When you own a business and think of having a mobile app to aid your trade, you may need to hire development services from a development agency. In this case, you may have ‘n’ number of questions in your mind related to services, team, deadline, and others. You may want to list down those questions and start your agency hunt in this direction.
However, when you come across development companies, you will compare the potential agencies with your expectations and ensure they fit your listed questions. On the other hand, the app development agency might require to know your technical and business needs. It will help them have a clear perception of what they need to provide from their end.
Thus, it is vital to write down your business and project requirements, along with details about launching the app.
Officially, this document is known as a Request for Proposal. A request for proposal helps to collect offers from various vendors. You can select one of the professional app development partners who can meet all your project requirements, both in regard to experience and budget.
A mobile app RFP comes to your help when you are on the hunt of finding your mobile app development partner.
Let us take a look at what this RFP is and how it works and helps you in finding the right partner for your app development.
A Request for Proposal, also known as RFP is a mobile application request form created to gain the services of a mobile app development company. It helps develop a clear understanding of your project requirements.
Further, the document becomes a contract for work between you and the company. Moreover, it also helps you gain accurate information about your project requirements.
The process of hunting the right mobile app development company is quite intimidating. However, with a Request for Proposal, it becomes easier and effective to approach the company and make the deal.
Thus, you can efficiently choose the ideal mobile app development company that understands your business requirements and deliver the best outputs.
A mobile app RFP needs to be written for the following sections or areas of mobile app development.
For strategic analysis, you are required to inform the mobile app development company about things such as adding value for your clients, mention your business goals, indicate your line of business, increase loyalty, or build a completely new product. In all these cases, the main aim is to take the benefit of mobile solutions. For this purpose, the agency needs to perform user research, market analysis, and workshops with the Design Thinking method.
It is essential to mention the UX/UI design requirements in the Request for Proposal document. It will make it easier for the concerned agency to understand your design needs and work accordingly. You have to mention specific goals, user characteristics, and relevant things for your design requirements.
Further, when you approach the company for the app development purpose, it is significant that you provide information related to products. Mobile app RFP will help the development team to plan the entire project accordingly. As it highlights, business goals, illustrations for the app’s features, and other technical requirements, it becomes effective to execute the project development.
When you plan to build a mobile application, it is significant to decide what products you want to add. Also, you need to determine whether it will be Android, iOS, or both for the app. Moreover, if you are planning to incorporate an admin panel to manage content, then you will need to have a Content Management System (CMS). Apart from the details above, you also need to mention the method by which you want your application to download the data. Also, specify what systems it should connect with, and mention the API if there is any. Additionally, you need to mention the external integrations involved in the development of the product. Make you mention you need to have push notifications or application analytics.
When you create the Request for Proposal, include an image of app functionalities on every screen. Describe each of these screens with their particular elements and information about how the users can interact with them. It is essential to make the mockups resemble the final product. For this, you can incorporate the clickable prototype with tools like InVision. Mockups remarkably enable you to examine features such as navigation, information architecture, and other app features before the development phase takes place. The benefit of creating mockups is that developers and business people can easily understand them in relevance to the final product.
Bringing the thought of building a mobile application to reality needs to have an appropriate concept. The concept is the foundation of the final product. Moreover, it also gives a clear idea to developers and businessmen as well about how the final product will appear. The concept should include potential user characteristics, specific goals and business problems, benchmarks, and an overview of the application features with priorities. Thus, it should present every detail about the final product to be developed. It makes the process of planning other phases of RFP easier and effective.
It is significant to decide the budget before you plan to develop your mobile application. You have to mention the resources available to the software company so that they can offer customized solutions according to your budget. Since you have fixed your budget, it will be easier for you to approach selected software houses and know the development cost. When you present your budget, the concerned software company can recommend better solutions, which will give you an idea about what budgetary frameworks you need to stick to. Even when you have mentioned your fixed budget to the software agency, it happens that adding up features to the app may exceed the budget. In this case, you can prioritize the most important parts of the app. Therefore, they will focus on these parts during the first phase of the process.
Time plays a vital role in every aspect of life. Similarly, it is significant to determine the timeframe within which your application will be developed. Moreover, you require to mention it to the development team so that they can plan out their development phases accordingly. Timeframe helps you define your priorities along with resources to be used. Therefore, make sure you keep a margin while deciding the deadline for launching the product. It will be the developing team to carry out their processes with ease and hassle-free.
A mobile application Request for Proposal includes naming the product owner, who is responsible for its success. Significantly, a product owner plans out the business goals, specific requirements, and the vision related to its development. Also, he or she sets the priorities and acts as an intermediary between the stakeholders and the original project team. Moreover, it is crucial to mention whether you already have a Project Manager to the software house. If it is the case, they should inform their development team to support the Manager in monitoring progress, planning tasks, and communicating with you. Moreover, if you hire an additional subcontractor, you have to mention it as well in the RFP. The software agency plays the role of helping you establish effective communication and collaboration between everyone involved in the project.
In the case, where you seek help from a development team of a software agency, it is significant to brief out the existing system elements and technologies that your team has already used. As a result, you can effortlessly cancel those agencies that do not specialize in those technologies listed. On the contrary, if you have a version of your mobile app, then it is essential to mention the limitations faced by its users. Also, specify your expectations towards the strategy of product development. As a result, the chosen software agency can easily recommend the solutions. Thus, you do not need to worry about the scalability and reliability of the application in the future.
For outstanding and flawless mobile app development, you significantly need to have proper app design and careful analysis. It will help you create a well-written RFP for a mobile app, which will, in turn, help you get the expected services of the targeted mobile app development company. Make sure you mention business and technical requirements, along with dependencies, limitations, and expectations to the chosen software development agency.
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