The Fundamental Criteria: Don't Leave Your Box of Chocolates to Chance

The rule of the right chocolate

Good morning everyone!

Today we're talking about an extremely important topic: the selection criteria to use when evaluating a software consulting company.

When it comes to choosing the right software consulting company, it's a bit like Forrest Gump's mother used to say: "Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." And just as you wouldn't pick a chocolate at random without looking at it, similarly, every selection criterion deserves your full attention and a thorough evaluation.

Obviously, the list could be very long; everyone uses the criteria that over time and through their experience they have found to be most effective. Here I will share with you some of those that have helped me over the years of activity as a manager.

We will divide the criteria into four main groups:

• Technical Competence

• References

• Price

• Relational Affinity

We will analyze all four, evaluating the pros and cons of each.

1. Technical Competence

Let's start with technical competencies. After all, you are looking for support for your project, so technical competencies are the first thing that comes to mind. When talking about technical competence, what do you look for?

• Successfully Completed Past Projects: Companies that have past projects with positive outcomes.

  • Caution: People in consulting companies often change. It's not guaranteed that those available to work on your project today were part of the teams that successfully completed the projects presented to you as case studies.

• Certifications: Companies that hold certifications.

  • Caution: You need to pay close attention to ensure that these are truly the certifications you need and that they can add value to your activity.

• Qualified Personnel: Companies with well-qualified staff.

  • Caution: It is fundamental to understand the company's turnover rate. This ensures that the teams working with you include not only young people new to the workforce, but also experienced professionals.

2. References

References are certainly important. Having the reassurance of someone you know who has worked with these consulting companies can be a great help. The same goes if someone recommends a particular consulting company because a particularly competent consultant works there.

• Caution: In this case too, it is fundamental to understand the company's turnover, i.e., how well the company you are evaluating is able to retain its talents.

• Clarity with the Business Manager: You must be very clear with the business manager who is assisting you that you want exactly that specific resource. It often happens that business managers present highly skilled resources in initial meetings who then, in practice, will not work on your project or will work on it minimally and often only remotely.

3. Price

Now let's move on to the topic of price, which is singularly an extremely important and delicate subject. If you are a technical manager, you have often found yourself discussing, even heatedly, with your purchasing department, whose goal is to get the most for the lowest price. And there's nothing wrong with that; after all, remember that you are working for a company that needs to generate profits, so it is essential to carefully evaluate the price.

However, you cannot ignore the hidden costs. What do I mean by hidden costs? I mean all those costs that are not immediately visible but can actually heavily impact your project and therefore must be duly considered. They are hidden costs that add to that price that initially attracted you so much.

A clear example can be the discussion of having companies that work locally within your national territory rather than choosing companies that work very far away, perhaps on another continent. Normally, the former have higher costs, while the latter present themselves with lower costs, but there's more behind these costs.

A company operating within your national territory, for example, speaks your same language. The people working there have the same culture, perhaps were educated in a school system you know well, and therefore there is a natural connection that facilitates communication.

A low-cost company working abroad might present integration difficulties. It starts with the language barrier: often there is misunderstanding despite using technical English, and often a lot of time has to be spent explaining exact details that would instead be extremely clear to a local counterpart, for example.

Often, but not always, companies that offer overly low costs hide pitfalls in the poor quality of the teams that work for you.

• Important Exception: However, this is not always true. I have encountered several times companies operating from abroad with highly qualified personnel, with extremely organized structures, with whom it was extremely easy and profitable to work. In all these cases, however, there is a fundamental figure to whom, personally, I believe you should pay maximum attention in the selection process of your consulting company: the Business Manager. This figure is often seen only as a commercial interface who comes to introduce themselves to you once and whom you see only rarely, so there is a tendency to give this figure a relative weight. I believe this is a grave error. The Business Manager is an absolutely fundamental figure, and choosing a company with competent Business Managers is an important, if not fundamental, step for a conscious choice of our ideal consulting company.

4. Relational Affinity

The fourth point I would like to discuss with you is relational affinity, or how comfortable you feel with the company you are evaluating. Often, in my opinion, this aspect is not sufficiently considered or is done unconsciously and unintentionally.

It is important to evaluate how capable the company you are interacting with is of:

• Building good relationships with you.

• Being able to discuss any topic with you, even the most complicated or thorny ones.

• In addition to a managerial perspective, it is also important that the teams can integrate well with your current work team, whether they operate remotely or locally in your own office.

• Caution: Even when you evaluate and give a lot of weight to relational affinity, always remember an important point: in medium to long-term projects, it might happen that the person with whom you get along extremely well and who is working with you decides to leave their consulting company for another job. In this case, again, we return to a fundamental figure who is, once again, the Business Manager.

Your Criteria List: Write it Down and Keep it Updated

These are just some of the possible selection criteria I have presented to you. The fundamental thing is that each of them has been evaluated, reasoned upon, and above all, written down.

It is extremely important that the criteria you use to select a consulting company are always written down. This is fundamental for:

• Allowing you to evaluate the soundness of your choices over time.

• Being able, when necessary, to modify, expand, or reduce the criteria (if you have added criteria that make it practically impossible to select the desired consulting company).

  
  

Regarding this last point, I would like to recall an anecdote from my personal experience. At first, when I started writing my criteria, I was very satisfied with them; I was convinced that they were the best possible criteria or at least extremely valid ones. However, they had a fundamental flaw: they were extremely selective, to the point that it was impossible to find a company that could meet all the criteria. It was therefore necessary to re-evaluate the criteria I had written, identify those that were not indispensable and excessive, and remove or replace them.

In short, it is essential that your list of criteria is written and can be modified over time. Always remember that the market is constantly evolving, and significant shifts may occur that force you to modify your selection criteria. A clear and recent example is the introduction of Artificial Intelligence. If until yesterday you were perfectly in sync with a company that worked very well but today has not been able to adapt to the new needs related to Artificial Intelligence, you will be forced to re-evaluate that relationship and re-evaluate your selection criteria. All of this, of course, taking into account your business model and the market in which you operate.

In summary: start creating your list of criteria immediately, write it down, and keep it updated. As always, if you have doubts or find yourself struggling with a blank page, remember that I am here to help companies like yours. Do not hesitate to contact me to evaluate together how to proceed in the best way.

Thank you and see you soon!