Finding the right partner for a digital project can be daunting. There are many things to consider and no one size fits all. What do the companies that end up choosing Taiste have in common?
Picking a digital development partner isn’t always easy peasy. There are multiple factors to consider about the vendor such as expertise, cultural fit, commitment, size of the company, references – and yes, also pricing, although I’d never recommend setting that as your main criteria if you’re looking for world-class quality.
The expertise of the vendor needs to match the demands of the job. Culture, on the other hand, secures a good working relationship. Commitment means you’ll get the product out on time. Picking a company of a right size is a factor too: if you’re a small company working with a huge vendor there's a chance of feeling like you're never at the top of their priorities. It also makes sense to carefully go through the projects that the vendor you're considering has done before – this helps you determine whether their areas of expertise will suit your needs.
The expertise of the vendor needs to match the demands of the job. Culture, on the other hand, secures a good working relationship. Commitment means you’ll get the product out on time.
When all of these boxes are ticked, you can be more assured that you're on your way towards building a world-class digital product.
During the hundreds of talks we’ve had with both promising growth companies and the top 2000 companies in the country, we've come across certain patters. The things that matter the most to the companies that end up choosing us as a partner are often similar.
Here, I want to share those observations so it’s easier for you to understand if Taiste could be the right partner for your company.
The companies we work with often have at least some of the following characteristics:
One key trait that our clients often share is that they understand their products and services are competing on a global digital market. Because of this, they want to deliver a user experience that’s on par with global benchmarks. A key part of this philosophy is also embracing deep collaboration between design and development. This means design capability isn’t just a bolt-on to the dev team but rather a key part of the product development team.
Often we get hired to facilitate collaboration and communicate clear requirements from the UX perspective to the development team. We take the role of a “translator”, bringing forth realistic requirements directly from the users, synthesising them with business goals and working with the development team to find the technical possibilities for implementing a solution.
From the perspective of culture, our clients appreciate that our experts are smart, passionate and yes... also kind. We believe kindness is really important in fostering a good partnership and goes hand in hand with the kind of emotional intelligence that is required from our experts: user-driven design and development is about understanding human beings, after all.
In addition to kindness, appreciation for high quality is also a value that's clearly present in our partnerships.
We’re in it for the long haul. Our clients usually see that we can provide value to their digital product development in the long term. This doesn’t mean that we need to be working on their project or products all the time; just that we’ll be there when they need us.
This usually means that completely new client relations start with a test project of some sort where we establish working methods and trust, after which we form a partnership where our designers or developers work together with the client’s team with some predetermined cap on the maximum hours per month.
We understand that needs vary over time and don’t expect that our clients need us all the time, but we are happy to continue whenever the need arises again. We’re able to do this smoothly because Taiste is quite optimal in size for our clients, not too small or not too large.
It’s clear that the demand for custom digital product development is growing among our current and prospective clients. More and more, companies have reached a point where “off-the-shelf” solutions just don’t do the job anymore for their clients or business goals. Therefore. many of our clients belong to the group that have decided to invest in custom solutions for their employees, customers and stakeholders.
To conclude, the four distinct characteristics that lead to a great partnership between us and your business are:
If any of these statements match your way of thinking, do not hesitate get in touch, or give us a follow on LinkedIn! We’ll be here for you when you need help with your UX design or software development projects.
