Mobile apps have become important for businesses to connect with users and grow sales. Be it your favorite burger brand – McDonald’s, or global travel accommodation partner – Airbnb, they have found their business success through mobile app development.
Of course, behind their business and mobile apps’ success, their mobile app development partners have played a huge role. And to find them, they have conducted in-depth research and evaluation processes.
Well, McDonald’s and Airbnb aren’t the only ones who have hired mobile app developers or outsourced their mobile app development projects, as there are others, too! In fact, around 60% of organizations from different industries and 72% of the financial services sector specifically choose to outsource their app development to IT companies. So, there must be some legit reasons to do so!
As you are reading this blog, you might be planning to build your mobile app and looking for the right mobile app development partner to rely on and turn your idea into a profitable app.
Thus, by considering all we have prepared this guide to help you hire the best mobile app developers to meet your requirements!
So, let’s first understand the importance of having a checklist/clear criteria to hire them:
Why Should You Set Criteria for Selecting Your App Development Partner?
It’s vital to set criteria for hiring your ideal mobile app development company for several reasons:
It lets you set up a standard framework for evaluating IT vendors based on your project requirements and business objectives;
Enables you to compare different mobile app developers based on factors, including experience, quality deliverables, reliability, engagement proposals, etc.;
Eliminates chances of selecting the one that fails to meet your requirements and deadlines.
In short, setting up mobile app development service providers’ criteria will help you find the right-fit technology partner as per your requirements.
7 Tips for Selecting Your Perfect Dedicated Mobile App Development Partner
Well, selecting the right-fit mobile app development partner as per your project requirement can be a daunting task. However, to simplify it, we have put down some factors which you should take into consideration when opting for this hiring process:
1. Define a project and business objectives
This step ensures that you have clarity about what you need from your IT vendor, the expertise your tech partner should have, the types of projects they have successfully delivered, and so on.
Let’s start with defining your requirements and end goals in the following way:
Define mobile app development requirements
Well, to define exactly what you need in your product, you must answer the question listed below:
What is your mobile app development type?
Is it a simple MVP (Minimal Viable Product) development, a basic, narrowed-down user-specific app, or a complex mobile app with a vast scope?
By answering these questions, you’ll be able to prepare a checklist for selecting your right-fit mobile app development team with experience in your kind of app development project.
Scope your app development idea with end goals
To do this, you have to answer the following questions:
What should be the end goal of your mobile app?
What questions do you want to discuss with your shortlisted mobile app development team?
Apart from these, you must define the team size and also the related tools and technology you would need to accomplish your goals.
Plan Your Budget
The budget allocated for mobile app development is a critical factor in determining the effectiveness of your team selection and the quality of your final product.
It can be a challenging task as you must carefully evaluate your cash flow, both inward and outward, and make necessary adjustments accordingly. At times, you may need to take calculated risks and make financial sacrifices to expand your budget to ensure project success.
At this point, it is essential to determine your priorities. Are you seeking an efficient mobile app development solution that delivers an exceptional user experience and elevates your business to new heights, or are you content with a budget-friendly, average product that merely establishes your digital presence without maximizing your effectiveness?
Define a Clear and Realistic Project Deadline
Understandably, you want your product to be delivered in no time. However, with such expectations, being realistic is also necessary.
You need to study difficulties in your idea, tools, and technology stack, and features & functionalities, which have certain thresholds to speed up the development even if highly experienced talent is working on it.
So, by considering all factors, you need to plan your project deadline and ensure that the team you select has the competencies to meet your deadlines without compromising on your mission-critical app quality.
Select a Software Development Model
With the evolution of the IT world, particularly in the product development space, many software development models have emerged, including waterfall, incremental, agile, etc. However, from these, Waterfall and Scrum (like Agile methodologies), are extensively used by IT experts.
And if there’s a demand for faster deliverables with better communication and collaboration, IT experts suggest using Agile methodologies with Scrum framework to ensure faster and more effective software product development.
Pick the Right Engagement Model
Well, as in the market, there are various engagement models available catering to certain requirements, you would want to choose the right one meeting your requirements:
Fixed Price: If your app development requirements are clear, this fixed price engagement model is beneficial for you to get your desired product under a defined timeline.
Dedicated Team: This model gives you the freedom to handpick your app developers and create a team to dedicatedly work on your project like your extended team for a set period of time, like a week, month, or year. This offers many productive and financial benefits, cutting through the hierarchy, and gives direct access to the dedicated team.
So, you do want to know the right time to hire a dedicated mobile app developer.
Time & Material: Here, your hired team works on your project and bills you as per the time (hours) and materials spent for the same. This is often suggested by IT service providers when your project scope is subject to change. Also, in the match of Fixed Cost project Vs. Hourly hiring, time & material are often recommended by the experts.
2. Conduct market research
This process goes along with the define a project and business objectives phase.
This will help you learn the market trends, including UI/UX design trends, trending app development tools and technologies, mobile app development process, top app features and functionalities, quality assurance, and deployment.
And to do it effectively, it is advisable to consult mobile app development experts who will help you get a professional perspective on your app development idea and ease your market research. And it’s okay to take second and third opinions for better clarity.
This process will help you a lot to learn about the shortlisted companies’ expertise, the effectiveness of the app developed by them, and more to select the right team.
3. Research and shortlist top mobile app development companies
After the completion of the planning stage of your mobile app development, it’s time to look for your ideal mobile app development partner.
Well, there are various ways to search for your IT partner, such as:
Through keywords like top/best/leading mobile development company;
Opening and searching in the global IT company listing sites, like Clutch and Goodfirms;
Searching for blogs like “how to develop a mobile app like…” to find companies actively investing in research to provide better insights to interested users like yours looking for IT partners working on a similar niche.
You can also filter out your search intentions by specifying technology, location, team size, and price to get relevant results about the mobile app developers meeting your unique requirements.
So, when you get your relevant results, it’s time to assess their competencies based on your project requirements:
Therefore, by considering all these factors, businesses from different global regions often choose to find IT service providers from countries like India, Ukraine, Thailand, Belarus, and others.
And from all the listed countries, most businesses target India for their software development projects because they have highly skilled IT professionals and IT business representatives.
In short, your end goal should be to get the best mobile app development service in your preference of technology with all sorts of conveniences.
Expertises and Industry experience
Well, when looking for an IT vendor, you must ensure that they know about your industry along with the technicalities. Indeed, technological skills come first as your technology partner can also do research about the industry and know its trends.
However, prioritizing the industry along with technological skills will help you save ample time being invested in industry research and get you the best mobile app solution meeting your requirements.
So, how to select the right partner with technical expertise and industry knowledge?
Here, your market research on the industry-leading technologies for app development will help you a lot to:
Finalize technology stack;
Specify skill set requirements with industry experience;
Search IT companies with narrowed-down technology expertise;
Assess companies’ backgrounds and clients from the same industries and have purchased similar services you want.
