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5 Questions to Ask Before Choosing Your Technology Provider

Dec 08, 2016
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Developing all the skills to build, manage and support every facet of your technology isn’t realistic. It’s just too expensive and time consuming to do it all yourself. Walled gardens aren’t the way to go, either. That direction inevitably leads to a crippling lack of connectivity and data integration in an age where each are vital.

It doesn’t matter what industry you look at, the consensus buyer position is that ideal enterprise solutions are easy to deploy, use and start getting value from. For advanced solutions, such as analytics and business intelligence tools, industry expertise can add significant value, particularly when a quick win is of the essence.

In the public transit industry, for example, would you want to rely on a partner that has no idea what MAP-21 is to make you compliant? Before you answer, remember violations get you fined up to $175,000, plus the government can pull your vehicles, or your agency, off the road.

With these things in mind, here are five questions that you should ask potential technology partners:

1. Do you know my Xs and Os?

The optimal technology solution shows up to work on Day 1 knowing everything about your business and immediately starts adding value. It’s tough for solutions that aren’t purpose-built for your industry to do that, so you have to take the time to “teach” them about SGR, OTP and such. This will add complexity and stress to any deployment – most of which will land on your own staff – and ultimately limit the value add for your agency. In short, expertise matters when picking your provider.

 

2. What have you helped others like me do?

In theory, a lot of different solutions could support your needs. In practice, how many of them successfully have? Demand of your potential provider detailed case studies and client references that prove their solution works for transit agencies. If using a solution with predictive analytics to decrease the mean time between failures on buses is an objective, you want a technology that’s been there and done that.

“Bolt-on” solutions have a wide market address but add little depth of vision for public transit.

 

3. Who do you remind me of?

What do your existing long term partner relationships look like? Business LTRs reflect an on-going commitment to developing new solutions together, instead of just completing transactions. How have you structured complex solutions in the past and who are the providers in your space that have a good reputation for supporting those kinds of relationships? Relying on the experience of those around you who have been exposed to different solutions in your industry is important, too.

 

4. When will I see some wins?

Done right, technology should help take your agency to the next level with a minimum amount of pain and maximum of gain. That’s hard to do if you’re spending weeks or months setting up parameters, integrating data and testing.

Intelligent tools purpose-built to work with data from your EAM, ITS, AFC and financial systems can deliver business value right away. The impact is even greater when those tools make it easy for users to customize the way they see and interact with data.

 

5. Where do I go to get help?

Transit agency enterprise systems are complex. When there’s a technical hiccup, or something you don’t understand, where are you going to turn? An SLA will cover the basics but who is actually going to help your staff get up to speed with using the technology in live environments, when money and safety are on the line? Can your technology provider help figure out why complaints are up 50% on route #21?

What can they tell you about using their software to meet the new reporting requirements for rolling stock performance measures? Most importantly, does your technology provider actively solicit your feedback and is their commitment to your partnership reflected in their product roadmap? The technology provider you choose should have dedicated training and customer care team that supports your every need, 24/7.


 
Nick Ross has over 10 years of experience in the public transportation industry and has worked with over 40 large scale transit agencies successfully delivering multi-million dollar advanced transportation systems across North America. As the Industry Solutions Manager for Intelligent Transportation Systems, Nick strives to share his transit knowledge, expertise, and experience throughout the North American Transportation industry.
 
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