The influence of IT expertise on the choice of contractor

The participation of an external team allows you to speed up development when the company's internal resources are insufficient, and provides a cheaper start compared to forming your own IT team from scratch.

Typically, companies turn to outsourcing when they do not have enough internal resources or IT expertise to develop certain processes or scale previously developed solutions.

Selecting a contractor for a company with IT expertise

The company has its own developers, IT expertise, management and methodology on which development management and IT culture are built. There may be situations when IT expertise is available, but it is not enough. In this case, it is preferable to outsource parts of your projects to external development. In this case, it is important to find a contractor who works in a similar logic and will seamlessly integrate into existing processes.

Usually in such cases they look at the following things:

• Does the contractor have the necessary competencies in IT development;
• Does it work with the right technology stack;
• Has he made systems with similar functionality;
• Is the IT culture of the developer and the customer similar?

In companies with IT expertise, there is a greater chance that a suitable contractor will be selected, tasks will be set correctly, and the company will receive exactly the desired result.

Selecting a contractor for a company without IT expertise

In another case, when the company does not have IT expertise internally, development tasks often have general formulations. This is where the main risks for the customer lie, since as a result of implementing the system, processes may be poorly structured, and as a result, the benefits that the customer was counting on are lost. Therefore, if the company does not have its own IT expertise, it is critical to find a suitable contractor who could share the expertise.

Most often, companies where there is no or insufficient IT expertise try to reduce the risks associated with the speed, predictability and quality of the future system by drawing up detailed technical specifications.

Technical specifications or iterative development

Currently, following a detailed technical specification usually reduces the adaptability of a solution to real, rapidly changing business needs, which can be determined experimentally by IT experts. A system developed according to technical specifications is difficult to change later. As a result, the company runs the risk of getting a solution that looks good, but does not bring benefits, because it is not built in those parts of the process that should be automated. However, technical specifications help in cases where it is necessary to reproduce or update time-tested and practice-tested business automation tools.

When creating innovative solutions, when implementing new inventions, the company has to experiment more, therefore, the less suitable the development according to technical specifications is, and the more valuable is the contractor who, by flexibly and iteratively testing various hypotheses, brings him closer to the desired result.

In the absence of its own IT expertise, the donor of IT culture becomes a contractor who is interested in jointly developing the future IT system so that the result of the efforts pays off for the customer company. And the client will become a permanent one for him.

A properly selected contractor not only takes responsibility for the development, but, together with the customer, looks for solutions to business problems using IT, and clearly explains to the customer how automation will influence business indicators and obtain benefits.

In a dynamic and rapidly developing world, when creating new digital products, the customer often chooses flexibility in methodology and iterative development instead of classical development according to specifications.

Therefore, our task is to select a suitable development team, taking into account the presence or absence of IT expertise in your company, as the only way to implement effective solutions