Partnering with a Trusted Advisor to Create Better Outcomes

Partnering with a Trusted Advisor to Create Better Outcomes

Today, technology executives and IT teams are tasked with creating value throughout the enterprise, using technology to drive strategic initiatives and competitive advantages, and enabling key stakeholder groups to be more productive and effective.

For example, the right contact center solution can provide a competitive advantage by creating a customer experience that wows the market and makes them stand out from competitors (especially those with more friction in their customer experience journey). Another example is how strategic IT infrastructure changes can create efficiencies that reduce overall costs, which could come in handy when a business is facing economic challenges.

But managing a company’s technology stack is more complex than ever before. The demands of an application-based IT ecosystem on top of the fast rate of change in technology, make it imperative for you to remain focused and nimble. The complexity of a shifting vendor landscape and nascent risks, like cybersecurity, compounds the challenges and increases the time and resources you will need to manage technology change. With the current business environment, many businesses are being asked to do all of this with the same or fewer resources than before.

No CIO, CISO, or even the whole IT team can do it alone without running the risk of making the wrong decisions, experiencing delays, and facing budget overruns all while failing to achieve the desired business outcome. For IT teams to increase their odds of success, turning to an expert, vendor-neutral advisor—like UPSTACK—makes sense.

1. They see the big picture.

Your technology advisor isn’t mired in the day-to-day responsibilities of managing your infrastructure, and they aren’t biased by the status quo. They have a zoomed-out view of your current state, challenges, and goals and can see through the lens of current and coming technology, vendors, risks, and trends. That vantage point makes it possible for them to advise you, helping you make better-informed business decisions that can bring the most value while future-proofing your technology.

2. They know the vendor landscape.

If you look at the technology infrastructure landscape, there are thousands of vendors that could play a role in your infrastructure. From small, specialized boutique vendors to the big names you know, and everything in between, the options seem limitless. Each has its sweet spot, benefits, and detractions. How do you effectively compare all of your options? It’s a full-time job, and one that is expensive to staff. Fortunately, this is what your advisor does day in and day out. They have the market intelligence, experience, and relationships to help you quickly narrow the field to the best fit for your business. They possess data-driven insights based on thousands of transactions that can guide you toward the highest-performing and most reliable options.

3. They have the data with insights to match.

Understanding industry benchmarks on pricing, terms, installation intervals, and other important metrics is a powerful tool for navigating technology change. It provides leverage and establishes a baseline for you and your advisor to negotiate from. You could do your due diligence and ask around amongst your peers to get a feel for what’s out there, but this will inevitably be a small sample size and influenced more by anecdote than data.

The best advisors track these data points and put it to use on every project. They know the best rates and terms, and where there is room to negotiate (and how). The result is, again, the best deal—but also better performance and accountability.

4. They know how to get things done.

Researching solutions, navigating procurement, managing implementations, handling support, and pushing through escalations of your technology solutions can be tricky. One misstep can cost you time and money, and there are plenty of opportunities on the road to completing a technology project for you to take a misstep. Can you identify them? Do you know where the risks lie, and how to get around them?

Having completed hundreds of these types of projects, an advisor has a complete picture of what it takes to keep the ball moving and is uniquely adept at avoiding the delays and pitfalls that contribute to poor outcomes. They can see challenges coming and avoid them altogether, and they know how to handle unforeseen circumstances. Working with them means less risk, less stress, and better odds of success.

5. They serve as an extension of your team.

Much of the work involved in preparing and executing a technology change project is tedious. Hours of research, gathering invoices, creating inventories, documenting requirements, meetings with sales reps… It’s a lot of time you probably don’t have, and even if you did, wouldn’t it be better to have your resources focus that time on something more strategic?

When you work with an advisor, you can entrust all of this legwork to a team that’s experienced and capable. Generally, they don’t charge for this work, so you are gaining the hours back to be spent on more impactful activities while getting better results faster due to their expertise and experience.

6. They work at no cost to you, while optimizing your technology spend.

A trusted advisor offers resources, high-level technology, resounding support, and deep expertise, all at no additional cost to you. You invest solely in the solutions that will power change and advancement in your business, all the while leveraging the unique qualifications and resources of your trusted advisor.

Not all advisors are created equal.

When you partner with UPSTACK, you benefit from the full power
of the UPSTACK Platform, which combines:

Through the powerful combination of these three pillars—leading advisors, dedicated support resources, and advanced technology —UPSTACK uses actionable business intelligence to architect and source customized technology solutions for your business.

It all adds up to time saved, budgets optimized, deadlines met, and risks averted.