs a surplus amount of money. This particularly applies in case of web applications as a developer may need to come up with highly creative solutions every time. So, working with newbie developer may not help you, only creative and experienced software can handle the unique challenges. However, they are tagged with expensive rates but could take your project to the finish line without hassles. 5. Don’t Forget To Ask For Source Files! It’s better to keep the source files in your stock to use in the future if the need arises. Not every company deserves to be trusted, especially when it comes to source files. You would never know when your relationship with the agency goes bad and they even fail to make simple changes to your website after your several requests. So, it’s always better to stay on the safe side and prevent an annoying experience from happening. Keep your full-control on photoshop files, web hosting credentials, access to code repositories and associated things related to your project development. You may need those in the future in case you chose to hire your own development staff. Add these clauses to your contract to ensure that you get the ownership hold on all the relevant stuff belong to your project development. 6. Does Company Keep Communication Channels Open? Discuss with your IT firm, their modes of communication and if you are fine with them or not. Make sure you and they are agree to the preferred channels and styles of communication to avoid communication issues lately. If you want to see project updates every day, make sure you convey your project manager in the advance. It would help him allocate time and send reports as per your convenience. He may also recommend you to use project management tools. Don’t hesitate to set aside the periodic chunks of time if your team really needs brainstorming real time interactions with you. If you both operate in different time zones, set a schedule for the online meetings to manage things easily. 7. Go Through Their Work Process! The process of work approach varies from company to company that may be different from yours. Make sure you understand about their process and resist the urge to switch to the process that you are convenient with. They might be following milestones that you shouldn’t hesitate to go with. They might be preparing a detailed list of the delivery dates on their preferred medium and might be expecting things from you at every point of the project progress. You might be surprised to see delivery dates taking several weeks, but that’s completely fine due to the complexity of the development. Interfering with them will eventually bring troubles and you would end up becoming a bottleneck in your work flow. 8. Inquire About Quality Content Delivery! If you are one of those clients who got a flare for writing and would love to write the content for your web pages/ web app, then make sure you allot yourself a plenty of time. The process that you might be assuming simpler is actually tedious and time consuming. Having enough time to fabricate those words into an excellent copy would ensure that you won’t fail to deliver. Also, keep in note that you don’t skip writing content for FAQs, privacy policy, terms & conditions in the service agreement, etc. If that sounds too much time to you, you should rather consider hiring a professional writer. 9. Ask If They Can Maintain Your Old Rankings! If you want to redevelop your old website, then you might be on the brinks of losing customers due to slipped rankings as the structure of your site changes. But that shouldn’t stop you for changing your decision from having a contemporary website with powerful features. Acting a little smartly would help minimize the impact to null. For instance, your development may recommend you using 301 redirects to help cope up the changes and redirecting your online users to the new URL where the new content has been shifted. This way you would keep close to your old rankings and will enjoy the charm of revamped site. 10. Hire A Technical Consultant! The idea of hiring a technical advocate is just great when you are foreseeing the technical challenges ahead that could make your life more miserable. You may consider hiring your friend or acquaintance who has a strong technical background in handling technical strategy of software/web development. He could help you understand the technical jargon and ensure that work is going smoothly. Investing in someone for technical consultation is worth the deal. You may hire his expertise on a fixed price or hourly depending on what suits you. Looking for an IT firm that can add value to your project? Welcome to Softuvo Solutions - the leading IT consultancy offering end-to-end IT solutions under one roof. Working with us ensures a great quality as we are a leader in web development, design, web & mobile application development on all platforms. Our customers enjoy working with us because we listen to their needs and won’t mind going the extra miles to cover their unique needs. We strive to develop a long-term work relationship with our clients. We believe to deliver value in every project that we undertake and remove bottlenecks for harnessing full-power of IT. Let us simplify your business processes as we have simplified various others. Talk to us today!