How to choose the right software development partner in Vietnam

You are running a business and looking for the right software development company as a long term partner to support you? Vietnam is a great place for you, in the top 15 outsourcing destinations.

In case, you are still worried and wonder how to choose the right software development partner. These tips below would be valuable for you. In particular, I have a specific section about Vietnamese companies.

Before diving into the detailed list, we thoroughly point some major issues/disadvantages out when finding an offshore outsourcing model.

Identify the keys in choosing the right software development partner

Achieving goals at a reasonable cost isn’t what everyone looks for?

I guess you have come across several different outsourcing destinations before this post. Therefore, I only propose a quick summary that conveys the advantages and disadvantages of software outsourcing in Vietnam. Based on this, we will conclude on the root problems we are dealing with.

Advantages vs. Disadvantages of Vietnam offshore software development

Advantages

• Costs:
• 5 times more affordable on average than in North America.
• No additional costs for hiring & managing your in-house staff.
• Flexibility:
• An easy team’s size adjustment.
• Specialization:
• Focus on your main business without any related worries.

Similarly, there are more points that can be easily found on the internet as Pros and Cons of Building Offshore Software Development Team. Most of them are about cost saving. It is the undeniable major reason.

Disadvantages

• Time zone difference:
• Vietnam’s time zone is ICT (UTC+7). This is a natural frontier that may reduce the fluency at work.
• Culture difference:
• Vietnamese developers are quite shy.
• Language:
• English is extremely popular nowadays. Vietnamese developers’ reading and writing skills are pretty good; however, only about 20% have good speaking skill.

These factors can cause a loss of control. Consequently, the US company may be worried about the effectiveness of the partnership.

As a matter of fact, you have to cope with the loss of control once having an offshore outsourcing partner for any reason. Thus, who can help you reduce costs without losing control is the right software development partner for you.

Common guidelines to choose the right software development partner

I won’t take your time by repeating things that you can get from other websites. Therefore, in this section, I will list out 3 topics as the following order:

• Firstly — Summarizing your needs and determining how qualified a partner will satisfy your requirements.
• Secondly — Figuring out what characteristics of your partner are suitable for your business.
• Last but not least — Creating an analyse table to compare their abilities and decide your most potential partner.

Do not miss out. A sample file for you is attached in this section.

Identify your needs & create your decision metric

Know what you need

The most vital key to success is to know what you need. Therefore, you should pull out your requirements and expectations before finding a partner. Below is an example list of needs.

Business logic complexity

If your business logic is complicated, you need to find a software development partner with in-depth experience. On the other hand, if yours is simple, the less experience partner is not a wrong choice. With this in mind, you should categorize your business logic into 3.

1. Simple.
2. Normal.
3. Complicated.

Technology stack and level

Same as the business complexity, the suitable software development partner is the one who matches your technical requirement level. The required level should be: low, medium, or high.

Maintenance required

In case your product requires 24/24 running without any interruptions, even accidents. Please find a company that has the experience and your categories should be normal or 24/24.

Level of UI/UX design

UI/UX is a sensitive topic. Therefore, you should categorize yours as generic or specific. Generic means your application requires common UI/UX behavior that’s well-provided by powerful UI libraries. In case, you set your project at a particular level of UI/UX design. I think you need an experienced partner or hire your in-house designer.

Pick-up your most crucial criteria

Besides the above requirements, it is essential to list out other important soft criteria affecting your cooperation decision.

The first impressions

Trust your intuition! It never betrays you. Intuition helps you make the right decision besides analyzing a huge amount of data.

According to psychologists, the first 10 minutes after waking up decides your working quality of a day. It is the same for a cooperation decision. There are some specific characteristics that make you feel confident, trusted, respected, and secure to create a harmonious collaboration.

Communication

Communication is critical, especially in an offshoring relationship. Imagine how a project could be done without understanding. Honestly, it cannot be a long-term partnership when you do not communicate well.

Minimum of operation years

This number represents the experience, stability, and assurance. So, your right software development partner should be chosen from a long time operating in the market. It’s up to you but I think they should be 3 years or more.

Of course, if every US company thought like that we wouldn’t have an HDWEBSOFT today. So, this is an open point for further discussion.

Company size

The company size is proportional to stability and security. However, it does not mean that a large company size is always good for your project. Sometimes, your intuition tells you that a small company with enthusiastic developers can be your right software development partner.

Agile application ability

This is not a significant factor since most software development companies have applied Agile. Specifically, it is not suitable for a rigid model and requires an appropriate process to apply. For instance, it is ineffective to use a standard Scrum for a small project. So, your right software development partner should have a flexible management approach. Agile contains the principles but it should adapt the project size in real life.

Prices

Good — Cheap — Fast, pick any two.

This depends on your budget. There are two among 3 factors (time-quality-price) that you can consider. Obviously,Time-savings and high quality are obviously expensive.

Put it on a table priority

This is an essential factor for a concrete foundation. It would be best if you created or downloaded this software development partner evaluation template and made yours. Then, it is time to meet up and make a decision. The file looks like this:

Investigate the company capacities

Besides meetings, you must refer to many other sources to determine their abilities. In fact, the valuable information is from their completed projects, references, and their frequency of appearing on local recruitment channels.

Business experience

The company should have experience developing applications in diverse business areas. Specifically, you need to check its portfolios in advance. However, the detailed information is impossible to investigate due to strict policies of NDAs and other nondisclosure constraints.

Technical expertise

Let’s imagine that you want to customize a few details on a WordPress website. What would you do? — Obviously, you will find a specialized company in WordPress. However, it would be best to have an experienced partner who masters the latest popular technologies for a long-term partnership. They are independent of technology so they can assist with WordPress, Magento, Nodejs, Java, PHP projects without taking too much time for preparation. In fact, this is unlikely to happen in a single technology company.

Development process

Agile is quite popular in this era. As a result, it is not a challenge for any company to apply half or full Agile. The concentration is on automated software development and deployment processes. Those companies with experience in DevOps, CI/CI, GCP, AWS, Azure should be on your top list.

Investigate the company in a pilot period

It is a good time to cross-check your partner before any further important commitment. Your right software development partner needs to show their best on the pilot project you require them to complete.

Communication

This is a fundamental factor. In every communication context (meeting, email, chat), you should notice things as follows:

• Are they active?
• Is the information valuable?
• How do they express their opinions?
• How do they perform?
• Is the exchanged information large?
• Are there any unrelated questions?
• Are there any smart questions?
• How do they interact with their teammates?

Requirement analysis

Through communication, you can evaluate your partner’s ability.

With great requirement analysis ability, they can:

• Address the problems and propose resolutions immediately.
• Trace your potential causes.
• Understand your requirements.
• Ask expensive questions that help to solve all the blockers.

On the otherhand, we need more considerations when they:

• Cannot address the problems.
• Blame on technical constraints frequently.
• Cannot understand your needs.

Technical consultation

Be my guest! Don’t hesitate when asking technical questions to a technology company.

We provide you some questions to imagine and prepare.

• What is the best technology?
• Can you explain more on UI/UX design?
• What is the difference between React Native and Flutter Native app development?
• Which technology is the most suitable to develop your project?
• Which cloud platform is the best place to run your project?
• … and so on.

Problem solving

You should notice how they solve a problem.

A good and professional team will save you time and money. In addition, you should notice not only software development and deployment but also management problem-solving.

Standard compliance

This will reflect their professionality. Remember, you never expect any missing point repetition.

• Set-up project conventions.
• Set-up project workflows.
• Be not punctual for the meetings.

Tips to choose the right software development partner in Vietnam

To summarize “tips to choose the right software development partner in Vietnam”, we need to determine unique characteristics of the developing environment as well as human resources.

We have gone through the basic essential information. This section focuses on distinctive points to which you need to pay attention, when working with Vietnamese partners.

The partner has experience solving different time-zone problem

Time-zone is explicitly a vexatious problem. Our clients once shared their worries with us. They were afraid that different time-zones could create many issues and low productivity.

This is reasonable; however, I ensure that software production has its unique characteristics, which can be fully operated without direct communication in the same time frame . Specifically, it would be better to communicate in the same time frame but it is not mandatory. The development team can complete the task and report it in our scheduled weekly meeting.

We have applied these following measures:

Active communication plan

Communication is the golden key to success.

Besides the official working time, the company can propose a communication channel in unofficial time. It helps us solve the clients’ problems immediately. Specifically, we have no downtime due to geographical distance. The development team will complete tasks within official working hours and support you in the unofficial time communication channel.

Tip: A good company can maintain productivity. Even though they lack time for the interaction, they can communicate and complete tasks effectively.

Night time support

No worries! Most software development companies in Vietnam are willing to propose a support channel in their unofficial working time. Besides, you can request night time support.

Tip: Night time support is only necessary if your project needs a 24/24 monitor. Additionally, it is more expensive since we pay more for workers for an extra shift.

The partner has experience in solving language issue

Vietnamese developers’ English levels have enhanced significantly. As a matter of fact, some developers are not good at speaking and listening skills but they are excellent at reading and writing skills. Therefore, you only need good English main contactors.

Moreover, you should check if:

• The team leader can interact in English.
• Developers can communicate well in English via Chat & Messaging.

Tip: It is preferred to use simple grammar and direct statements to express your opinions.

Company leaders are with in-depth technical experience

The technical approach will be more efficient in the offshore development model since they know what is the best for your software. Their advantages are management and operation methods towards comprehensive efficiency. Also, there is no complicated procedure. Especially, potential solutions will be proposed without time-wasting meetings.

Tip: A company whose leader is a software developer. In addition, the leader (CEO, CTO) can address/convey your problems/requirements and send them to the technical team immediately.

Conclusion

Above is my experience as a member of HDWEBSOFT, who has witnessed customers’ outstanding success and company growth. In any collaboration, we address and solve their problems. Importantly, our consultant specialists provide resolutions to avoid potential issues and propose tips to choose the right software development partner in Vietnam. As a result, we have loyal customers and accompany other software development companies to establish our position in offshore software development and software outsourcing developments industries.