How to choose the right Implementation PARTNER

IT implementation partners play a vital role in rolling out
an IT project. They're a key part of its success, making it essential that you
get the right implementation partner for your work. Unfortunately,this is easier
said than done. How can you trust an implementation partner without actually
seeing his work? All you see and hear initially is a lot of fancy presentations
and marketing hype from partners you've invited in a tender bid. Carefully
decipher-ing all that talk and filtering hype from reality is no mean task. You
have to assess whether the partner actually understands your business
requirements, has sufficient technical expertise to do your work, among a host
of other things.

So our story's objective this time is twofold: One is to
put down some essential parameters that should be considered while choosing the
right implementation partner. Here, we've also taken tips from key CIOs across
the industry on what they look for in an implementation partner. Plus, the best
way to attract the right implementation partners is to create the right RFP
(Request for Proposal).

In the second part, we help you identify the right IT
implementation partner for your industry and for your business requirements.
Here, we've got recommendations from key CIOs and IT heads from across the
country on their favorite implementation partners. These have been divided by
small, medium, and large enterprises, and are based on an online survey, wherein
we asked CIOs to tell us the name of one IT implementation partner who according
to them deserves recognition and for which project. Let's start with the first
part of how to choose the right implementation partner for your needs.

Have a clear vision

Before you can choose the right implementation partner, it's important to be
very clear about your own requirements. What is the business need for which you
need an IT solution? And what is the time frame over which this need should be
fulfilled? Only when you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve will
you be able to convey the same to the implementation partner, or put it down in
a RFP when inviting bids from multiple implementation partners.

Everyone knows that defining a clear business requirement
and identifying an IT solution for it is possibly the most difficult task, and
we can't blame anybody for it. There are many things you or your team won't know
about an IT solution, especially if it's a new implementation. You would have an
idea of the business problem, and a rough idea of the IT solution to resolve it
e.g. you know that manual processes are hampering productivity and not giving
you a clear picture of your costs. You know that an ERP system can resolve the
problem, but don't really know what to expect from it,which modules to
implement, what would be the process changes, and other nauances.

The same argument extends to any other business requirement
or IT solution. Most organizations today are pondering over how to save costs
due to the slowdown, and looking for technologies to get the best  RoI. Some of
the emerging technologies that could make this happen are well-known--cloud
computing, virtualization, unified communication, mobility, and so on. But you
wouldn't know the nauances of these technologies. A good implementation partner
will be able to understand your business problem and give you the right advice
on choosing the best solution for it. For this to happen, the partner himself
needs to have a clear vision of how to move forward with a deployment, and have
relevant experience in that domain. Importance of word of mouth advice
Unfortunately, there's no structured process or methodology to choosing the
right implementation partner, so everyone ends up creating and following their
own processes. Usually, the first step is to ask your peers and friends in the
industry for their recommendations. While this Is possibly the easiest method,
it has its own pitfalls. For instance, we all remember the horror stories about
ERP failures when everybody wanted to jump on the ERP bandwagon just because
others were deploying it. People have of course learnt their lessons since
then,and the economic slowdown has accentuated that further. Today, people are
more careful while evaluating their IT requirements, but it's still convenient
to ask your peers for recommendations. While there's nothing wrong with that, it
shouldn't be the only deciding criteria,and shouldn't even be the most
significant one.

Versatility

Should you go with an implementation partner who has expertise in only one area,
or should you go for one who has deployed many different types of IT projects?
Both have their own merits and demerits. In specific cases where the requirement
is very niche,  you'll probably go with an expert. Even other wise, you could go
with a partner with expertise in a single area, but then for your other
deployments, you would have to continue the hunt for fresh implementation
partners. That's where a multi-skilled implementation partner comes in, who can
be engaged for a single project, and later as your needs grow, you could
continue using the same implementation partner for other projects. This sounds
like a good idea, but has one major risk.

What if you decide to terminate the contract with the
implementation partner? How many of your projects would be affected? In case of
a single expertise implementation partner, your other projects won't be
affected.

The other factor to take into consideration is industry
expertise. Does an implementation partner have expertise for your industry, or
has even done deployments for other industries? This may not matter to you much,
unless you're a large enterprise conglomerate. But it does have its benefits in
that the partner could share the best practices from other industries that you
could leverage.

Finally, the third aspect of versatility is the size of
companies that an implementation partner has worked for in the past. If you're a
large enterprise, would you risk giving a project to a company who's only worked
for smaller enterprises? You might get a cost benefit, but would you get the
desired quality of output? But some-body who's worked for organizations of
different sizes would certainly make a difference.

Technical Expertise

This is perhaps the most difficult parameter to judge when selecting an
implementation partner for a new deployment. How do you determine whether an
implementation partner will understand your business requirements? How will you
judge his technical competency? What about the support infrastructure of the
implementation partner? Will you get proper support after the project has been
deployed? How will you determine the quality of work of the implementation
partner? Then of course,you need to judge whether the price being quoted by the
implementation partner justifies the work involved. Finally of course, there's
the worry of ensuring project deployment within the predefined timelines. It's a
well known fact that project delays lead to significant financial losses. In
fact, in many large deployment, the partner cost is higher than the actual cost
of hardware and software licenses, especially when projects get delayed.

There's no straight answer to all of these questions. One
would be to ask the partner to provide customer references. Second, you should
talk to the team that the partner intends to depute for your work. In one
instance where we were involved in evaluating a solution, we found that the
marketing head was answering all our queries very smoothly, but the technical
head was not very clear of our requirements and was thereby giving irrelevant
answers.  Third, you should see the partner's support infrastructure, which
would become important once the project has been rolled out.

Trust

It's essential to establish a level of trust when working with an
implementation partner. This will only come after you start working with the
implementation partner. Only after that would you know whether to continue
working with the implementation partner in the future, or even recommend your
partner's work to your peers. The first stepping stone to establishing trust is
transparency. Has the implementation partner deployed complex projects on time
and within the desired costs? Ask for the timelines that the partner followed
for it to give you a clear picture into the same.

Open Source vs. Commercial?

Does it matter when choosing a partner?You  might have decided to deploy an
open source solution for your problem or vice versa. But does that mean you'll
only invite bids from implementation partners who're experts in either open
source or commercial solutions? What if there's a partner who can give you an
equally cost effective solution on the other platform? Today, it doesn't matter
whether you choose an opensource or commercial solution, so long as it fulfills
your business requirements and is cost effective.

Processes are important

If an implementation partner has done deployments similar to the one you're
asking for, then ask for the methodology they followed for the same. A good
partner should have well-documented processes for solutions they've already
deployed in the past.

Ability to work under constraints A true implementation
partner will work with you in ensuring that the implementation happens no matter
what the constraints. There's no straight way to check this. One way is to do
reference checks by talking to his customers.

How insightful is your partner?

If you're thirsty, you want water,not milk. Similarly, sometimes the solution to
a problem could be very simple. Is your implementation partner insightful enough
to catch that and suggest an optimal solution instead of presenting a complex
solution that would take ages to deploy?

Treat each other as partners Finally, while this may sound
like a cliched statement, but once you've decided to go with an implementation
partner, then treat him as a partner,and not a vendor. Its importance can'tbe
stressed enough.

A true partner will go to all lengths to ensure that your
implementation is completed within pre-defined time lines and cost. They will
involve the necessary people in their team, including senior management if it
comes to that, to ensure that your implementation goes smoothly. Your costs are
their costs if your implementation partner truly works like a partner.

IBM

With nominations from 7 large enterprise CIOs,IBM was definitely the most
popular implementation partner in our survey

IBM was able to grab the maximum number of nominations from
large enterprise CIOs. In our survey, the global giant has been nominated for
its exemplary work in various IT Infrastructure and ERP projects. IBM has a
stronghold amongst large manufacturing companies, because most of the
nominations were from there. Plus, IBM has also received accolades from the
Pharma sector. IBM was nominated by these CIOs for its cost effectiveness,
strict adherence to project timelines, and ability to handle complex projects.
Moreover, IBM enjoys a loyal following amongst these organizations, because on
an average, it has done more than two projects for each of the companies it
received nomination from.

Wipro

This versatile Indian MNC enjoys an equal degree of faith amongst most
industries, with CIOs even willing to recommend its name to their peers

This Indian MNC player received the maximum nominations for
data center related projects. Wipro received accolades for delivering end-to-end
solutions, building a complex LEED certified Green Data centre that saves
thousands of tonnes of carbon footprint, shifting a datacenter, and even
building a complete solution for the distribution business of a utility company.

Process driven methodologies, reliable, trustworthy, cost
effective, and having domain expertise were some adjectives used by CIOs who
nominated Wipro.

As far as ratings go, Wipro was rated highly by all four
CIOs for their projects. Where it might need focus in is improving its
understanding of business requirements. Its highest strength seems to be
cost-effectiveness

On an average, The CIOs who recommended Wipro have worked
with the partner for 5 to 10 projects. All CIOs who nominated Wipro have a great
deal of trust in the company, and were more than willing to recommend Wipro to
their peers in other industries. . 

HP

This global giant enjoys a high-degree of trust amongst the customers it's
worked for. Those who nominated HP have already worked with the company on 5 or
more projects

Whether it's end-to-end outsourcing of managing a core
banking solution, or designing, implementing, and testing a multi-geography DR
solution, or whether it's deploying an ERP solution, CIOs seem to be vouching
for HP. CIOs have recommended HP for everything from right-sizing their servers
to delivering before time, thereby giving the company ample time to test their
implementation. HP was rated 8/10 on average by all three of its customers,
whether it was for adherence to project timelines,quality of delivery, cost
effectiveness, back-end support,technical competency, or the ability to
understand business requirements.

HP enjoys a high degree of trust amongst its
customers,because it has done 5-10 projects on an average for all three
customers it was nominated by. Moreover, they were even ready to give further
business to HP, which clearly shows a high-degree of trust in this
implementation partner.

Anil Chopra and Anindya Roy