If you want to see whether a given company is an option worth considering, you need to start by conducting a preliminary screening to check a few important details and reject any vendors that don’t match your initial criteria. Only then should you proceed with the next steps – otherwise you will end up with too many companies to choose from and interview.

Selecting a digital transformation company – checklist.

Offer

• Comprehensiveness
  
  A good digital transformation company must be able to guide you through your transformation process from start to finish – and even beyond. Why? Because the digital transformation begins well before the first iteration – with the creation of a good strategy – and continues well after the solution has been deployed, during the support and maintenance stage.
  
  Your IT partner should be able to assist you with testing and verifying your ideas and help you select the best path to follow. Identifying your needs and your pain points so that you can come up with a plan that is tailored specifically to your business, is crucial to success. For example, at Future Processing you can make sure your company is headed in the right direction during the IT Strategy Workshop, which is conducted by our experts. Once the strategy has been approved, your IT solution is to be developed and followed by support and maintenance services.
  
  
• New solutions and legacy modernisation
  
  In some cases, totally new software may be necessary; in other cases, you may be able to just update your existing solutions. Your digital transformation company should be able to do both, depending on what you really need in order to stay ahead of your competitors.
  
  A flexible approach like this will help you optimise your costs and make the most out of the infrastructure that you use. Of course, this requires a lot of innovative thinking, data-based knowledge and expert skills, so that you don’t end up with a useless product or a bunch of “improvements” that don’t actually improve a thing. This is why you need to develop a solid strategy first, and work with a team that will help you turn this strategy into a reality, in accordance with the plan.
  
  
• Scalability
  
  The pace of your work should also be adjusted to your needs and budget. You can start small and grow gradually. There’s definitely no need to do everything at once. Actually, quite the opposite.
  
  Identifying good opportunities and then prioritising them is essential because this allows you to better adapt to the ever-changing environment and your customer’s needs. Focus on reaching each goal, one by one, as this will give you enough time to react and alter your course, whenever necessary.

Experience

• Years active in the market
  
  When a company has many years of experience in business digitalisation, this is a clear sign that they’ve been doing a good job. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to last so long in the market. Their years of experience mean that they’ve probably been through many different kinds of situations, dealt with a wide variety of problems, overcome various difficulties and successfully faced a number of challenges.
  
  However, this isn’t to say that a promising startup would not do their best as well. Experience is something that helps give you peace of mind, which is especially reassuring when you need to make such a serious investment.
  
  
• Clients
  
  It’s a very good practice to check on the number – as well as the kind – of clients that a digital transformation company has worked with. Ideally, you want to look for companies that have cooperated with clients running businesses that are somewhat similar to yours (at least, in terms of the solutions that they deliver).
  
  Also, don’t forget to check out the client testimonials, as well as any opinions and reviews about the company from external sources, such as company review portals.

People

• Experts
  
  The important thing here is to find out what kind of specialists a company has on board and their individual levels of experience. More often than not, good outsourcing companies boast about their specialists, especially if these experts help them stand out from their competitors.
  
  Besides developers, project managers and graphic designers, check to see if they have experts with some other specialisations, such as solution architects, business analysts, UI/UX designers and data engineers. Plus, it’s important to know what level of seniority they represent, so that you won’t end up with a team that consists of junior specialists only. Also, always check attrition rates. The lower the number, the more flawless the collaboration (since, for example, fewer onboarding processes translates into fewer knowledge transfers).
  
  
• Technologies
  
  If you already know what kind of technologies you’re interested in – look into them right away. However, technology is just a matter of tools, and the tools you use are usually based on your strategy and solution. That’s why it’s important to find out as much as possible about a company’s areas of expertise. Check to see if they work in the cloud; whether they have experience with artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions; and how advanced they are in terms of e-commerce technologies – depending on what exactly you’re looking for.
  
  
• Willingness to learn
  
  And last but not least – remember that no company excels in everything. However, the best players in the market are always willing to learn and expand their fields of expertise – which is an approach that also benefits anybody who chooses to work with them.
  
  Bearing this in mind, during your preliminary screening, check to see if any of these companies hold internal or external training sessions for their employees; look at how they stay up-to-date with the latest trends; see whether they have the drive to innovate and how open they are to trying and adapting the most promising new technologies.

Wrap-up

Following the checklist above will allow you to easily narrow down your list of potential IT partners. Be as meticulous and insightful as possible, and choose only the most suitable and reliable companies. Remember that your next step will probably be to send out a Request for Information (RFI), so that you can learn more about specific details of interest that are not available anywhere else. Conducting preliminary screening will save you a lot of time, since you will only send your RFIs to the vendors on your shortlist.

We hope you have found this article helpful! If you have any questions or want to learn how we as an IT partner can help your company develop don’t hesitate to contact us.

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