Thought Leadership From Industry Peers

How to Identify Top IT Services Companies in London, UK

Joseph Olassa Co-founder & CEO Ignitho Technologies

Ignitho recently conducted a dipstick survey of over 100 CIO’s, business and IT leaders of UK enterprises. We asked them to share their views on their biggest challenges in leveraging technology to their benefit, and how this translated into their challenges in identifying the top UK IT services companies, most suitable for their needs. The survey clearly highlights the fact the UK enterprise segment is largely under-served by traditional IT services vendors, and yet seems to have challenges and needs no lesser than larger Tier-1 enterprises, whatever be their line of business. We discuss these findings in detail below.

The survey indicates that one of the biggest challenges for UK enterprises is  that of rapid turnaround times, to take a business or technology concept to solution delivery. The lack of a large budget upfront like in Tier-1 enterprises, as well as the lack of clear internal ownership sometimes, only further compounds that challenge for these UK enterprises. There is a universal acknowledgement that the only way for them to meet these challenges is to find top IT services UK companies, whose delivery approach is fine-tuned for their unique needs, apart from having the appetite to start small, bring their “A Team” to the table, and scale alongside them as the needs evolved over time. The problem is where to find them!!!

If you are a UK CIO or IT Director looking for Rapid Application Development and Scalable Cloud Implementation, you may often struggle with getting attention from the typical “big boy” Tier-1 or even Tier-2 IT Services companies, and equally you may struggle to work with many of the boutique shops who lack the programme rigour and approach to quality standard like these big boys. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t any IT Services companies in the UK who fills this gap.

So what are the top things to look out for when looking to identify Top IT Services companies in the UK?

  • Fitment and credentials – Investigate whether the top IT Services companies you are seeking to engage with have worked with some of your counterparts in your industry, sector or geography. This will reduce the amount of time ‘getting to know your business/sector’.  Use independent third-party platforms to verify their client credentials. There’s a big difference between claiming something and having it independently verified. Validate the level of technical proficiency as well before you enter into an agreement.

For example, Ignitho, whose name is a composite of “igniting thought”,has been recognised by industry analysts such as Bloor Research who have also written feature articles about Ignitho’sdisruptive new approach to IT Application Services for  enterprises, using Frugal Innovation methodologies.

  • Ability to start small – The UK CIOs, IT Directors and Programme Managers we surveyed tell us that their preference is to begin engaging with partners in a small way and see quick results within a limited budget and timeframe, before scaling up the engagement.

Ignitho already actively promotes this model and has an impressive, referenceable track record in it, having started some of our initial projects for budgets £50K, and sometimes as low as £10k to £20k. We can do this by optimally integrating our project/ programme management capability in London, our development capacity in Brighton and our Offshore Development Centre in Kochi, India.

  • Global delivery capability – A vendor having a sub-contracted or fully contracted local UK team will just not cut it for UK enterprises. With multiple organisations involved or lack of accountability with contractors or sub-contractors, this will inevitably create issues over time. When identifying a partner, check on their local UK presence and development capacity. If this in place, validate their ability to keep development costs down by leveraging low-cost locations for box-standard code cutting and testing tasks.
  • Consistent delivery – There is nothing more valuable than an IT services partner that can, and does, what they say they can do. The best way to validate the company’s ability to deliver is by giving them several short four- to eight-week engagements and see how they handle them. Look for consistency in the delivery over a few projects. If they are consistent, then they probably have quality and delivery embedded in their cultural DNA.

The above are only key highlights. If you are interested to know more on how to Identify a Top IT Services company for enterprise, please do connect with us here.

More about Ignitho

Ignitho Technologies is recognised as a market leader in IT Application Services for enterprises using Frugal Innovation methodologies – “the ability to do more with less” – developed in collaboration with a world-renowned though leader from the University of Cambridge. Ignitho specialises in Rapid Application Development and Scalable Cloud Implementation, with an optional ability to leverage Peer Guidance. Ignitho, whose name is a composite of “igniting thought”, has been recognised by industry analysts such as Bloor Research who have also written feature articles about Ignitho’s disruptive new approach to IT services for enterprises. Headquartered in the UK, Ignitho services its customers through its offices in London, UK, and San Jose, USA, and its development centres in Brighton, UK and Kochi, India.

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Joseph Olassa Co-founder & CEO Ignitho Technologies
Joseph brings a track record of two decades of fast paced business growth in the Software Industry across USA, Europe and Asia. Prior to Ignitho Technologies, he was with Mindtree for close to 14 years and was part of the core team that grew the Europe & US businesses through multi-million dollar contracts, besides kick-starting Mindtree’s Middle East business. He is a charter member with TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) and is on the Forbes Business Council and the Fast Company Executive Board. He is an active proponent of technology innovation with a focus on Frugal Innovation methodologies and is a speaker at multiple enterprise innovation conferences. He is also an early advocate of software product start-ups and is a seed investor with multiple angel networks.
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