When choosing a software development company, you might consider market experience and expertise as a way to rationalize the fear of losing control over your project. In this article, we would like to share our thoughts on market presence, domain expertise, and experience and why these factors should be considered by managers looking to outsource developers.  

In this short poll, as you can see, the price is included together with timing and estimations, and it did not win 100%. That was very positively surprising for our team. Most of the voters pointed to market experience and expertise instead. That was a great outcome. Service Delivery Managers and Business Developers frequently hear clients’ questions about the price. 

This opinion was also shared by one of our Service Delivery Managers, Zbyszek Cybulski, in his last article on that topic: 

“Can I ask you if it’s all about the money for you? Well, it should not be. What matters here is value for money.” – Zbigniew Cybulski, Service Delivery Manager.

After doing this research, we feel that maybe it is more about the value for money for some clients too, which is a good approach and makes us feel positive.

Market presence and experience

Ability to deliver the score and operate successfully

• Clutch explains market presence as a company’s Ability to Deliver scores. How do we understand this topic? The company’s experience is expressed in its market presence. The fact that the established business survived more than a couple of years is evidence that from a commercial perspective, it can operate successfully. 

Reputation and certificates

• Reputation in the industry is also built through market presence and experience. It usually takes time for the company to start making a profit. Due to better experience gained in the longer term, they know how to bring new clients, satisfactorily serve them, and maintain the business continuity.
• Why not add a short comment on certificates here.  Clients often ask about certificates that confirm the personnel have proven skills in the services market. Indeed, this is important because the agency pays attention to their employees’ skills and hires the most qualified people.
• However, don’t be trapped by the myth of certificates. They prove that an employee had sufficient skills to pass the exam. Experience isn’t built on certificates but on the successful realization of projects. The wider variety of projects, the better.

Organization maturity

• In reality, some software development companies are more mature than others. If that matters to you, ask whether the contractor knows standard maturity models and at which level they are. Ask what processes they have in place and use to measure their performance. This knowledge is worth gaining when choosing a development company.  

“Most development managers with no experience with outsourced development fear losing control over remote developers. While precisely market presence and experience can genuinely help rationalize this fear into finding the proper partner.” – Zbigniew Cybulski, Service Delivery Manager.

Market expertise

• Some say expertise is the technical knowledge to deliver a project, and this definition is entirely accurate, though it can be so much more. Does the company demonstrate efforts to innovate in its industry? If you want to innovate the industry, it helps to have market expertise.
• It is worth underlining that small and medium-sized software houses usually take a niche to become experts. A company’s focus on a specific vertical or technology makes it easier to innovate the industry in the future. 
• Despite the large development services companies can afford to cover all the existing technologies, their domain expertise isn’t organizational by default and strongly depends on the teams. It concentrates on the groups of experts in a specific domain, software product, or vertical. 
• In the light of that, be critical if a contractor says they can do anything or everything. Such an approach may mean the agency is struggling and trying to launch whatever project to survive. They will try to solve the problems later, but it can be too late. Look for well-organized and experienced partners, regardless of the size. Some smaller agencies are way better organized than the large ones.

 Final words on benefits you can get from analyzing market presence and experience.

• When choosing a software development, as stated earlier, you might consider market experience and expertise as a way to rationalize the fear of losing control over your project. 
• Secondly, while looking for an agency, you don’t want to risk having your project done by a newbie in the business. It is better to avoid learning from mistakes made in your project. It is more likely you will go with an experienced partner as simple as that. 
• By newbie, I do not mean only years of experience or amount of juniors in the tech stack.  What is valued most is the maturity of this organization, how it deals with processes, mitigates risks, how it communicates, and what values. All of this is worth learning to find your most suitable business partner.
• On a side note: Software companies have and should have junior developers on board. Organizations like this would not exist without them. It is just that a good company has a way of introducing juniors to projects that is beneficial to all stakeholders. It is one of the topics you can consider as a sign of maturity a company has or not.