13 min read

Technical partner for SMEs: four forms, and how to choose

Sébastien Nobour

Founder of DEVEDANOS

Alternatives

Your company has no technical team, and you are unsure whether to hire a developer or a technical director, or to go into business with one. Yet you need someone: to have software built, to replace a tool that no longer keeps up with your business, to secure your teams’ computers. That is when people start talking to you about a “technical partner”.

The phrase is reassuring, but it does not say what this partner actually does. We see four forms. They do not meet the same need, and they do not leave you with the same thing on the day you part ways.

Before comparing quotes, you need to know which form matches your need. Hiring and taking on a partner are two other routes, which we cover next. Finally, three points need checking, whichever route you choose: what you own, what happens when your needs change, and how you will be able to leave.

The four forms of technical partner

The fractional CTO or IT director. A technical director, or an IT director, who works for several companies. Mélina Loupia, a journalist specialising in technology and cybersecurity, describes the role in a guide published by Clubic in February 2026. They come in one or two days a week. They steer the IT strategy, take stock of what is already in place, negotiate with suppliers and support projects. They defend the company’s interests with its suppliers.

The development agency. It builds what does not exist yet: a website, a mobile app, bespoke software. What it leaves you with at the end is the code of that software, provided the contract assigns you the rights. This condition is covered in detail below.

Managed IT services and cybersecurity. The provider runs what you already have: your computers and devices, user support, security, backups, sometimes hosting. You pay a fixed monthly fee. In return, the contract sets a service level: response time, availability, phone support.

The ERP or CRM integrator. It installs and configures an enterprise resource planning package (ERP) or a customer relationship management package (CRM), published by another company. That software belongs to its publisher, the only party entitled to copy or modify it (article L122-6 of the French Intellectual Property Code). You pay for a licence to use it.

These forms can be combined. According to the same guide, many SMEs pair a fractional IT director for strategy with an outside provider for technical operations.

So start by naming your need: steering your technical choices, keeping your IT running, adapting off-the-shelf software, or building software that does not exist yet.

Hiring or taking on a partner: what it involves

An employee works for you alone. You direct their work yourself, and the software they develop as part of their job belongs to you (article L113-9 of the French Intellectual Property Code, covered below). Hiring also has a cost, and it goes beyond the salary. Here are the orders of magnitude in France in 2026.

The salary. The Association pour l’emploi des cadres (Apec), the French body that tracks the market for managerial and professional staff, publishes their salaries every year, job by job. According to its 2025 edition, as reported by Le Monde Informatique, a developer with cadre status earns between €34,000 and €53,000 gross a year, with an average of €43,000. The study as reported by Le Monde Informatique gives no figure for the chief technology officer (CTO) as such. We take the closest job family, IT management. In the Île-de-France region, half of these managers have a fixed salary below €77,000 gross a year and the other half earn more: that is the median salary. On top of that comes a median variable component of €7,000. In the other regions, the published range runs from €46,000 to €96,000.

Employer contributions. They come on top of the gross salary. According to Payfit, a payroll software publisher, they average 25% to 42% of gross salary, depending on the company and the employee’s profile.

Recruitment. A recruitment firm charges 15% to 25% of the recruit’s gross annual salary, according to an article on HelloWorkplace. For a senior management role, its fees “can exceed 25-30%”, according to Talent Program’s guide to recruitment fees.

Applied to the Apec salaries, these rates give the following orders of magnitude. For the developer, the average is national; for IT management, the figures are for Île-de-France.

Developer IT management (Île-de-France)
Gross annual salary €43,000 (average) €84,000 (sum of the medians: €77,000 fixed and €7,000 variable)
Annual cost to the employer, contributions included €54,000 to €61,000 €105,000 to €119,000
Recruitment firm fees (one-off) €6,450 to €10,750 from €19,250 (25% of the fixed salary)

This calculation leaves out the workstation, the software, and the time the new employee needs to get to know your business.

When a hire fails. The HelloWorkplace article works through an example: a manager who costs the employer €50,000 a year, contributions included, leaves the company after six months. Adding up the salary and contributions already paid, onboarding and training, lost productivity and the new recruitment, the article puts the cost of this failed hire at €43,000.

How long it takes to part ways. The probationary period for a manager on a permanent contract (CDI) lasts four months at most. It can be renewed once, up to eight months in total, if an industry agreement made binding by the state provides for it and the employee accepts in writing (Service-Public). After that, the notice period depends on your company’s collective agreement. Under the Syntec agreement, it is three months for a manager, whether they resign or are dismissed (Payfit). In that case, parting ways takes three months.

With a single developer, all the knowledge of the software rests on one person. If they leave the company, that knowledge leaves with them, unless it has been written down and handed over.

Going into business with a technical director. They can also take a stake in your company, as a partner. To set their share, “there is no statutory scale”, as the chartered accountant Samuel Hayot points out (our translation): it is negotiated. In young companies, the partner often acquires it progressively, over several years, on a schedule written into the shareholders’ agreement, the contract that governs relations between partners: leaving too early gives them no right to anything.

That leaves the ownership of the software. A partner who is not an employee is not covered by article L113-9. In 2015, the Cour de cassation, France’s highest court, refused to recognise a company’s rights to software written by two of its partners, for lack of proof that those rights had been assigned to it. The software your partner develops therefore only belongs to the company through a written assignment, just as with a provider. And, as with a single employee, all the knowledge of the software rests on them.

What the guides highlight

The guides we read to prepare this article all follow the same outline. First they list the benefits of outsourcing: fixed costs that become variable, expertise the company could not afford full-time, time saved. Then come the selection criteria: certifications, client references, guaranteed response times, price.

These criteria matter. They do not say what happens on the day you want to change something, or to leave. An account from 2008 shows one of these points: who owns the code.

Who owns the code of your software?

On the site LinuxFr.org, in 2008, a user tells what happened to an organisation he knows. It had commissioned software from a company, written to its own specifications, and the development contract said nothing about the licence. The software is at the heart of its business, and is of no use to anyone else. The day the organisation asked for the source code, the developer refused to hand it over. The author of the post asks readers whether the organisation has any recourse to obtain its code.

The readers’ replies agree: without a written agreement, the developer is probably within his rights. In their view, the organisation is left with three options: negotiate, buy the code, or have the application rewritten.

Under French law, the Intellectual Property Code distinguishes two cases. When an employee develops software as part of their job, the rights to exploit that software belong to their employer (article L113-9). This rule covers employees, and does not apply to an outside provider.

With a provider, the rights only pass to you in writing. Article L131-3 of the same code requires each right assigned to be mentioned separately in the deed of assignment. It also requires the scope of those rights, their purpose, the place where they apply and their duration to be defined.

Paying the invoice therefore does not make you the owner of the code. For that, you need a written assignment clause that names each right assigned. Have it reviewed by a lawyer before signing.

Software is more than its code. To be online, it also needs a domain name, a hosting provider and a repository, the space where its source code is kept. If these accounts are opened in the provider’s name, the provider is the one with access: you will need them for every change, and to leave.

When your needs change

Your users work with the software, and how they use it shows what is missing, what serves no purpose and what needs improving. The sooner they have it in their hands, the sooner you know what to change. From then on, the contract decides what each change costs.

Under a fixed price with fixed scope, the provider carries the estimation error on the signed list. The client carries the change in needs, change order after change order. Under time and materials, the client carries both. A change does not need a change order, but every extra day is added to the invoice.

In both cases, the budget starts from estimates, and those estimates include a contingency margin that the client does not see. Some professionals who advise independent developers recommend a margin of error of 30% to 250%, depending on the project and the sector.

And the price set at the start rarely holds: why the actual cost so often ends up above the planned budget is what we explain in our article on budget overruns. Is there a way of paying that does not rest on an estimate? Our article on fixed price and time and materials compares the three ways of paying for software development, and says who carries the risk in each.

Before signing, ask your future partner: if my needs change, what changes in what I pay?

Being able to leave

You also choose a technical partner on how you can leave them. In her guide, Mélina Loupia warns that without a reversibility clause, a company can find itself unable to change provider without losing months of work. The contract must provide for recovering the data, access to the configurations, handover of the documentation and the notice period.

A written clause does not yet prove that leaving is possible. Only a trial run proves it. Do it once, before you need it: ask for the code and the documentation to be handed over to you, then give them to someone other than the provider. If that person manages to get the software running from what you were given, you can leave.

Being able to leave also changes the relationship. When the client can end the contract at any time, their technical partner has every reason to do the job well: otherwise, the client ends the contract.

Questions to ask before choosing

  • Which need do you cover, and which do you not? Steering, keeping the existing systems running, adapting a software package or building software.
  • What do you hand over to me at the end of the contract? The code, the documentation and the access. And, for the code, a written assignment of the rights.
  • In whose name are the accounts opened? The domain name, the hosting, the code repository.
  • How can I leave? The notice period, the return of the data, the handover of the documentation. And the trial takeover, once.
  • If my needs change, what changes in what I pay? Under a fixed price with fixed scope, every change goes through a change order; under time and materials, it adds days to the invoice; with a fixed budget and a flexible scope, the amount does not change, only the priorities do.
  • When will my users be able to use the software? A date when they have it in their hands, not a project end date.
  • What will the relationship cost over three years? The Clubic guide advises including work outside the contract, licences and migration costs.

DEVEDANOS, a technical partner to develop your software

DEVEDANOS is the technical partner for SMEs in bespoke software development. Among the four forms, we are a development agency: we build the software your business needs.

The projects we develop as bespoke software:

For bespoke software development, we work to a fixed budget, invoiced at the end of each month for the work done. Your application is usable within a month, with a few essential features: your users start working with it straight away, and how they use it determines which features come next. The source code, infrastructure, deployment pipeline and documentation are your intellectual property once the first monthly invoice is paid.

With this fixed budget, you pay neither recruitment firm fees nor employer contributions. The budget is built with you, from your numbers and your objectives: together we set the amount and the problem your application has to solve. From then on, it covers its maintenance and evolution for as long as you want, so that it keeps adapting to your business.

You can terminate the contract in writing at any time, without justification. During the reversibility month, we support your team until they can build, test and deploy without us.

Further reading

Our guide covers the questions to ask before signing a quote for developing your bespoke tool. And if you are offered AI built into this software, our article “Can you have your own AI?” explains what you will own at the end.

Looking for a technical partner to have your software developed? Shall we talk?

Sources

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