Advice boils down in many cases to simple common sense.

Look at the potential vendor’s feedback over tha last projects and the amount of the time the company has been providing outsourcing services. “Many of these e-business firms sprang up in the last year or two offering development services and in some cases, trying to offer outsourcing, but they have no track record,” warns Julie Giera, vice president and research leader, IT management and services for Giga Information Group, a Cambridge, MAbased technology research firm.

Evaluate the quality of past work and engagements with similar clients. It’s also important to check a company’s references and look at its client list. The key thing would be references and is to not to take people’s word on it but talk to the customers and talk to the references.

Read the fine print of all the bids and clarify any questions via pChat. It is important to know what the service-level agreement covers and make sure they meet the company’s needs in terms of technical support, price, and maintenance. Customers should be very careful about what kind of service levels are provided and guaranteed, it is very easy to go out and find 24x7 technical support but the availability of that service, the actual fine print on what the deliverables really mean are very important.

What we advise is to take a look at what the service provider really provides and ask for what levels guaranteed. Are you guaranteed a solution in a certain amount of time? Is your data actually going to be protected? Is someone going to stand behind it and say something like, "We will guarantee the protection of your data. We will guarantee that your files will not be lost." Look for a firm that fits in terms of size, expectations and needs

And finally talk to the service provider. Phone them up and user common sense to gauge if you can work with this service provider.