Why it is Safe to sign a Non-Disclosure agreement with an Offshore Software Development Company?

“The most valuable business commodity is Trust! For any successful business, there must be a higher level of trust between the two parties. But it is next to impossible to trust over someone when the business will run over a unique idea or intellectual property instead of any tangible property. Isn’t? There are many burning examples where the business man has reached to a great level with the help of other’s idea being stolen. Even one of the top IT giants in the industry had made its presence in the industry with the virtue of someone else’s idea. In IT industry there is a terrific threat of loss of business idea or we can say Intellectual property during the transaction, so it is always recommended to take all possible measures to avoid any such unpleasant experience”.

What is Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)? The best way to keep something under your control is through a legal agreement. Similarly, to keep your idea secret from others, you can make an agreement with your business partner for the future of your hard earned money. When you choose to outsource your application development work to an offshore software development company, you must process an agreement with them about the secrecy of your intellectual property otherwise your idea may be executed by them in their name and they will get all benefits of yours and you will end up with a huge financial loss. To avoid this issue, you can take the help of NDA i.e. Non Disclosure Agreement. NDA is a legal entity or legally enforceable contract that prohibits the leak of your information in the industry from the offshore software firm. It keeps every aspect into consideration like no leak of intellectual property during and after the development process by anybody who are associated with your project development. There are many other things to consider as well for a good business. We will consider them latter.

Safety and NDA: IT industry is driven by an intangible idea or we can say intellectual property. A good concept can make you billionaire if get executed properly. Facebook, Twitter or Orkut all are nothing but a concept or simply idea; but their execution was so beautiful that they become a one website industry. This hints the importance of new concept or idea for a successful business. If their idea would have stolen before the launch of these products, then what would happen? They could never turn out as a successful business model. So, while developing any application or product, we must make sure that our idea is safe with the offshore company otherwise we cannot achieve what we are dreaming for. Non-Disclosure Agreement can definitely help you as a strong safety measure.

Should you sign a NDA with an Offshore Software Development Company? This is the biggest question regarding NDA. Yes, there is definitely need of NDA for the success of your business; but the NDA should be comprehensive enough. If you have not focused on every aspect of security threats for your application or product then, NDA is simply worthless. Make sure that the Non Disclosure Agreement that you are going to sign with your offshore software firm is really beneficial for you. Because sometimes, some unreliable software companies hide some terms and conditions in the NDA and that might create a big problem for you in future. Imagine they have prepared a Non Disclosure Agreement for you regarding keeping secrecy of your idea during the development process. But if you disconnect your relation with them for some reason during the process then what would happen? Will they still continue to keep your idea secret or not? If they will start a new product with your idea and launch it in the market before yours then what will happen? It can create heavy loss for you. So you should read each and every terms and conditions of the agreement before you sign it with your partner. You should check every detail of the NDA and if something is missing you should ask for modification before you sign up.

Make sure you have taken all possible steps before preparing a NDA: Signing a Non Disclosure Agreement with your partner is a good idea; but again it should be compressive enough to keep your intellectual property safe for longer. It is always recommended to prepare your NDA with the consultation of legal advisors from both parties. Sometimes, some rules are followed strictly in a country while it has no significance in a different country. So, it will create problem in future. For a secure business, you should consult legal advocates from both locations i.e. from yours and from the land of developing country so that you can prepare a strong NDA for your concept. There should not be any loophole in your NDA. For the same; you can take help of any other businessman who have experience in outsourcing project to a remote location. His experiences will definitely help you lot while preparing the NDA. He can inform you all possible threats associated and accordingly you can access and prepare a better and stronger NDA.

It can avoid all possible threats in your business: With NDA, you can avoid all possible threats of loss of information about your concept only if it is really detailed enough. Once you able to prepare it properly with all possible consideration it will help you a lot till the end of your project. Few important considerations are: must include all members of the development team of the offshore software firm in your NDA; because they may disclose it to someone else or even on the social networking sites. So, you must enforce them in prohibiting from these types of behaviour. 2ndly, what would be the time period? Usually, people keep it up to the end of the project, but that is not at all wise!! You should keep some extra time beyond the project duration for your safety; something like extra 2 years or so on sounds better. Now, you should also ask for extremely tight security of your project codes, designs and discussions with the developers or project manager; because they are the core element of your project. The offshore software firm should be asked to sign NDA from all its associated employees to avoid any leakage of information in the process. If all these things are considered and made available in the NDA, then you need not to bother about your intellectual property and have a peaceful sleep at night.

At Mindfire Solutions, we are experts in offshore small team software development and we have been serving our 300+ esteemed clients more than 15 years now and have executed over 1000 projects in various technologies and domains. If you have any custom application ideas in mind and need our expertise, please feel free to write to us at sales at mindfiresolutions dot com and we will revert back within a business day. You can also avail our limited period risk-free trial offer now.