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Selecting the right enterprise communications partner is a crucial yet challenging task. The decision involves careful consideration of a myriad of factors, from global reach and local expertise to cost efficiency and scalability.
The questions outlined in this article serve as a guide to scrutinize capabilities, including international presence, depth of local knowledge, credibility, breadth of services, effectiveness in implementation, ability to scale with your growth, and overall value for money.
How do I choose a technology partner?
When choosing your next technology partner, you must ensure their experience, capacity, and fees make sense for your company.
Let’s explore seven questions to ask when you’re comparing partners. Remember, some enterprises must give some sections more weight than others.
1. Do they have a global reach?
A connectivity technology partner’s ability to provide services across borders directly impacts an enterprise's efficiency and scalability. Multinational corporations rely on seamless communication across different cities, states, and countries.
Global reach is more than just a footprint; it's about delivering consistent, compliant, and quality service across all locations, underpinning the seamless operation of a multi-location company.
2. Are they local experts?
While global reach is critical, it’s not impressive without deep local knowledge.
Enterprises face unique regulatory challenges in different regions. It’s up to connectivity management experts to navigate region-specific regulations and ensure compliance. Various areas have different access to providers, many of which are local.
Connectivity technology partners must have a working knowledge of the legal, technological, and cultural landscapes they service.
3. Do they have a strong reputation or social proof?
Clarify how well the potential partner understands and addresses the challenges unique in-house teams face navigating enterprise connectivity technology.
Assess their ability to handle intricate projects, read testimonials, look at reviews, examine case studies, and ask for references. These elements collectively demonstrate proficiency and reliability.
Carefully vetting partners assures their capability and provides insights into their approach to solving industry-specific problems.
3. What pillars do they cover?
While many clients set out for single-solution providers and manage everything in-house, it’s easy to overlook the wide range of connectivity services enterprises require. Advisory, sourcing, implementation, lifecycle support, expense management, and technology lifecycle optimization are essential to successful connectivity technology planning.
Navigating these pillars takes time and resources, which pulls senior staff away from more important responsibilities to work on tasks that could be addressed more efficiently by the right partner.
While finding support for one pillar at a time is easy, it’s never in a company’s best interest to micro-manage multiple vendors with their in-house talent—especially for small IT and finance teams.
Finding partners who can support the full scope of connectivity services in-house teams oversee is wise. When enterprises bundle all of their services through one global connectivity management provider, it gives them the best opportunity to reclaim their employee’s time for the most impactful tasks.
4. Do they cover implementation?
Overseeing implementation is an overwhelming task for small teams, especially in sectors faced with labor shortages. It’s a service very few partners offer as part of their menu of services—leaving in-house teams to oversee multiple providers.
Contracting third-party implementation adds more work to in-house teams operating at maximum capacity. Skilled tech labor also comes at a premium, and sticking to a realistic budget is vital.
A single connectivity partner who manages implementation is ideal, so additional weighting is appropriate for this category.
5. Can they scale with you?
Evaluations should include resource capacity, response times, and flexibility in adjusting to changing needs.
Flush out details about each pillar in the technology lifecycle, even those you may not need support for now. Consider which in-house tasks would become overwhelming when business is booming. Likewise, examine what would need the most external support in the unfortunate event of layoffs.
What may be manageable today may need to be outsourced tomorrow. Ensure proper support for sudden fluctuations in staffing and adding new locations by prioritizing partners who service every category of global connectivity technology.
6. What does location-level reporting look like?
Effective location-level reporting is essential for managing connectivity technology across multiple locations. Enterprises need detailed location-level oversight, so previewing how the partner manages location-level reporting is wise.
Reporting should provide instant cost analysis, operational status, and ticket tracking for each location. Don’t settle for manual reporting methods, like spreadsheets, that are prone to errors.
7. Will they save you the most money?
Global connectivity is an expensive category for enterprises, and spending continues to rise across the globe. Gartner forecasts spending on IT services will increase 8.7 percent in 2024. Meanwhile, in-house teams are up against budget constraints.
While managed service providers leverage market position and industry experience to negotiate more favorable terms, enterprise teams leave money on the table by fragmenting their approach.
Instead of looking at what you can save by working with a provider who offers a fraction of the support you need, explore how much time and money is saveable by shifting more than one service to a partner.
Partners who service the full lifecycle of connectivity solutioning have the unique opportunity to save clients more money than they would spend managing multiple providers themselves.
Consider partners that waive service fees by bundling all their services.
Conclusion: Consider holistic connectivity solutions
Key factors to effectively manage enterprise communications include a partner's global reach, local insights, reputable standing, and ability to cover a wide range of services.
These elements ensure successful implementation, scalability, and significant cost savings. Location-level reporting is crucial, providing detailed metrics, real-time oversight, and efficient trouble ticket tracking.
Advantage distinguishes itself as a global technology partner by breaking the mold of traditional cost models and waiving its service fees when enterprises consolidate their connectivity services with Advantage. This bold approach maximizes efficiency and savings.
Discover how much you will save by speaking to the global connectivity experts at Advantage.