Ideally, choosing a technology vendor should be a straightforward process. But the confusing reality is, it rarely turns out as intended. Think of an analogy. Suppose all you want is to brew a good cup of coffee in your kitchen at home. But in the process, you end up remodelling your entire kitchen just to get your perfect brew! Selecting the right technology vendor can feel like this at times. 

Your needs are simple; but you’re confronted with an avalanche of demos, RFPs, compliance checklists, integration conundrums, and cross-department alignment difficulties. Finally, you find a promising technology partner; but your legal team wants more clauses, finance wants to renegotiate pricing, and senior leadership has an additional 47 questions. Then your CTO identifies a new requirement that changes everything after you’ve complied with all the requirements.

You’re back to square one; you tweak, realign, and present your pitch again. What began as a solution purchase has morphed into a mini project that needs to tick strategic, technical, legal, and financial boxes simultaneously.

Complexity is unnecessary. We believe that a technology partner has to take a holistic view of your enterprise goals. Therefore, they must provide a solution that ticks all the right boxes while being strategically aligned to meet your organisational and people goals. We advocate a straightforward six-step assessment that helps you identify the right technology partner and the exact solution(s) that you need.

When you start this arduous task, ask yourself and your team whether the shortlisted technology partners:

1. Provide use-case clarity
We’re inundated with buzzwords nowadays, but buzzwords don’t drive transformation. A successful digital transformation project begins with clear use-case alignment and context-driven planning. Don’t get lost in a technology provider’s expansive solution catalogue. Map your goals and operational bottlenecks, then identify how technology can improve each of these. Understand which technology is the most effective and formulate a plan to introduce the selected technologies. Your technology partner should have in-depth knowledge about the pros and cons of the many different technology vendors in the marketplace, empowering you to make the right decision.

2. Bring expansive experience
An organisation often has multiple needs—cybersecurity, cloud, infrastructure, data, or AI. The best way to approach these needs is through a single technology partner who specialises in all the areas you require. You should aim for fewer contracts, trouble-free integration, and more value for your money. The right technology partner will connect you to a wider ecosystem of experts in one place. They should also introduce new technologies for greater impact.

3. Bridge the people-technology gap
Your team is as diverse as your technology needs. The people-technology gap can function as a real hindrance to achieving digital transformation success. The ideal technology partner speaks your stakeholders’ language. They should have the skill to accommodate concerns from all teams in your organisation— the C-suite, legal, finance, procurement, and operations.

4. Lead with a strategy-first mindset
A technology partner is not a simple digital tools provider. Rather, they are a transformation partner for the long term. Make sure that they understand your complete transformation roadmap, existing investments, budgetary concerns, compliance needs, and the risk profile from the beginning of the engagement.

5. Create momentum
You should receive a technology proposal that anticipates probable challenges during the course of your project lifecycle. These include legal, security, and procurement-related ones. For example, legal teams often have stringent requirements that can delay projects as stakeholders negotiate terms. The technology provider must work with you to accelerate internal approvals and reduce unnecessary back-and-forth. Nothing grinds a project to a halt like an endless approval cycle.

6. Plan holistically and align with ESG commitments
Sustainability is built into many organisational strategies today. Technology solutions must support your governance and ESG ambitions. This extends beyond compliance. The technology partner must give you the capabilities to measure your impact. Technology is about creating better, more efficient business practices that serve people and the environment, not just faster processes.

Making decisions is harder than designing technology at times. When it comes to selecting the right technology partner, endless vendor lists, overlapping offerings, and disjointed roadmaps are only some of the things that can derail your decision. Business leaders need clarity, and our six-step assessment helps you to demystify the technology partner selection process. To recap, when selecting your technology partner, keep the following in mind: use-case alignment, breadth of experience, technology-people gap mitigation, strategy-first mindset, project momentum, and ESG goals.

NCINGA believes in engineering for humanity— delivering technology solutions that support your enterprise goals, long term sustainability, and empowers your team. Going further, we believe technology should serve our wider community, including people and the environment. That’s why our approach focuses on three core areas: confidence to make decisions, clarity to choose, and support to deliver. Real value creation deserves more than a complicated selection process. We’re here to simplify your path. Discover how we can help you here.