When a company decides to outsource a development task, the right partner has to be sought. In this situation, the management naturally asks a number of questions (and TEO suggests that you ask these questions).

Can the vendor handle the size of the project we have?
- TEO has experience with teams at our end comprising 2 to 20 team members. We suggest that you start with a small team of 2-5 developers. The customer’s own IT team may be from 1 to, say, 50 employees. Except for the Innovation Lab product which is designed for shorter assignments, the first total project duration should be around 3 months.

What is the price range within which the vendor operates and are there any hidden costs?
- TEO operates with a fixed monthly cost per team member. All developers work 100% and dedicated on a single team. The project manager, graphic designer and architect may be allocated full time or half time on the project, depending on the work load and type of activities. Apart from the monthly fee, there are only travel costs, servers and non-Microsoft licenses, if required.  If incentives in terms of bonuses are agreed upon, then they are decided from time to time.

How can we avoid a bad experience due to cultural differences?
- You can avoid most of this impact by selecting a Danish company as your vendor. TEO is a Danish company and we know well the practices of the Danish IT industry. We have the best pre-requisites to be able to understand and deliver what Danish customers expect. If the customer and the customer’s employees don’t have former experience with software development, TEO delivers a Project Controller to actively drive the start up and the first satisfying deliveries.

How much of the company’s software development should my company outsource?
- It is our advice that you start with a smaller portion. It may be a module or a project. Based on the experience from this portion, the company is in a much better position to judge which systems and components to outsource.
Some prefer to outsource several important projects at once, as it is here that most value can be gained. Thise decision depends on how confident the company’s employees are and on their technical qualifications.

Who in my organization should manage the vendor?
- The key employee in your organization is your project manager. It is he/she who has to work tightly with the vendor’s team. If the project manager does not have the required qualifications or experience, it is a good idea to have let the individual attend courses in international software development. Otherwise, to save time (and cost) theyour individual project manager can be trained through on-project coaching by TEO’s project manager (see the Project Steering product).

How can our company avoid becoming dependant on the vendor?
- We recommend that your company maintain a good project manager and an architect onsite (at your location). They are the internal anchor of processes, quality and knowledge about the system. The architect (and others) must proactively review the code regularly and ensure that it lives up to benchmarks regarding technical design, standards and practices. On top of this, the development process model should ensure that as many completed packages are delivered as possible.

If the company finds that is has to strengthen its onsite team, TEO has experience in embedding employees at the customer’s onsite location.