Sometimes the discussions about a new project between a new customer and Sofeast take many weeks. In cases like this, while we were waiting for clarifications on the scope of work etc. from a new customer, some other projects get confirmed and work starts on them. Therefore, to avoid over-committing and then under-delivering (asking a customer to keep waiting and waiting), we sometimes have to refuse the original project until such a time that more technical resources are once again available.
The Sofeast group is actively trying to hire more technical project managers to lessen the chances of such a refusal, by the way.
A few points that could lead to difficulties in us taking on your R&D project
Lots of email exchanges and calls are needed to confirm the scope of the next steps and plan to follow.
A customer has difficulties communicating directly with our team in China and requests to have senior managers involved in every discussion. Unfortunately, it's just not realistic for our senior management team to be involved in every aspect of every project.
The customer wants us to commit to getting to a certain deliverable while the design is far from mature, which means there are probably going to be a number of unforeseen challenges and it’s somewhat likely we’ll spend more resources than budgeted.
Instead of going “agile” and going for small chunks of work and quick turnaround, the customer wants to go directly to a functional prototype. That means even more likelihood of unforeseen challenges that will creep in and cause us to spend many more resources than planned (and paid for). This type of “waterfall” approach tends to lead to long delays and to spending a lot more hours than planned.