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How to Protect Clients Against Lock-In with an IT Services Vendor
At ScienceSoft, we value long-term cooperation. However, we recognize that situations change, and clients may choose to proceed with the project internally or hire another vendor. To ensure our clients can switch to any of these options painlessly, we adhere to the following practices:
- - Legally recognizing the clients' rights for premature contract termination and code ownership.
- - Fully documenting project knowledge and keeping it accessible for a client.
- - Transferring explicit and tacit knowledge to a new vendor or the internal team.
Reasons Leading to Vendor Lock-In
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Why this happens |
What ScienceSoft offers to its clients |
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Restrictive contractual obligations
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Some IT vendors may request a fee for premature contract termination, which they use to compensate for the profit loss. |
We have fair service contracts that don't violate our clients' interests. If a client wants to terminate the contract, we treat this decision with respect and only request an early notice within a time period specified in the contract. |
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Locked-in project knowledge
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Without detailed, centrally stored, and accessible project documentation, a vendor's team owns project knowledge. In this case, clients may fear the termination of cooperation simply because they want to avoid lengthy and complicated knowledge transfer. |
We create comprehensive documentation where we describe everything about the software and the processes we follow. Our documentation provides sufficient information for quick onboarding by the next vendor. |
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The vendor's competence in a client's custom software
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A company may not be completely satisfied with its current vendor but still resist changing it as the vendor knows all the ins and outs of the project. This situation is widespread in long-term custom software development projects. |
Once again, software documentation comes to help. When we develop custom software, we document the functionality, user journey maps, architecture, and other aspects. A client's new vendor will have to invest time, but it will surely understand what the software does and how it works. |
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Dependence on a vendor's niche skills and knowledge
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A company may continue working with the whole vendor's team not to lose one or several valuable experts with rare skills. |
We can offer a client the opportunity to switch from a dedicated team to a team augmentation model. The client will arrange a new project team, and our experts will contribute their part of the work. |
How We Reduce Vendor Dependency for Our Clients
Your sole ownership of the code
We sign a Master Service Agreement that guarantees your full legal ownership of all intellectual properties, including the code, created during the project.
We document our work at all project stages, from the discovery stage to programming and QA, and keep complete and up-to-date documentation in a central repository created individually for each project. We set up role-based access to the repository to secure the knowledge and keep the process transparent for a client.
Knowledge transfer
We use documentation to transfer explicit knowledge and can organize in-person sessions to share tacit knowledge with your new vendor or an in-house team. We can train and mentor a new vendor, e.g., by using code reviews and pair programming, until the new team feels confident enough.
Fair service contracts
Together with a client, we define mutually acceptable terms for premature contract termination, including a required notice period, to ensure that the interests of both parties are protected.
Flexibility to switch cooperation models
We employ three cooperation models – full project outsourcing, a dedicated team, and team augmentation – to cater to the required level of engagement in your project. If, at some point, you want to narrow or expand our role in your project, we ensure a smooth transfer to a more suitable model.
Guaranteed non-disclosure of confidential information
We sign a non-disclosure agreement and preserve the confidentiality of information you share with us not only during the project but also after our engagement ends. You won't feel trapped in the cooperation because you fear information disclosure.
ScienceSoft displayed professionalism in knowledge transfer to our team as we established our own team for future projects. This aspect of their partnership greatly contributed to our confidence in working with them on ongoing initiatives.