top of page

3 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing a Technology Vendor


green cloud technology connects to your laptop

When choosing a technology vendor for your company, decision makers want to avoid three costly and common mistakes. There are quite a few details to consider, but it all boils down to three major categories of things to avoid. Keep in mind that you can learn from your own mistakes (This is the hard way.), or you can learn from the mistakes of others that have gone before and are willing to share their missteps. As your business thrives, you will at some point have to upgrade your technology. You will want to choose the right vendor who offers a proper technology strategy for your business requirements. It's important to make sure that you have a successful outcome by avoiding three major issues that arise again and again.

The first mistake to avoid:

1. Blatant Failure - Sure, its an obvious point; however, many well meaning companies endure a total technology failure right after a system upgrade for several reasons. First off, due to time constraints and the threat of looming downtime, decisions are made haphazardly. No clear cut expectations were set between the vendor and the end users on how the upgraded system should work for the present needs of your users.

When a network upgrade is chosen because of a system failure, you are told that you need a system upgrade right away. (It’s as though its a very cold December and your furnace quit working. What choice is there but to get a new one?) This same circumstance can happen and the urgency takes over. The technology vendor simply rebuilds the prior system based on the dated system architecture. It's a new system, but it was not created with today’s business needs in mind. The new system functions the same as the old one, and no advancements are made to enhance your workflow or productivity.

Other factors that contribute to failure are choosing the wrong technology vendor who has not kept up with current requirements for today’s processing and server migration needs. This vendor can create a new system that does nothing better than the old one or mistakenly builds in other system issues that were not there before. Sometimes vendors will not make any recommendations because they are in over their heads and waiting seems to be the safer decision for them. At some point, a system failure occurs, and a decision has to be made.

2. Poor Migration Experience - Sometimes it's not the technology strategy that is the problem, but it is the project team that implements the system upgrade. This goes back to setting expectations regarding timing and downtime issues. It also can be an issue with the user experience. Perhaps key users are going to have a completely new user experience and are not aware of the details until after the migration. Many times the project team comes in and makes the changes, but fails to inform and train the users on their post migration user experience. Changes occur regarding access to data or different steps for data access and processing are implemented. This issue can be daunting and frustrating to all levels of users who discover the changes on their own. If the project team is long gone and not accessible, this can be a tough mountain to climb. It is reasonable for the user experience to change. It is not reasonable for this to be a complete surprise.

Steps need to be made well before the migration occurs so that each user will be aware that change is in the air. They need to understand that their experience will change post migration. They will need to give priority to test driving their new system, and make sure their issues are addressed according to the project team’s training schedule. These users should make themselves available without distraction so they can rejoin their work flow as efficiently as possible after the migration. Sometimes project engineers provide feedback that the employees are not focused on the training, do not realize that their system has changed, and they need to pay attention. The project team typically wants to leave after the arduous migration session is complete. Provisions and proper expectations should be set for all those involved.

When a migration occurs and the user needs are not properly addressed, ill will builds and the overall upgrade will be viewed as a failure or made to be more difficult than needed in the aftermath. Regardless of fault, a disruptive migration will cause poor production for your employees while they teach themselves how to use their new system. Proper planning will yield a proper user experience.

By setting forth reasonable expectations and providing a positive post migration training session, this can all be avoided. The project team or their assignee's should be on hand to assist with all user requests after the migration occurs. Your users should have ample time to get back to work and test drive their system to make sure that they can work productively. Feedback from these types of failures is that the project team will hand off the user questions to the help desk, or tell the users to simply reboot. Users become exasperated, and it takes time to recover from these episodes (not to mention the disappointing workflow and lower productivity).

3. Hidden Fees and Cost Overruns - The project should have a written and detailed scope of what is included and what the possible cost ranges are before implementation. However, many technology projects are implemented with only part of the labor costs revealed. At times, there are provisions for unknown labor or the project worsens as the migration occurs. In these instances the decision makers should be notified so that there is a clear understanding and awareness of what is happening. Many times the project team gets started only to find out that more work or more hardware will be needed because of hidden data sets or software requirements that arise. Also, it becomes apparent that the old system was truly cobbled together, and data resides on older hardware, or is even partially in a cloud server. In any case, massive cost overruns and delays are commonplace. The technology vendor legitimately runs into unknowns. It is at this time that many decision makers wish they had read the fine print of their agreement with the technology vendor. The end result is that your estimate did not include the unknowns, and you are pretty much stuck with higher costs.

There is a preferred technology strategy that you can implement that will bypass the three common mistakes listed above. You can use a cost effective private cloud solution that addresses all these issues upfront. A proper cloud solution provides a scalable and ongoing technology strategy that addresses your company requirements upfront.

Meet NthaCloud. We offer a proven turnkey solution at a fixed price per user, where everything is included. Failure is not even an option. From the initial assessment, the migration project, and project team implementation, there is a true sense of ownership for each step along the way. Our team of technology professionals have implemented successful migrations for many fine companies in various industries. Check out our case studies page for specific examples.

Our upfront, per user pricing includes all hardware, operating software, services, labor and ongoing support with absolutely no surprises. We even include your internet service in our price. That way we manage all aspects of your system, and there is no finger pointing allowed because we take responsibility for your system success. We are in this for the duration, so ongoing support is included as well. By choosing NthaCloud, you will never have to buy another workstation or server. You will never have to endure cost overruns or surprise invoices.

Contact us today for a free, no obligation system assessment. Your only regret is that you did not find out about us sooner. Info@nthacloud.com or call 303-565-7261.

Would you like to receive notifications when new informative technology blogs are added? Subscribe now.

If you would like to download our free Executive Guide addressing Technology Labor Shortages, click here.

kevin@nthacloud.com
303.565.7261
Recent Posts
Archive
Search By Tags
No tags yet.
Follow Us
bottom of page