CHOOSING THE RIGHT PARTNER

Radek Stejskal, CEO of Adamapp, shares insights to help you find the best tech partner for your needs

In a rapidly changing digital world, you can’t be an expert at everything. At some point, you’ll need a tech partner to help you achieve your goals. But how can you be sure you’ve found the best one?

Phone a friend

The best place to start is by asking for recommendations from your network. The inside scoop from someone you know and trust can be golden.

However, the chances their company and project have the exact needs and objectives as yours are slim. And even if someone in your network recommends a company, you’ll want to check them out yourself, too. Plus, if your network can’t recommend enough strong contenders to choose from, you’ll need to cast the net wider.

One of the best places to find potential tech partners - and to check reviews of their services - is Clutch.co. It lists more than 150,000 agencies in 500 tech categories and provides independent and verified reviews from real clients.

Platform and industry expertise

Be sure to check with your in-house team which platforms and tools your company needs the project to work with. If you need an Android app or a multi-platform Progressive Web App, for example, then a company that has mostly developed in iPhone apps would not give you the best result.

It’s the same for industry expertise. Does the tech partner you’re thinking of using know what your competitors are up to - and therefore understand how to make your offering stand out among the competition?

This kind of knowledge and experience can make the difference between a tech solution that does the job today but falters tomorrow, and one that stands the test of time.

Money matters

Everyone wants value for money, but basing a decision on price alone has backfired on all of us at one time or another. Having said that, you’ll know what your budget is, so you can pretty quickly eliminate those wildly outside of your price range. But if the majority of the quotes are significantly higher than expected, it might be worth rethinking your plans.

Communication culture

The world of tech is highly diverse, with specialists from across the globe. This gives a brilliant pool of talent to choose from, but it also leads to one of the most fundamental areas of frustration for many companies - communication.

Two key areas to consider here are language and company culture.

Firstly, does the company speak your language - literally? You don’t need the entire team to speak the same language as you, but it can help enormously if your key contacts are fluent in the same language as you. Using translation tools to discuss complex tech requirements can be difficult and potentially lead to costly mistakes.

Secondly, consider your potential tech partner’s communication culture and how it aligns with yours. Some tech partners will give you regular communication and ensure you feel an integral part of the process every step of the way. Others might just take the brief and head off on their own to develop the project.

For anything apart from the simplest projects, you probably want a tech partner that involves you throughout the process, but how they do that will vary, and you need to determine if their communications approach is the right fit for your company.

Support structure

Once your tech partner has provided you with the product, how will they support you going forward? It is almost inevitable that you will need some level of ongoing support, and if they plan to just hand over the final product and vanish, you could soon end up with a tool that is virtually useless.

They should provide this information in their pitch. If they don’t, it should sound alarm bells.

Understandable process

You are typically looking for a tech partner because you need expertise that you lack, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t understand the process. If the company can’t explain to you, in simple terms, how they work and how the project will progress - in clear and jargon-free language - then you might want to look elsewhere.

After all, if you’re looking for a tech partner, you want someone who will work with you to achieve your goals. And that means bringing you along for the journey.

AdamApp (adamapp.co.uk) has more than a decade of experience providing technology solutions - including apps, websites, bespoke tools and AR - to a wide variety of clients. Email radek.stejskal@adamapp.com to discuss your project.