Short answer: before hiring a custom development, ask who will own the code, how the price is set, who does the work, how often you will see progress, and what happens after delivery. The answers to these ten questions say more about a vendor than any portfolio.
1. Who owns the source code?
It has to stay with your company, together with the data and access to the infrastructure. If the vendor keeps the code, every future change depends on them and switching vendors becomes very expensive.
2. Is the price fixed or hourly?
With hourly billing, you carry the risk of the project running long. The healthy approach is to close scope, architecture and price before starting, after a discovery phase. Be wary of a fixed price with no discovery: someone is guessing.
3. Will they map the operation before quoting?
A good vendor wants to see how work actually happens: receiving, production, stock, dispatch, approvals. If they quote after a half-hour call, they will quote what they imagine, not what your company needs.
4. Who does the work?
Ask whether the team is in-house or development is outsourced, and whether the person who maps the process is the one who implements it. Every intermediary loses information.
5. How often will I see something working?
A project where nothing is visible for months is a project at risk. Short cycles, for example two weeks, each ending with a usable demo, are what you should expect.
6. When will the first version be in production?
The first version should solve the most expensive problem and be in use within a few months, not at the end of a year-long project. The rest is built in stages on top of something that already works.
7. What does it integrate with?
In industry you rarely start from scratch: there is accounting, e-invoicing, scales, scanners or an ERP. Ask which integrations they have built and how they test them.
8. Will they sign a confidentiality agreement?
You will be sharing costs, customers and processes. A serious vendor signs an NDA from the first meeting. That is also why many development companies can't publish their client names.
9. What happens after delivery?
Ask about support and maintenance, what it costs per month, and how new modules are added. A system in production needs someone to look after it and grow it with the business.
10. What documentation and training are included?
The system should be documented and the team trained, so the company doesn't depend on one person's memory. If you change vendors tomorrow, another team must be able to carry on.
A checklist for the meeting
- Code, data and infrastructure in the company's name.
- Discovery before quoting, fixed price before building.
- In-house team, no outsourcing.
- Demos every two weeks and a first version in production within a few months.
- Proven integrations with what you already use.
- NDA, monthly support, documentation and training.
That is how we work at Vortwood. If you want to ask us these questions, see our FAQ or write to contact@vortwood.com.
