3 situations that tell you it’s time to hire an IT company

When you have IT development teams in your company, you know how crucial the management of your applications, software or websites is. This task requires making the right decisions to stay efficient, productive, qualitative and competitive.

We’ve analyzed the different situations that have prompted our customers to call on our services, which are outlined below.

Situation #1: You need to manage an increase in load

The ramp-up of a web, mobile or software application can put many companies into a difficult position. As a manager or business owner, you might need to suddenly make important technical decisions that will impact your services over the long term, months and probably years later.

You may for example find yourself confronted with cache issues, and the need to study the architecture of the web application so that it correctly supports scaling up. Your development team will be focused on this project and you may then need developer support to continue managing daily developments and other site work.

In this type of scenario, we offer an audit of the site in order to give you a prioritized list of points to improve. Finally, we can support you by allowing you to focus on your strategic application issues by allocating several additional resources in development to ensure operational capacity is maintained.

Having an external team look at your web application before undertaking this type of project is very often of great benefit to companies. It will allow your teams to have plenty of time to manage the ramp-up effectively, as well as allow them to prepare the relevant ramp-up test scenarios.

Situation #2: You have detected an attack on your web applications

It’s no longer a secret that most companies have finally realized the security risks of their software. Without a regular external appraisal, in the form of an audit, and if no one on your developer team is specifically assigned to this task, the risk of an attack simply increases with time.

In the event that it emerges you have been attacked, we advise you to call on a specialized company to assist you in the analysis of your applications, in order to quickly realize the extent of the damage and the corrective actions that will need to be prioritized. This is the only way to try and prevent the attack from paralyzing your business and protecting your customers and the services your provide them.

In addition, whether the damage is already done or not, keep in mind that using a subcontractor in IT development who has security know-how translates to obtaining a clear vision of the weaknesses of your mobile or web apps.

Situation #3: You face a lack of productivity

Technical debt is the last project that decision makers and developers want to tackle. However, as technical debt increases, accumulating over time, the productivity of your technical teams will inevitably decrease with it.

It is in this context that we recommend the implementation of unit tests and a Continuous Integration system with your IT projects. Initially, Continuous Integration is a bit long to set up, however once integrated you will no longer have to fear your technical debt; it will be largely mastered and controlled thanks to automated tests from Continuous Integration.

Another solution, which requires less of a change in production, is to simply hire additional developers to boost your productivity.

Situation #4: You take the reins of a CIO with no documentation

In instances where you need to appoint a new Chief Information Officer (CIO), or assume the position yourself, you might then be faced with the unwelcome realization that the technical documentation is literally a desert. It will be difficult to make the right decisions if you do not have all the necessary information.

In such a situation, it makes a lot of sense to entrust this mission to a it engineering company that will help you in an audit of the existing assets and build documentation worthy of its name, complete and with the expected standards.

The advantage is twofold: you will gain an understanding of the problems of the IT department with a dedicated team that will bring you an outside, objective perspective on the current state of affairs of your IT systems or product.