“Excellence is never an accident” – How and Why to choose the right ICT partner.

One of my best bosses coincidentally was of Greek family origin so this quote from a fellow Grecian of high repute I think is a fitting homage to you George G.

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Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny. - Aristotle

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Next year is my 26th year in the IT industry. Working at large vendors headquartered in the USA, Europe, and now proudly leading an Australian success story CloudWave, a cloud contact centre professional services and software developer.

It is not a revolutionary concept that choosing the right partner for the job greatly improves if not guarantees the success of your complex ICT project. I have personally witnessed hundreds of shining examples of customer outcomes that were derived from the perfect cohesion of some of the world's most innovative technology delivered by some of the world's greatest technical and project folk. I also bare the battle scars ( primarily early on in my career) of projects that didn’t meet expectations.

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These left a mark on my soul and fed me the passion to find a way to do better. Here are my six considerations for any customer looking to decide on what partner will serve them best – for sake of the timeline as I write this, the suggestions are skewed toward cloud contact centre adoption and migration however still apply more broadly.

1)      Find a partner that is deeply skilled in the niche you wish to address. For example, “Customer Experience” is all the company does.

2)      Ensure the partner has a deep bench of individual personnel who each have a long history of success in the chosen niche you wish to address. These are the world-class musicians who will create your symphony.

3)      Ensure the partner provides proof of mastery of the tools that will serve you. There is no greater master of software than a company that has designed, developed, tested it and owns the roadmap themselves -- for a product that will ultimately support your business. In addition, understanding the exact sequence for deployment, operating environment required, change management, and the most efficient delivery and testing methods to complete the solution.

4)      Find a partner that has mastered the repeatability of the processes that it uses to deploy. This will directly affect the confidence you seek for “on time, on budget”. The only way a company delivers complexity at low cost is by perfecting its internal processes to be a well-oiled machine. Predictable, repeatable, personalised yet at scale.

5)      Ensure the chosen one has strong relations with ecosystem partners who create ancillary services you may need to provide the total solution. In our world, this is Nimbus workforce management, Salesforce CRM, Microsoft Teams UC, and PCI compliance gateways among many others.

6)      Final rule – beware of the ivory tower and 14 legged sales calls. Although I love visiting shiny office towers with foyers the size of a family home. As you gaze out the floor to ceiling glass to the horizon consider who is ultimately funding the company profit required to pay for this expensive real estate and the multiple folks in suits --- or t-shirts/jeans!

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