Selecting the right supplier is not an easy task, but when we are talking about critical areas of our business we cannot fail. As a client you must be sufficiently relevant to your supplier; you do not want to pay a high price to have the work done mainly by interns. On the other hand, you must be clear about what your objectives are, or clarify them if you lack the skills to do so, and communicate them in a transparent manner. On one occasion, once a project was well underway, a client “confessed” to me the exorbitant expectations he had, to which I had to reply that I did not know of a legal way to meet them and if I were capable of generating such disproportionate results I would not be talking to him at that moment.
In this article I review the most relevant criteria and aspects to consider, based on my experience, to prevent falling into situations like these and to address the success of your projects with the maximum guarantees.
Marketing is the beginning of everything
It is necessary to master the entire marketing process, approach the market holistically, master the appropriate technologies, have the resources, understand the environment and the strengths and weaknesses of both parties. The client and the supplier must combine all the skills necessary for success.
Each party must be so expert in its skills and so knowledgeable about the other areas involved that it is able to make the other understand the aspects of the project that it does not master.
For example, as a supplier we can be marketing engineer phone number list experts, but if we are not able to show our client the opportunity we are offering, we are missing something. Or we are not speaking to our client in the right way: there is no match. The same can happen to us with technology.
customer-supplier-trust
For things to work, customer-supplier trust is a key ingredient.
Addressing the opportunity holistically, understanding marketing, mastering technologies, knowledge of trends and speed can make all the difference. Today, marketing without technology remains a theoretical exercise and technology without marketing becomes a useless tool.
Every project is framed within a business model. To define it, we must start with strategic marketing (who do I sell to) and brand strategy (how do I connect with my client, under what principles do I design all my communication). The rest is tactical, including, for example, the product. We cannot make the common mistake of going directly to design communication elements or elements of the business process or the products, without having a clear strategy.
If neither the client nor the supplier master the different areas of marketing, the result will be sterile, or at least it will be a high-risk exercise.
The time of closed budgets in software development is long gone
Technology is making business move faster and faster. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this speed; some pre-existing barriers in sales have been broken, such as the need for physical presence in situations that were previously unthinkable. An example of this is online car sales.
This reinforces the need for great flexibility in projects, establishing from the beginning an adequate orientation towards the potential end clients of the project, and during its development a continuous adaptation to the client. This may introduce the need for frequent adjustments.
In this environment, and especially for projects of a certain size, it is advisable to make budgets more flexible and to propose mechanisms for managing flexible or open budgets.
A supplier aware of these trends will make us aware of these circumstances and needs.
Some questions you should ask yourself
When selecting your supplier, you need to ask yourself a few questions:
Are you clear about strategic marketing? If your project involves changing to some extent the type of client you usually work with, or the market, you must have the skills to analyse it properly or find them in the supplier.
Do you have a well-defined brand strategy? Among other variables, the more competitive the market you are targeting, the more advanced the skills needed for success in this field. Do you have them?
Do you know and have the technology to develop the project?
Is the vendor advising you, identifying risks and giving you options? Or are they saying yes to everything?
So what conditions must your provider meet for you to be a match?
I list the ones I consider most relevant
You must be an expert in the areas you do not cover and sufficiently knowledgeable in those you do cover.
You should have references from clients with similar characteristics to yours. Depending on the type of project, it may be advisable for these clients to be in your same sector. But if you are looking to develop something groundbreaking in the market you are addressing, it may be a good idea to look for a supplier who has already done so, even if it is in other markets.
