Top 5 tips to read before selecting the right technology partner in 2019

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Whether you are selecting a tech partner for the first time or the tenth time, finding a right one is a painstaking process. It’s a task in itself to find that one stop tech. partner which can fulfill all of your requirement.

Sometimes, it works like a charm, and sometimes it is like an estranged marriage where commitments and expectations are not met. When bigger stakes are involved, it is crucial to find the right technology partner so that you can focus on areas of your expertise and let the technology partner do what they do the best.

Whether your purpose is to create a proof of concept, build something to scale, iterate on a product-market fit, augment your existing team, or any any other purpose, you need to perform early research about the company’s capabilities. Take the time to analyze the company’s portfolio, analyze your research and identify the right company which is going to develop your product or augment your existing team. Remember not to rush while selecting a tech partner since you may lose a considerable amount of clients and business..

Following are certain criteria which you must consider.

Acknowledge the company’s experience

It has been observed by the outsourcing industry that technology partners are chosen based on the price they quote rather than their experience in developing successful products. When you choose the former one, you may end up saving a considerable amount of money, but you will end up having a bad product.

On the other hand, when you choose the latter one, the company which has proven experience in delivering successful products in the relevant industries or similar projects; you will end up having a great product with better usability. They help you make informed decisions and reduce the overall time to market.

Adherence to Industry Standards

This is perhaps the most basic check in the entire process. Your product’s success relies on your technology partner’s adherence to practicing standard processes. Some of the key questions you should ask are:

What are the product development and management methodology they adopt?
What are the principles they apply while designing the user experience?
Does the company create proof of concepts before developing the actual product?
Does the company provide the sprint wise timeline to estimate the development tenure?

Processes stay on top of the development lifecycle. When the products move from concepts to production, processes ensure that they become usable and provide the right user experience. Companies, which follow industry standards tend to be super organized and are structured to prepare technologically superior builds, provide timely updates & maintain an efficient product development life cycle.

Delivering results consistently in line with business goals

Apart from having technical experience and domain experience, it is very necessary to learn how tech partners have helped their customers achieve their business goals.
Technology partners should have proven experience in helping out their customers to achieve their business goals by defining the right digital strategy. Expertise in technology should not be the only criteria while selecting a technology partner.
There may be greater challenges which sometimes, are not foreseeable. Such as focussing on outcomes without setting up processes or investing in the right people and an awareness of a technological landscape in the respective industry segment. To deal with these issues, your technology partner can help you to define and the successful development & execution of the project.
Innovation is as critical in any business but it must have a purpose with a measurable ROI & value addition. A good technology partner can help you to achieve it.

Design Thinking Based User Experience Design

Great designs sell themselves. In any homogeneous industry, apps are similar, their functions and features are similar but they are miles apart from each other when it comes to user experience and usability. For e.g. Banking, Insurance, Automotives etc.

The basic offering will remain the same but the user experiences define the success of a product. That is where design thinking is important. While selecting a technology partner, you should identify their design skills.

How good they are?
Do they give enough importance to user research?
Do they capture the business logic and translate them effectively on sketches or wireframes?
Do they emphasize on keeping it simple for the users?

This is perhaps the most important aspect because once your customers start interacting with your product, the overall user experience becomes a key differentiator between you and your competitors. This is what brings them back to using your product and also make them refer to other customers.

Effective Collaboration & Honest Communication

For any partnership to succeed in effective collaboration is most important. While you choose a technology partner, consider an open line conversation throughout the product development process. The partnering firm should be able to communicate complex technical topics so that the non-tech partner can understand the concerns easily.

The baseline expectations should meet to reach a common ground. Good technology partners advise their customers on several pre-emptive measures or corrective actions in project plans in solving complex problems. While selecting a potential technology partner, you should clearly define the long term goals in order to gauge whether your technology partner can have an idea about where you will be in upcoming years and not just where you are positioned at right now.

Conclusion

Finding the right technology partner for your business is crucial. Instead of finding a generalist company, your focus should be on finding a specialist company with a proven track record in delivering projects on time while maintaining the quality. A good technology partner should be selected based on following questions: