Choosing the company that will develop or maintain your management software is a decision that lasts years. If it goes wrong, you don't just lose the project budget: you lose time, data and your team's patience. This article gathers the questions worth asking before you sign, which answers should reassure you and which deserve a second look.
About the company and its team
The first thing is to know who you will really be working with. A company can have a great website and subcontract all of its development, or the other way round.
- Who will develop the software? Ask whether it is done by their own team or subcontracted and, if so, to whom. It is not bad in itself, but you need to know.
- Who will look after me once it is up and running? Ideally, support is provided by people who know the software inside out, not an intermediary who simply forwards issues.
- How long has the company been doing this? Experience guarantees nothing, but management software is used for many years and you want your supplier to still be around.
- Have they worked in my sector? If they know the sector, the analysis will be shorter and they will ask questions that would not occur to anyone else.
- Can I speak to one of their customers? A reference from a company similar to yours is worth more than any presentation.
About how they work
The way a company works says a lot about how the project will go.
- How do they carry out the analysis? Be wary of anyone who starts programming without having seen how you work. The normal approach is to visit your company or ask for real documents and talk to the people who will be doing the work.
- Do they deliver in phases? Being able to use part of the software early lets you spot misunderstandings before they become expensive.
- How are changes handled? They always come up. Ask how they are requested, how they are quoted and who approves them.
- Which technologies do they use and why? You don't need to understand the answer in detail, but you do need them to explain why it suits your case and whether it is easy to find other professionals who know it.
- Who handles the go-live? Installation, data migration, configuration and training are part of the project, not an extra improvised at the end.
About the code and ownership
This is the point that is most often forgotten and the one that causes the most problems later. The Ley de Propiedad Intelectual (Spain's Intellectual Property Act, consolidated text approved by Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1996) devotes a specific title to computer programs, and you should not assume that the rights to a program pass to the customer simply because they have paid for it. That is why it has to be set out in the contract. The questions:
- Who owns the software? They may assign the code to you, grant you a licence to use it, or build on top of a product the company owns and you merely use. All three options are legitimate; what is not acceptable is not knowing which one is yours.
- What happens if the company ceases to exist or we stop working together? Ask whether there is any way of accessing the code or its documentation in that case.
- Can I commission changes from another company? If the answer is no, make sure the maintenance terms are reasonable.
If the contract is important for your business, have a lawyer review it. This article is no substitute for that advice.
About your data
The data is yours even if the software is not. Ask:
- Where is it stored? On your servers, on the company's or with a cloud provider, and in which country.
- Can I export it whenever I want? In a format that another program can read, not just as a PDF.
- Who makes the backups and how often? And, above all, whether anyone has ever tested restoring them.
- Will we sign a data processing agreement? If the software company accesses personal data of your customers or employees, the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679, Article 28) requires a contract or other legal act governing that access. In Spain, Ley Orgánica 3/2018 (the Organic Act on Data Protection) supplements the regulation. A serious supplier will propose it without being asked.
About support and maintenance
- What does the warranty cover and for how long? Development errors should be fixed free of charge for an agreed period.
- How is maintenance paid for? A fixed fee, a bank of hours or per intervention. Each model makes sense in a different case.
- How is an issue reported and how long do they take to respond? Ask for the response time to be put in writing.
- How are new employees trained? Staff turnover is normal; ask whether there are manuals, videos or follow-up training sessions.
Red flags
| What you hear | Why it is a concern |
|---|---|
| A fixed price without having seen your process | Either there is too much margin or things are missing that will turn up as extras |
| "The software does that, for sure" | Ask them to show you with one of your own cases |
| No questions about your current data | Migration will become a problem at the end |
| No written contract, or a one-page one | Ownership, deadlines and support are left up in the air |
| Nobody mentions training | Software that nobody knows how to use does not get used |
| A rush to sign | A multi-year project can be decided calmly |
And so you don't forget anything, here is the checklist to take to the meeting:
- Who develops and who provides support.
- What the analysis will look like and who in your company needs to take part.
- Phased deliveries and what you will be able to use in each one.
- Ownership of the software and access to the code.
- Where the data is, how it is exported and who makes the backups.
- Data processing agreement if there is personal data.
- Migration, installation, configuration and training: included or not.
- Warranty, maintenance model and response times.
What you can ask us
At Infonet Consultores, everything is developed by our own team and has been since 1999: analysts, developers and technicians who work from the database all the way to the mobile app, with no intermediaries. We take care of the installation, the migration of the data you already have, the configuration and the training, and afterwards support is provided by the same team that built the software. We also help with GDPR (RGPD) adaptation and implementation. You can see how we work on the bespoke software development page and meet the team on software company in Huelva.
