A common thread we’ve found when you work with agencies is they never look at the longer term picture. Whether it’s NetSuite customizations or Application Development, they don’t care about the sustainability of the project. When it’s finally time to hand over the reins back to you, what you end up with is an unmanageable set of customizations and disconnected code snippets that take as much time to figure out as it took to get done. It was time to start a new type of consulting firm. One where the long term health of the client was our utmost concern (at the risk of not being able to deliver “budget solutions”). Most agencies only concentrate on getting the job done, disregarding the need to implement sustainable solutions for when they are no longer managing the product. This requires a philosophical shift in how our solutions are implemented. Instead of fix-it-and-forget-it solutions, we look at your system as a whole and consider our implementation as an integral part of that whole, not some custom one-off component.
Yeah? What does that mean exactly?
Think about it this way, let’s say you want to extend your kitchen in your house. You wouldn’t have a completely different set of counters and cabinets in the new section than your old one! You wouldn’t paint the new walls green if the old walls were grey! How about adding white appliances when the ones you already have are stainless steel? Even worse, what if you put the addition to the kitchen 20 feet away from the original and called it an extension? No, what you would do is create a smooth flow in the new section right next to the original, either adding the same type of counters and cabinets, appliances, and colors that you’ve already chosen… Or you’d replace the old ones with something new. Regardless, the new addition needs to flow with the rest of the kitchen, otherwise it would be jarring.
Now think of your current implementation as your original kitchen, and you’ve asked us to add on to that kitchen. We treat the new part of the implementation as part of your original. Adhering to sustainable standards so that you, or another firm, can take up where we left off, keeping our customizations in a natural location. Our “thumbprint” isn’t our name on every customization, but rather the quality left behind after we’ve completed a project.
So then what?
As much as we are looking for long term customers, we realize the nature of our own industry. It’s project- and product-based and since we don’t aim to be the lowest bid (though we try to be the most honest bid), we may end up parting ways when you need a more budget friendly solution to sustain the product. We want to make sure anyone else you bring on the team can easily get up to speed with your structure. At the same time, we’d love to keep working with you, so in that scenario, we want to keep it easy for us as well!
