Don’t Bring In Tech Consultants If You’re Not Prepared To Be Challenged!

If you’re lagging or even if you’re at the cutting edge in your sector, numerous obstacles hinder unprecedented success in your business. How can you capitalise on the latest data and technologies to get an edge over your competition? What should you focus on? Which ones will give you the greatest ROI?

Tech consultants specalise in helping provide an experienced outside perspective and bring you clarity. This article explores how they do just that and what to expect going in.

The Present Day 📰

According to Adobe’s 2022 Digital Trends report, A/NZ businesses will soon exceed the rest of the world in customer experience investment following the increased number of new digital consumers and online behaviours in this post-pandemic era. 77% of local brands observed new and dynamic customer journeys, with 81% expecting this trend to continue. 34% said their experience was lagging regarding delivering to customer expectations, while an average of only 33% had the latest insights.

The numbers suggest a steady rise in global digital literacy in terms of the adoption of new technologies, bringing heated competition among industry leaders while gradually leaving laggards behind.

Picture this – you’re making a fortune selling Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs; remember those?), but your competitor invested in the latest tech to develop the first smartphone. You don’t need to be clairvoyant to see what comes next. That’s where things are heading in the world, and you can soon lose your share of the market if you’re not set to tackle this.

Why Hire Tech Consultants? 🤔

What are the tangible benefits of investing in tech consultants? Why would you consider hiring them? How will working with tech advisors impact your business? Let’s find out by first looking at what they actually do in the first place.

In the modern digital era, where competition is tight in every major sector, technology consultants are vital members of any company’s team. They transform the way businesses use technology and interact with their customers. Traditionally, this was by improving processes and reducing costs, but today, you require even more attention than ever before.

Tech consultants deal with everything from digital strategy to project management for when new software or hardware needs installing, right down to projects aimed at keeping your organisation up-to-date on the latest trends so you can stay ahead in this fast-evolving industry!

Hiring expert tech consultants gets you on the fast track to creating better experiences for your customers by leveraging available technology. They examine how you can use tech to create richer experiences, going from helping clients determine their requirements to building and delivering efficient solutions.

Tech advisors first understand your clients and industry through personas and other means, then bring their experience to the table. It’s not that your business should be failing or you’re seeing doom and gloom on the horizon. You could be doing quite well for yourself. Tech consultants don’t come in to say you’re terrible and need to change everything. Their job is to suggest ways to improve your business and help you become the best at what you do.

Tech consulting is your solution to quickly get a leg up and secure your position in the modern age or, better yet, zoom ahead to cover new ground!

Another market research study reports that tech consulting will remain competitive in the days to come because of the continual upward trajectory of digitalisation, globalisation, consolidation, new technologies, and data analytics. More companies than ever before are enlisting tech consulting services, so make sure you do too, at least in some capacity, and avoid getting edged out of your space.

External Vs. In-house 👀

Tech consultants enable you to level up your business and reach greater heights, but why not just do this in-house? You’re definitely free to do that, but first, consider these distinct perks you get from hiring an external tech advisor.

☑️ Unique Perspective & Credibility

In-house employees may not have any novel ideas since their perspective is from within the business. Despite a better understanding of your business and clients, a distorted view can stifle their creativity and prove hurtful as they may get into the mindset of seeing no other way to go about it.

Not having been involved in the business and doing things day-to-day, third-party tech consulting firms won’t have status quo bias. You get a whole new set of eyes on your situation and a unique perspective on identifying areas of improvement quickly.

Moreover, the backing of a tech advisory agency with a proven track record lands you credibility in the eyes of your customers, especially if you’re a new company. When you and your competitors are vying to win over a client or project, reputation is a major factor in inspiring confidence.

☑️ Experience & Execution

In-house tech consultants don’t have anywhere near the experience of a tech consultant partner collectively. Tech advisory agencies also have more resources at their disposal to recommend the right technological fit for your business requirements than one person or team internally.

Internal team members will generally have experience with a handful of companies, or maybe not even that. On the contrary, professional tech advisors have extensive experience in a wide range of industries, companies, technologies, philosophies, and strategies. This continually expanding knowledge is what they bring to the table.

Plus, you’ll not only be getting consultants but also agents of implementation who can promptly handle the execution of suggested ideas. In-house teams lack the skills for this, particularly concerning the latest innovations such as Augmented Reality in customer experience.

☑️ Time Management & Cost Savings

Tech advisory partners allow you to save time by using a team of qualified specialists to quickly deal with any problems your business may face. There’s also time savings through optimising standard procedures so you can overdeliver for increased customer satisfaction.

In-house employees may neither have the skills required to swiftly deal with business problems nor avoid technical setbacks due to company infrastructure. You also benefit from cost savings since hiring an external tech consultant is often cheaper than having a full-time employee considering overhead costs and benefits. Besides, time savings equates to cost savings.

☑️ Training & Mentoring Employees

We discussed previously how tech consulting firms excel in collective experience and execution. You can leverage this and their expertise in the latest tech and any other areas to upskill your employees through training and mentorship. Your team members can ask questions and learn directly from specialists instead of relying on online tutorials and courses.

Even if you hire a third-party tech advisory agency for only a short period, your employees will be able to solve several problems independently, like by using big data in decision-making, as long as they have received adequate training on the subject matter during this time.

☑️ Developing Custom Solutions

A tech advisory agency can help you design, develop, implement, and maintain data-driven custom tech solutions to meet your unique business requirements. Instead of onboarding several talents in many departments, you can get things done through a single partner agency.

Overall, an external tech consultant enables you to scale faster, integrate software more effectively, and save on total costs while meeting your specific needs.

Prepare To Be Challenged ⚔️

Many businesses have hired expensive tech consultants to identify challenges and recommend solutions, only to reject their recommendations and tell them what to do. Are you familiar with this sort of mentality?

Generally speaking, most people tend to have some level of confirmation bias where one hires an expert just to confirm their own opinions on the matter. Ideas that diverge from their own tend to be ignored due to their thoughts and opinions based on stereotypes (learned patterns), heuristics (DNA encoded patterns), and constructs (conclusions from personal experiences).

If you don’t have this in check, then it can spiral out of control and paint your decision-making processes. You’ll quickly go from being data-driven to opinions or emotions-driven.

If you want to bring in tech consultants, expect them to challenge you and your business. Your tech advisory partner’s job is to objectively look at your needs, analyse them, and offer recommendations. Being part of the future has no place for an attitude of “Well, this is the way I’ve always done it for the last 10 years, in my experience.”

Therefore, prepare to be challenged in several areas like:

• Long-standing thoughts and ideas in your sector
• Functioning systems and procedures
• Macro and micro processes
• Software and IT infrastructure
• Security and risk assessment, etc.

It’s common to see businesses finding difficulty addressing issues such as improper use of tech, unsynced systems, generic websites with low ROI, etc. However, a more serious concern is finding difficulty accepting issues such as viewpoints different from their own.

Every business is different, and you obviously need to make sure that whoever is advising you understands the business and what you’re looking to do, but don’t bring in a tech consultant who understands, then tell them what to do!

Understandably, fear of the unknown and feeling comfortable with the status quo can result in resistance to change. But why spend the extra dollar if all you do is hire a tech consultant to agree with everything you want? The expert is there to challenge you and recommend things you may not fully understand.

Practical Advice ⭐

Firstly, if you’re bringing in tech advisors, ensure that they understand your business, long-term vision, future goals, and objectives, so they can make the right recommendations in your best interest. This way, suggested solutions come from a place of understanding, knowledge, and experience rather than just putting on a veneer.

Secondly, be open and transparent while letting go of any mental rigidity to do what’s best for business. It’s not a place for the ego but for overall synergetic productivity that comes through listening and contributing. Think win-win!

Thirdly, bring your ideas and discussion points out in the open. Ask the consultants how you could leverage certain technology in your business, e.g. NestJS for scalable web applications. Be inquisitive and ask what, why, and how so you clearly understand why something is recommended or not advisable.

DON’T bring in tech consultants if you’re:

• Not prepared to be open-minded
• Not expecting to be challenged
• Not wanting to bring any change
• Not willing to work with the agency and their ideas
• Not able to accept the fact that they are there not to work against you but to improve your business using technology

It’s crucial to understand that just because your tech consultant partner brings up various ideas doesn’t mean you need to implement them all.

You start by discussing all the possibilities — “What could be done if there’s an open budget or an open timeline? Which things could be changed right away? Where could you increase your focus for the most effective results?” Etc. These challenge thoughts, processes, systems, and basically everything before a new and better order can be brought out of the chaos.

What Sets Us Apart? 📈

WEBO Digital isn’t just a tech consultant but a Customer Experience Transformation Partner that uses Strategy, Data, Commerce, and Technology to help you reach the next level and meet your business goals.

• Capacity: Most agencies don’t have the capacity to work with the level of technicality that we do – NetSuite, 3D product configurators, deep data integration, AI/ML, etc. You gain access to a wider range of capabilities to turn your vision into reality.
• Strategy: Our focus is on over-arching customer experience in general, including experience in ERP, CRM, and other business knowledge where the entire business ecosystem comes into play. You receive help in all these areas for improved digital customer experience across anything related to technology.
• Philosophy: We’re not here for generic template sites and low-quality apps but to facilitate projects that genuinely make a difference, where you can point to every element and say that it was done for a reason. Everything is pinned back to strategy, using science and data to improve the customer experience for the betterment of your business.

We suggest ways to use technology and provide personalised solutions to identified problems through our unique blend of skills and understanding of the business and strategy side of things. Reach out to us to discuss more and discover if tech consultancy if something that your company could reap benefit from!