How to choose a software development company in Switzerland: what to ask before you sign

A portfolio shows what a software company has made. How it works is a different question: how it tests, what happens after launch, what you receive at the end, and how the price behaves when your plans change. Those answers shape your project long after the contract is signed, and you can ask for each of them before you sign.

Below are the questions, what a clear answer sounds like, and how we answer them ourselves, so you can hold us to the same standard.

What should you ask about tests and releases?

Ask how you will know that the software works before it goes live. A clear answer names a test version that you can try yourself, automated tests that use the software in a real browser from start to finish, and a rule that nothing goes live until those tests pass.

Follow-up questions:

• Can I try each new version before it goes live, on a computer and on a phone?
• Which of our everyday journeys do the automated tests cover?
• What happens when a test fails just before a planned release?

Our answer: your software first runs in a test version that you can try. We test it thoroughly there, right through from start to finish, and it goes live only when everything works. What such tests check is explained in end-to-end tests in plain words.

What should you ask about monitoring after launch?

Ask what happens once the software is live and nobody is looking at it. A clear answer says what is checked, how often, who receives the alarm when a check fails, and whether monitoring is part of the price or a service you book.

Follow-up questions:

• Is each part checked on its own, such as sign-in, email and the database?
• Will there be a status page where my team can see whether each part is working?
• What is included after an alarm, and what is priced separately?

Our answer: monitoring is a service you book with us once your software is live. Every hour we check that it is up, that people can sign in and that its pages load; the website, sign-in, database, email and scheduled tasks each have their own check. A failed check sends the alarm to us, and you get a status page of your own software, like ours at status.predivo.ch. What else software needs once it is live is the subject of software maintenance after launch.

What should you ask about the handover?

Ask what you will receive at the end, and in what form. A clear answer lists it item by item, for example the code with its history, the database structure, the automated tests and the documentation, and says how access to the running software is passed on. It also says when the rights to the code pass to you, if they do.

Follow-up questions:

• Is the handover written into the offer, item by item?
• Could another developer continue the work with what I receive?
• Which parts stay with the company, such as tools it already had before my project?

Our answer: ownership and what you receive at the end are agreed in the offer for each project, so you know both before anything is built. The legal side is explained in who owns the code.

What should you ask about the price and changes?

Ask how the price is set, and what happens when you want something different halfway through. A clear answer names the price model, a fixed price or time and materials, says what the price is based on, and explains how a change is priced before it is built.

Follow-up questions:

• Is the price fixed, and what exactly does it cover?
• How is a change priced, and do I see that price before the work starts?
• How will I follow the progress between the start and the launch?

Both price models can work; they share the risk differently, and our comparison of fixed price and time and materials puts them side by side.

Our answer: it depends on what your software has to do. Once that is written down, you get a fixed price in a written offer, and nothing is built until you agree to it. Any change beyond the agreed scope is priced before it is built. With your own login, you follow the project at any time: what is done, what we are working on and what comes next.

How do you check the company itself?

Look the company up in the commercial register, ask who actually does the work, and check how it will treat personal data in your software. All three take little time, and you can do them before you sign.

• The commercial register. Zefix, the public service of the Federal Commercial Registry Office, gives access to every legal entity entered in a Swiss commercial register, with its name, its registered office and its address.
• Who does the work. Ask who builds your software, who decides on its price, its design and its launch, and whether parts of the work are passed on to others.
• Your data. If the company will have access to personal data in your software, for example to test it or to fix an error, it processes that data on your behalf. The Swiss Data Protection Act then asks you to make sure that it can guarantee data security (Art. 9).

Whether to work with an outside company at all, or with your own developers or a freelancer, is a question of its own: our comparison of in-house developers, a freelancer or an agency answers it.

Each of our answers above is how we work, and the price, how changes are priced and what you receive at the end are in your written offer before anything is built. You can see what we build, how a project runs and the ways to start.

Tell us about your project. Send us a message and we will get back to you.