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8 Questons You Should Ask Your Software

Development Vendor
1. How does your vendor plan on securng your data?
You need to understand how your provders physcal securty, personnel,
access controls and archtecture work together to buld a secure
envronment for your company, your data and your external partners or
customers that also mght be usng the soluton.

2. How Much Do You Charge for the software?

Results-orented software takes tme and expertse to do rght. So f you
fnd that your software s cheap, t may be safe to assume that your
developer wll take as many shortcuts as possble.

Note, when you ask your developer for a prce quote, ask them to tell you
what the quote entals.

3. Who are your prevous customers and how satsfed are they?
Request the servce provder to provde you wth ther customer lst of
former and exstng customers. Speak to at least fve of these customers
who have a smlar ndustry profle/busness needs as yours. Ask them for
detaled and honest feedback about the provders strengths and
weaknesses. Fnd out f they faced any problems and how they were
resolved. Fnally ask them how satsfed they were wth the provders
servce levels and systems management expertse.

4. What s your polcy on copyrght?

f you are payng to have software wrtten, the developer should hand over
(assgn) all copyrghts n the system at the end of the project. A few
dsreputable companes try to get customers to sgn a contract where they
only pass over a lcense to use the software. The developer s then legally
enttled to ask for further fees n the future, even though the customer has
pad for the development.

5. Do they secure the transactonal data as well as the data at

rest?
Most vendors clam strong data encrypton but do they truly provde endto-end encrypton wth securty n place whle the data s at rest or n
storage. Software security should go beyond data encrypton to nclude
encrypton key management, whch s a vtal part of any software securty
and should not be overlooked.

6. How Much Tme Do You Spend Plannng and Researchng?

Desgnng software for results requres plannng and research, so, before
your software desgner gets started, make sure they allot tme for a basc
analyss of your busness, compettors, and market.

How much tme should be spent on plannng and research? t's a sure good
thng f they are spendng 3-10 hours per project only desgnng the
software. t may seem lke a lot of tme, but thngs lke content structure
and delvery, overall software functonalty, and other detals must be
planned out!

7. How are your servces prced?

Before startng on the software project, make sure you know what you are
payng for. Query the prospectve provder to fnd out about hdden costs.
Ask f you wll be prced separately for helpdesk servces. Queston the
vendor about how ther prcng wll change as your needs scale up or down
over tme. Ask f you can expect prcng breaks or waved fees n case the
vendor msses a specfed servce level commtment. Wegh the fnal prcng
structure aganst your total cost of ownershp to get the total prcng
pcture.

8. ntegraton
Ths s a deal breaker. Be sure to ask how ther soluton ntegrates wth your
current T envronment and other solutons. Whats ther track record and
game plan when t comes to ntegratng wth other, on-premse solutons
you already have nstalled? f halfway down the road they realze t does not
ntegrate, what s ther contngency plan and what knd of guarantees are
they wllng to offer?

Here are the eght most mportant questons you should be askng to your
software vendor before startng out on any project.