Software Sweatshop

“We’re looking for a firm focused on a relationship and longevity.” CEO of Canadian Web Development Company

The operative word here is “chemistry”. Make sure that both you and your potential vendor are looking for a long relationship. A solid offshore team is an indispensable part of building a sustainable company; good offshore vendors know that and introduce new ideas, propose alternative solutions, and foreshadow problems so you can focus on building your enterprise.

Many offshore firms will be happy to take over your QA work, but what if you have a new product release coming up and your lead developer quits and takes some of his buddies with him? Ideally you should have such a tight relationship with your offshore vendor that they can pick up with no problem. We had a prospective client with the same situation. He was working with two vendors in India, but apparently he didn’t have the type of relationship with them where he could have them take ownership of the work. He contacted us and was looking for us to help get his product out on time. We had another similar scenario where a firm had a development team in Bulgaria but still needed our help to create a web-based version of an existing desktop application. Although these firms had an offshore strategy, they couldn’t fully benefit from their relationships and had to look for support elsewhere.

Although this point seems similar to Lesson #1, it is worth stating that looking for a vendor that is focused on a relationship and becoming a valuable partner is critical when looking for offshore vendors. Vendors focused on finite tasks rather than the health of the relationship will never understand your business challenges and won’t fully adopt your interests as their own. If you’re going to hire developers 10,000 miles away, you better make sure that they’re in it for the long haul.