This is the Age of Software. Working without apps and other related solutions is almost impossible, no matter what walk of life you run your business race in. Even if you think you don’t need software engineers by your side, your competition begs to differ.
Choosing the right software partner on time makes an enterprise more propulsive and responsive to tech innovations and professional demands.
But what does the right software provider look like, and what should they bring to the table for a sumptuous business feast?
You’ll find out this and much more in the paragraphs below.
What Is a Software Partnership?
Let’s start with one possible explanation of a software partnership: it’s an official business relationship between two legal entities.
One entity is the company that needs IT services. The other entity is the provider of these services – the software development partner, which may range from one self-employed software engineer to a full-fledged software-providing company.
Everything negotiated and agreed upon by both parties must be detailed in a relevant and valid legal agreement. It defines the rights and obligations of each party, including the notice period, payment details, delivery milestones, and other relevant information.
A Software Partner as a Business Upgrade
Whether you’re a tech business or operate in a non-tech field, partnering with a software development company lifts part of the biz burden off your back.
Just think of the time and assets you’d spend forming an in-house team of engineers. It would be a significant investment even for a large company, let alone an ab-ovo startup. Having a dev team under your roof is not that simple anymore. You must meet many standards, from employment types to compliance and information security. From our long-term practice, we know it’s a set of demanding, time-consuming tasks.
BM Insight: Among many other regulations and procedures we’ve complied with, BrightMarbles Group Holding also holds the ISO 27001 Certification. It proves that a company has met the strict international standards for protecting data confidentiality, integrity, and availability via an in-house information security management system (ISMS). Read more about the stringent regulations and our compliance thereof in the article Announcing BMGH’s ISO 27001 Certification, written by our CISO Branko Džakula.
Immediate and Ongoing Project Assessment
Having your software done through a partnership means a project angel is always watching over you.
Let’s say you wish to talk through the software tool, mobile app, or any other digital product you want to build. Now imagine there’s a team of well-versed engineers, scrum masters, and project managers on the other side of the table. They’ve already been here and know how to assess various projects quickly, safely, and reliably.
An experienced squad of skillful engineers gets the gist. It helps you define the development process after the first meeting. When our Mibsters negotiate new projects, we approach each client with equal passion. What is different is the tailor-made project plan we prepare for every new partnership. That’s our special ingredient in helping top global leaders grow their ventures.
Compare this with a startup owner sitting down with one or two in-house engineers, trying to figure things out.
BM Insight: We like to break down the complete software development process to our clients. Some stages are the same or similar in everything we do; others differ from project to project and client to client. For more valuable data about the business lifecycle of software building at BrightMarbles, read our blog post From Scratch to Full Stack: The Business Lifecycle of Software Development, by Pavle Bobić.
Optimized Time-to-Market
Rare are the businesses that have a lot of time on their hands for product or software development. Working under tight deadlines, understaffed, and pressed by stakeholders is a more common work model.
In this context, partnering with reliable and proven software techsperts is a blessing. Knowing that your software partner holds the entire software in their safe hands is deliberating. Once the partnership details and milestones have been arranged, you can keep handling your daily business and monitor the development process.
It’s the professional expertise and ease of collaboration that make for a comfortable and productive business partnership from day one.
The knowledge, experience, and relevant tech stack that the software company brings to the table make all the difference, especially in terms of time to market. A software development team that lacks any of the above may not live up to the client’s expectations, potentially affecting its revenue and reputation.
Just for the record, a prompt time to market doesn’t necessarily include faster delivery. Launching an unfinished or faulty product just for the sake of launch is always more expensive than offering a well-brewed and fully-tested solution.
This is something that a software provider and their client(s) must communicate on time. If a client wants a hastily developed product, their software partner is here to present the drawbacks.
BM Insight: We at BrightMarbles leave nothing to chance in our software development projects. Before we take our clients’ products and ideas to the final stage, each line of code has been double- and triple-tested, ready to see the light of the day in its perfect rendition. Our one-of-a-kind quality assurance team makes sure that no bug or glitch goes under the radar. Even if such a mishap occurs, they’re here to react at once. Our article Quality Assurance: The Measure of Software Development Excellence gives more information about quality assurance in general and our special approach to this matter.
Narrow, Knowledge-based Expertise
No successful software development partnership is possible without educated and seasoned professionals at the helm. That being said, how can a client know whether a company can meet their expectations?
For starters, seek enterprises with a proven track record of completed projects. The first few places to search are their business pages on social media, company websites, as well as their past clients and employees. Check the company ratings, reviews, and descriptions on specialized websites, such as Clutch, Pangea, or Digital Knights (DK).
BM Insight: Speaking of the latter two platforms, BrightMarbles is a proud member of Clutch’s top 1% software development providers on a global scale, and DK verified us as part of 7% of the best IT companies in the world. It takes a full-scale three-month monitoring and passing strict procedures to become part of the DK-approved realm. We’re also a Microsoft Gold Partner and Adobe Solution Partner. Those recognitions prove our hard work and our obligation to keep improving at the same pace. Come and see The BrightMarbles Trophy Cabinet and check all the other certificates and accolades we’ve earned.
Going through the case studies and testimonials on the software company’s website will help you get a complete picture of the company’s expertise. While having reviews from big shots doesn’t mean that the provider in question is your perfect choice, consider this data during the selection process.
Scanning their employees and C-suite is another invaluable method of understanding whether a software provider should become your partner. See what they publish on LinkedIn and other business networks. Don’t skip Glassdoor, or other similar websites during your audit. Employees’ impressions sometimes tell more about a company than classic employer branding.
Cost-Effective Budgeting
Let’s be clear: opting for a cost-effective offer doesn’t mean choosing the cheapest proposal but the most reasonably priced IT partner. Accepting the bid with the lowest developer rates could mean you’ll end up with a junior-stacked software provider. While this doesn’t necessarily mean the final product will be subpar, such an outcome is more probable.
There’s a reason why senior software engineers come at a certain price. The time they’ve invested in their education and experience so far is a promise they’ll repeat what they’ve done – they’ll do it again, with equal passion and commitment. From this, we can conclude that senior software engineers are a brand per se. The more projects and coding lines they have under their fingertips, the more likely they’ll deliver a top-notch product.
BM Insight: It’s a fact that the density of senior engineers per square foot at BrightMarbles is among the highest in the IT community. Still, it doesn’t mean we rest on laurels. Au contraire, technology is a living matter, and one must stay updated on current affairs and forthcoming trends emerging behind the cloud. Our techsperts invest a lot of their time and energy in constant improvement. We hold in-house exchanges among our Mibsters, follow external resources and attend specialized conferences. Our blog post How to Stay up to Date as a Software Engineer reveals many interesting tricks of coding trade to stay in shape.
Scalable Approach and Detailed Screening
Scalability is one of the buzzwords in software development, with a reason. If a client wants to accelerate the development process or increase/decrease the workload, so be it. It’s important to talk about these things in advance so that none of the parties is caught by surprise.
Generally, clients should inquire about the following scalability and project management aspects when choosing a software partner:
- Capability to adapt their staff and stack to clients’ specific needs
- Capacity to grow new solutions from scratch and/or improve the existing solutions
- Options to increase/reduce the number of dedicated engineers per project
- Openness to detailed screening and interviewing of potential engineers who will work on a project.
As for the latter, we can’t stress enough how important it is that the client meets the development team before the project kicks off. All the BrightMarbles Group companies support and exercise an open-door policy, both inside the house and with our clients. We’re always here to organize meetings, consulting sessions, and other events to let our clients get to know our techsperts and other relevant specialists.
BrightMarbles’ Tech Partnerships
People working at BrightMarbles Group apply everything written above in their daily work. We keep pushing business frontiers, building sustainable and inclusive partnerships worldwide.
Since our inception, we’ve been leveraging a wide range of projects for clients in different niches. Our stance is that the diversity of clients, industry-wise, brings peace of mind in terms of business stability and future growth. We also prefer that our biz partnerships leave a positive mark on the community.
At the end of this post, we’ll present several tech partnerships in which our expertise and experience make a difference.
Carna – Partnering for the Next Generation of Kidney Care
Embarking on an ambitious mission to make blood testing and healthcare accessible to all, the Carna team has joined forces with Nova Biomedical and BrightMarbles to bring clinical-grade blood testing right to people’s doorsteps. We primarily concentrate on monitoring acute and chronic kidney diseases through at-home capillary blood testing for creatinine. Moreover, our partnership provides a variety of other at-home and point-of-care tests, many of which are FDA/CE-certified or nearing the final stages of development, including an electrolyte panel (such as potassium, sodium, and more). This strategy enables individuals with chronic conditions to proactively manage their health using just a few drops of blood, ultimately promoting healthier and happier lives.
BrightMarbles serves as the official technology partner, responsible for the app and all other software features that support this innovative healthcare solution.
The Belgrade Marathon – Exclusive Technology Partnership
The Belgrade Marathon isn’t only the most important mass-participation sporting event in the region. It’s also a renowned brand that promotes a healthy lifestyle and social inclusion. For these reasons and many other values that we share, BrightMarbles is honored to be the Belgrade Marathon’s official/exclusive tech partnership.
Our team of engineers has built a marathon app that elevates the entire experience of participating in the main race and other running fixtures. From streamlined registration and payment to live tracking, our platform ensures a smooth marathon experience for both runners and spectators.
Read more about our collaboration and partnership in our blog post Belgrade Marathon and BrightMarbles: Partnership, Collaboration, Camaraderie.
Padrino – Co-founders and Complete Technology Providers
At BrightMarbles Group, our driving force is the desire to create impactful and innovative technology solutions that benefit our community. This motivation has led us to partner with Padrino Delivery, revolutionizing the food delivery landscape in Novi Sad. Our skilled software engineers and designers have meticulously developed the Padrino app, while our dedicated marketing team is eager to share the narrative of this inspiring collaboration.
Naq Cyber – Shareholders and Strategic Technology Partners
As strategic and technology partners, Naq Cyber and BrightMarbles have initiated the journey towards shaping the future of cybersecurity and data compliance solutions. The rapidly growing adoption of Naq Cyber fully automated security platform within the digital health and defense industries speaks to its effectiveness. By converting compliance into a competitive advantage, the platform assists European SMEs in acquiring more business opportunities and streamlining their sales operations.
These are only some of our many business and technological partnerships. Our CEO Boris Berat has spoken about our collaborations in his interview for the company blog: Working Together on Projects that Matter: An Interview with BMGH CEO and Co-founder Boris Berat.
Conclusion
The more clients know about software partnerships, the better for their professional expectations and plans.
When a business entity chooses one software development partner over other potential options, it’s both an honor and an obligation for the selected provider. As software development is a dynamic work environment, it takes passing many checkpoints successfully to get a speckless final product.
The tips, practical procedures, and our in-house insights shared above should help every company choose their software partner with relative ease.
The BrightMarbles software development team is at your service for any additional questions, inquiries and suggestions.