9 things you shouldn’t say to your digital service provider

When I talk to colleagues in the industry, we often come across statements from potential customers that make us smile. Time for a small collection of comments.

(Reading time: 4 minutes)

“We want to become the Amazon for [xyz]”

This is a classic par excellence. Even board members of large companies can’t stop talking about it. It sounds like this: “In 3 years, we want to be the Amazon of the threaded screw industry”. Where “threaded screws” is an arbitrary placeholder that you can freely interchange.

The sentence sounds cool, like “Think Big”. But it reveals that you have fundamentally failed to understand two things. A) The company has taken 18 years to become what it is today. It is a huge bet on the idea that sooner or later you will gain full control of the entire value chain if you are big enough. Entire value chain also means production, in case that’s unclear. And B): There is already an Amazon for the threaded screw industry. It’s called Amazon.

“Our customers don’t buy online”

There is no such thing as an online customer and there are very few exclusively offline customers. Many people may not buy online in selected areas, but they do use the Internet to research their purchasing decisions. I have already written a longer article about this.

“It should come across like Apple”

You don’t hear that often anymore. But I also encountered it in workshops with large companies in 2015. Apple has its own design signature, whereby I don’t want “design” to be understood as being reduced to visual design. If you copy that now, you simply look a bit like Apple. But that doesn’t make you Apple. A friend said to me the week before last: “Have you seen the new UBS branches, they look like little Apple stores. So embarrassing.”

Contrary to what you might think, this is not a “quick win”, but a “quick fail”. Have the courage (and the budget) and give your company your own signature. This is something that pays off in the long term.

“The search should simply be like Google”

Undoubtedly the most frequently mentioned saying. The problem here: It shows that you either don’t understand Google Search or simply don’t have the faintest idea about software engineering. Every service provider will think: “I hope you have Google’s budget”. Which you undoubtedly don’t have. Leave this line out without substitution. And describe the search in simple user stories.

“Of course we do it agile, simply at a fixed price”

This phrase has only really emerged in the last 3 years and shows that “agile” has become a buzzword, but you don’t want to commit to it. Exceptional software companies work in an agile way and usually without a fixed price. I can only warn against trying to combine agile and waterfall in a virtuoso manner. The result is what I call an “agile case”. Not nice.

“The costs are secondary for us. First and foremost, it’s about the skills”

The pattern of this sentence is not so clear. I’ve heard it many times and many companies really weren’t concerned with costs. I’m doing them an injustice here. Nevertheless, I get suspicious when I read this. Because if the same document also demands a detailed cost estimate with guarantees and promises, possibly even in a predetermined (completely laborious) price-structure XLS, I know that this is a platitude. It’s about price more than anything else. I have no problem with that. But why don’t you write it down?

“We send the RFP to 10 providers”

The killer par excellence. The good agency will turn you down, the bad agencies will think: “Ok, a challenge”. Exactly what you want? Probably not. So do your homework and draw up a shortlist. You can also use an RFI, which minimizes the effort for you and the service providers considerably and gives you a good first round of elimination.

“If the first small project goes well, we have many more big projects”

I’ve been in business for almost 20 years now. Not in a single case have I been able to make a significant turnover with the company after the first small (inexpensive) project that went well. Nowadays, I immediately cancel such statements.

“We only need one standard store”

I often hear in the industry that there is a demand for this. Let me be very clear: there is no such thing as a standard store. You can probably set up something that works for 5,000 euros. But a fully-fledged store that really should make a significant contribution to your company’s turnover costs at least EUR 150k. And usually the same amount again initially for promotion. As always, the exceptions prove the rule. But don’t kid yourself: Only those who sow and look to the young vegetables will be able to reap.