How To Choose Right IT Consulting Firm

IT consulting is more than giving advice

According to Statista, spending on IT services is expected to amount to around USD 1.2 trillion globally by the end of 2021. This is 9.8 % more than the previous year, and it's one more argument in favor of the fact that IT services are one of the fastest-growing IT industry segments in terms of year-over-year growth.

From fledgling startups to Fortune 500 giants, companies of all sizes use IT consulting services, and the demand continues to grow. New technologies and business models are introduced and businesses seek advantages to get ahead of the competition.

Your team may do a stellar job, but if your business tools are inefficient or don't work well, it ultimately leads to a negative impact. Here is where IT consulting comes into play.

Information technology (IT) consulting services are advisory services that help clients assess different technology strategies and, in doing so, align their technology strategies with their business or process ones. These services support customers' IT initiatives by providing strategic, operational, architectural, and implementation planning. This is some text inside of a div block.

Let's focus on types of planning in accordance with Gartner IT Glossary.

Strategic planning

• Assessing client's IT needs
• Creating system implementation plans

Architecture planning

• Architectural design decisions
• Supporting infrastructure to meet customer requirements

Benchmarking

• Assessing the operational efficiency of the IT environment
• Сapacity utilization rate

Implementation planning

• Testing
• Rollout & deployment

Why are consulting sessions valuable?

IT consulting is meant to help companies achieve greater success through suitable technologies, intelligent use of data, and deep insight into their business goals.

In this block, we've briefly described some types of IT consulting services.

IT consulting is not only the best solution for non-tech-savvy businesses.

Two heads are better than one. A trusted IT consulting partner is kind of a guard for your business — it gives you an outside take on your operations, helps to focus on your core business functions, and, finally, reduces risks. As well as it provides:

Increased development capacity

Cost and time efficiency

Broadening the range of digital tools and business solutions

Market mapping and competitive landscape analysis

List with a pool of companies regarding the collaboration opportunities

What are the best questions ask IT consultant

Have you decided your business finally needs an IT consultant? First, get referrals for IT consulting firms from colleagues, business partners, and social media connections. Determine what issue you need help with, is it a short-term or ongoing concern; what is a general range for your budget.

Here is a checklist of questions for IT consulting companies you can use:

• How much experience does the company have in general?
• How much experience do they have with your domain?
• Have they worked on similar projects/systems/software before?
• What industry certifications do they have, and how up-to-date are those?
• Are they vendor-authorized? (is a team trained to meet a specific vendor's standards)
• Who will be you be working with — a consultant, a business analytic, or a technical specialist?
• Are they fluent in the language you speak?
• How often will the consultant meet with you, and what channels do they use?
• Do they provide training for you and your team after new technology is introduced?
• What are the payment terms?
• How are the fees set (hourly, per project, etc.)?
• How are unforeseen costs handled and billed?
• Do they have liability insurance? What guarantees do they provide? How are you compensated if the last are not met?
• How do they respond to emergencies?

Pay attention to how much time the IT consulting firm representatives spent on the response. How quick and thoughtful are these responses? Is this company proactive? (not to be confused with annoying!)

In good communication we trust. Firstly, it's about:

Where to look for IT consulting company and how to choose

The client is always looking for a trustworthу service provider who can provide a fully-fledged IT consulting process.

Where to entrust your product development is particularly important due to differences in several aspects. Let's highlight them briefly.

Research

Based on the goals you have in place already, then you research to discover IT consulting agencies that fit your plans and budget the best.

Where to look for the best IT consulting firm and how not to be mistaken?

The most popular searching channels are:

• Upwork
• LinkedIn
• Google Search
• Business platforms (Clutch, Manifest, GoodFirms, etc)
• Conferences and Online Communities
• Personal recommendations and Networking

When the shortlist of ≈10 consulting companies is ready, you can switch to the process of optimizing your list and carry out the 'filtering' of applicants. There are some main criteria you should note:

Company size

This factor often impacts the cost rate regulation based on the range of specialists and their rate of employment.

Location

Despite globalization and multiculturalism factors, location still matters. It relates to such crucial factors as time zone, language barriers, and cultural orientation.

Domain Expertise

IT companies with knowledge in specific areas (FinTech, EdTech, Real Estate, etc.) know about real-life challenges you can face from personal experience

Agility and Versatility

Being versatile implies being an IT multi-instrumentalist who can provide IT consulting involving a wide range of services.

Evaluate

Once you have found consulting agencies that match your requirements, the next step is to evaluate them.

1

Reviews

Get insides about the consulting company's previous partnership. Check independent ratings and reviews on such platforms as Clutch.co, GoodFirms, etc. With the mentioned sources, you'll get useful information about the firm's relationship with clients, its attention to detail, and its expertise.

2

Team members

Since you are looking for a whole IT consulting company, you should have complex information on the members of the team. How skilled they are? Are there specialists with experience in your business domain? What kind of experts are available? Apart from devs, do they also have engineers, DevOps, business analysts?

3

Portfolio

An extra step of reaching out to the company's successful projects can give you detailed information about its skills and expertise. At this point, you should be looking to ensure that the IT firm has consulted a similar company to yours.

Tipster

\ B2B

A content aggregator and mobile application that provides real-time, relevant, and reliable public safety tips, resources, news, and alerts at your fingertips.

Truenergy

\ UTILITIES

The application facilitates utility broker integration with large electricity and gas suppliers. The system enables efficient end-user registration with utility supplier as well as account management and bill payments.

4

Infrastructure

One of the core benefits of IT consulting services comes from the lack of needed infrastructure. Therefore, it only makes sense that your consulting partner has all the required infrastructure that your business lacks.

Get in touch

After researching consulting agencies you prefer, the next step would be to have a physical meeting or a video call.

The aim is to understand the company's work conditions and agree on the most crucial details, including:

• Necessary clarifications regarding tech background
• Rough cost estimation
• Rough time estimation
• Failure response

From consulting to collaboration - Freshcode case

From day-to-day management to top-level support, Freshcode is on-hand to help, working towards your business improvement.

We want to share a story about our collaboration with Hi Rasmus, the digital platform providing access to specialized medical care via eConsultation.

Our partnership started as consulting, which subsequently developed into a comprehensive collaboration.

Hi Rasmus

\ HEALTHTECH

The HIPAA-compliant platform that provides access to the leading autism treatment programs and specialists for children, regardless of their location.

Here are the main reasons why the client needed an IT consultant to solve his business challenges.

Client's business pain points =  reasons for searching IT consultant

We handled consulting service in the following communication channels:

• Google meet
• Slack
• Email messaging

Over time, the project has expanded and grown. Together we drew up a business plan that helped get funding and bring on new business partners. Today Hi Rasmus is a HIPAA-compliant app that provides access to the leading autism treatment programs and specialists for children.

For 9 years now Freshcode has been helping organizations to improve and modernize their IT strategies. Some of our IT experts have worked in the industry for over 15 years. This has allowed us to craft a profitable approach to IT consulting that enables us to deliver maximum benefits in the shortest possible time.

Takeaway

Today is the best time to reevaluate your existing business tools and replace outdated and inefficient ones.

A professional IT consulting company should be a multifunctional and 'full-stack' partner providing the right services at the right time for the partners' product growth.

We at Freshcode are ready to enrich your workflow and improve productivity with digital technologies, delivering greater business results. Our team provides a full-service package of assistance for IT projects – we plan, design, implement and continuously support technology-powered solutions.

Do you want to discover more digital solutions for your business as well as ways to implement them through consulting services?

The Freshcode team is ready to help and discuss all possible opportunities in confidence. Book a free consultation here.

FAQ

What are IT consulting services?

IT consulting includes a wide ring of services, from the advisory stage to the implementation of a strategy of leveraging the suitable technologies for positive business line modification:

• Software ideation
• Project design
• Software architecture design
• Software integration
• Software cybersecurity & compliance
• Maintenance and support

Why do you need IT consulting?

Impactful IT consulting rely on cooperation between the client and the IT firm. These services help businesses to

• implement tech strategies and market solutions to achieve business-IT alignment
• drive max value from the current initiatives
• boost profit

Decade-long expertise of IT consulting partner and deep tech background allow you to create a comprehensive IT strategy.

Is IT consultations free?

Initial IT consultation with a Freshcode representative helps a potential client to gain a better understanding of his/her IT needs and details about the collaboration with our company.

The first conversation is free and allows you to get basic recommendations of how to solve your business challenges.

To know the price of customized IT consulting and outsourcing services provided by Freshcode, please, contact us.