How can someone compare software vendors and their effectiveness?
Are they a good vendor? If so, how do they “become” good? I could ramble on about SDLC (software development life cycles), Agile methodology, blah blah blah, but the truth is…partners don’t care about this.
What does a partner care about? Partners care that a vendor helps them drive more revenue and more profit for the long term health of their business. Or at least that is what they should care about.
So, what a partner wants is simple! A system that can be sold for a lot, installed and maintained with no effort, allows them to maintain control of their customer base and is FREE! Ah, such a blissful world!
Joking aside, a good vendor strives to find the perfect balance of this unrealistic blissful place that I joke about above.
The Wildix approach may not provide all features, it may not be the cheapest, it may not be the easiest of all systems to deploy and maintain. And guess what, it never will be! This is by choice, and it is BEST for our partners! Because partners need a balance of easy/flexible, now/future and cost/power. And, this must be done in a sustainable way to deliver the solution for the long term!
We could deliver flawless code that has not changed in 10 years. You would fail due to the lack of market need in the very near future.
We could deliver a solution that is so easy to maintain that your customer base could do it. You would fail because you could not add value to your customer via the creation of flexible, unique solutions.
We could give you the software only to have you fail due to your vendor dying.
What we do instead is to balance all of these things. Allow for flexibility which can at times mean additional complexity and effort. Allow you to maintain your own customer base and to add value with those customers (leading to some work for you to do). Provide you a price point that is so competitive in the market place that you can generate revenue with significant profit margins. Keep an eye on the future and reinvest into the product, ensuring that the longer term market place needs are still in your hands! And we do this through studying the market to understand where it is leading us, truly listening to our partners existing needs and balancing the use of resources to control cost.
So, the next time you think to yourself, why can’t Wildix add this feature. Ask yourself, will it be needed 5 years from now? Is it worth spending money and resources on it at the expensive of higher product cost or failure to utilize resources to build a system that is still relevant 5 years from now? Does it impede significant revenue opportunities for me or can I sell the value of the Wildix product outside of this single feature.
The next time you think, there are too many minor bugs delivered, ask yourself, am I willing to slow the delivery of features and pay more for the product or can I control the roll out of the software such that the impact is mitigated?
And most importantly, the next time you think, “Is Wildix a good vendor”, consider all of the factors involved for all of the Wildix Ecosystem. And be sure of this … Wildix will always strive to balance all of these considerations and to help you to drive more revenue and more profit for the long term health of their business