Hello!
It’s high time to take your idea from vision to reality and selecting the right product development vendor to help you sail through the stream of cut-throat competition and allows you to win in the race of excellent product development, shortest turnaround period, short time-to-market and great business.
Due to technological infrastructure barrier, time restraint, skilled resource deficiency, or just lack of technical know how, organisations both mature and mid size, even start-ups require smart execution plan for their product development projects, hence, outsourcing. But, before contacting any vendor the obvious step is to understand what exactly a product development vendors do.
They undertake several sets of development processes which include conceptualization, product designing, analysis, implementing, prototyping, and production. But there’s more to look for in a vendor while finalising:
Solid Skills
- Resources’ Qualifications and Experience
Product development requires skill set and qualifications to undertake project responsibility. While collaborating and putting your trust in any service provider, it is essential to know if their teams have the required experience and qualified experts to understand and meet your requirements.
Every firm maintains its portfolio that consists past projects and client records to give referral ideas to new customers.
Therefore, do flip through their past experiences to make the deal reliable and fraud-free.
- Comprehensive Services
If you are getting an application developed from a vendor and you need cloud compatibility for the same. Can you service provider do that? Your onshore team is more comfortable working on scrum-based agile development methodology. Can your offshore service provider follow up with this requirement? Does the vendor offer testing services or offer scalable yet cross-functional teams? Prerequisites like these are important to know of before you zero down on them.
- Single Communication Method
When processes need to move faster than they currently are, when the teams working for your product overseas and updates are necessary, communication is key.
Good service vendors understand that waiting in a compartmental communication system to speak with the right team member is time-consuming and honestly, really irritating.
It is therefore critical that your outsourcing partners offer you easy and seamless communication process. Thus it is important to eliminate vendors from your list who work in silos and not practise a single point communication system to avoid communication gaps and misunderstandings.
- Full Work Accountability
Product development is a dynamic and continuous process as it requires regular updates, alterations, the advancement of features from time to time. Therefore, look for a company who will walk down the road along with you while assuring you complete service guarantee throughout the tenure. It is smart to work with vendors who offer customer-first experience and hold a customer-centric vision.
- Quality Assurance and R&D Facilities
Customers do not negotiate or compromise with the product quality and they shouldn’t. Therefore, seek a vendor which provides ‘quality at the top’ services. Indeed, it is one of the complex tasks to determine the vendor’s production quality capabilities.
Either personally visit or choose a third party to examine the type of processes they undertake to deliver quality product development. Certifications are an important factor to check before finalising as they prove the vendor’s worth.
ISO and other national/international standards’ certifications signify specific areas of quality in either management, resources or the processes. Sphinx Worldbiz is accoladed with ISO 9001-27001 certifications for quality management (QMS) and Dun & Bradstreet certified for overall company performance. Companies planning to collaborate with service providers should also be careful of the R&D capabilities of the vendors for the lack of it can cost the companies a fortune because significant investment goes into product development however low the cost is.
- Production Capabilities
Most vendors don’t pay attention to deteriorating product quality over time while manufacturing mass and repeatable orders. The quantity of work without compromising product quality should be constant. Key components vendors offer dynamically drive customer-centric solutions to the companies to attain product performance and higher profits.
- Market Expertise in Product Type
The vendor should be vigilant in nature as the market is induced with dynamic and complex upgradations. It should have to know how about how the market works and how it can affect your product’s quality in the future.
The vendor should be acquainted with industry-specific certifications and market laws and regulations relevant to your product type.
- Regulatory Compliance
Observing the law of the land and the industry laws by the vendor is imperative to evade any type of legal circumstances. Factory audits or credit check are the two best ways to ensure regulatory compliance of the vendor. You can also ask your vendor to show past test reports and certifications for better understanding.
- QMS Certifications
One of the most significant factors while selecting the software development vendor is their value in the market, are they known for delivering great services? Do they have strong communication skills to engage with their clients? Can they maintain and retain a long-term customer relationship? Quality certifications are one way to invest your trust in the company.
See if the vendor is certified under quality management system (QMS) that complies with the ISO 9001.
Meanwhile, vendors that are continuously seeking methodologies to improve efficiency and upgrade ISO 9001 should be the first choice.
Soft Skills
To bring the best out of product engineering service, it is pivotal to collaborate with a company whose business goals complement yours. Check your vendor’s past customer relationships, projects in which they have worked, minimum quantity requirements, and knowledge about your project. Another important factor to oversee is your vendor’s willingness to work in your project and scalability to meet your dynamic requirements.
Today, people have become smarter and precise about their business choices. They are opting for third-party examination to verify and analyse the quality of the goods to eliminate every loophole. Beware of such suppliers which immediately ship their goods before the inspection process starts as they might be camouflaging quality issues or faults.
The ideal vendor will insist you to send third-party inspector to screen their site for honest feedback to improve their product quality and work efficiency. Indeed, finding the right product engineer vendor is a complex and stressful task but it also holds significance in the company’s achievement. Therefore, do not hustle up and peek into their work history, communication process and goals. Check if they have a proactive approach to complete the task, and product quality before saying ‘yes’ to a long-term business relationship.
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