5 Questions to Ask When You're Choosing a Technology Vendor

As companies spend their time in adding value to its business and increasing ROI by integrating new technologies with its operations, they often fail to look into the potentials of the technical suppliers that they have planned to team up with. You need your business to grow; you want to merge latest techniques with business processes to enhances performance; you have chosen you supplier, but is it the right choice? Unfortunately, the companies that give in all their efforts to design perfect strategies, don't prioritize evaluating technological partners.

Vendors clearly understand the organization's need to upgrade and uplift their technical aspect of the organization such as deploying web-based application, cloud services, eCommerce related services, etc. that can help increase efficiency. However, vendors smartly demonstrate their services and offerings, without actually understanding the clients' requirements or market demands. This means that they fail to comprehend business goals from the CIO perspectives and that's where the issues start to erupt.

Weighing on technological partners is essential and requires as rational of a process as hiring a CIO for a firm. Organization partners represent your brand and its is capable of making or breaking your reputation because if it fails to address the core requirements you are looking for, it will affect the whole business. As a result, you need a technology partner that will provide the required services without disrupting business effectiveness. We've a curated question that you must ask your technology partner before signing up the deal.

Have they partnered with other organizations before?

This is will help you determine if the organization can handle the workload that you'll be sending them. For this, you need to ask them like in what capacity they have partnered with other organization. Talk and ask about services that you are looking out for them to offer you. Also, ask for company details, contact details, and references.

Do they understand your business? How will the new techniques adapt and fit seamlessly with the business operations?

Partners need to bring the project-specific requirements to the table and if wasn't necessary, you wouldn't be counting it in. You need a partner who visualizes the entire perspective on a situation, understands your ideas and works to bring your ideas come to life. For instance, if you are seeking for a web application firewall, the partner should be able to fill the security loopholes, outline the best fit and ensure to deliver services that will help.

Will the technology be able to integrate the current traditional equipment and data?

Integrating latest technology into traditional equipment and data can be a challenging. And introducing new systems in the environment to support the technology can be expensive. Ask what's the best solution is for implementation of the technology and whether it's cost-effective or costly.

What is the security level, performance, availability, and up-time assured?

We've mentioned security in nearly all of our articles and blogs because it is such a crucial component that you need to ensure no matter what kind of technology it is. Apart from finding out how the technology adoption could help drive business growth, check what type of security comes along with the technology that needs to be integrated. This means ensuring how safe your data and information will be in the system/application.

Can you work with this vendor — and do you want to?

After the analyzing, only you'll be able to determine if the vendor has the attributes and aspects essential to work with your team. This is such an instance where there should be openness and honesty.