Choosing a digital agency in Geneva: five questions that matter
Comparing digital providers is hard for a simple reason: the proposals all look alike, and nobody tells you what will go wrong. These five questions get people talking.
In this article5 sections
Do they tell you no?
An agency that approves everything you suggest isn't doing you a favour. It's selling you what you asked for, not what you need.
The best signal at a first meeting is someone telling you part of your project isn't worth it, and explaining why. It costs them revenue in the short term. That's precisely why it's a good sign.
Who will actually work on your project?
The person who meets you isn't always the one who'll deliver. In structures that subcontract, the gap between the two can be considerable.
Ask to meet the person who will write the code. If that's impossible before signing, you already know something useful.
What happens after delivery?
A delivered tool begins its life, it doesn't end it. The six months after launch are when everything is decided: the bugs nobody had seen, the uses nobody had foreseen, the changes the teams ask for.
Three concrete questions: who fixes a bug six months later? How quickly? At what price? A vague answer on this point is a warning.
Where does your data live?
A short question, a revealing answer. A provider who knows immediately where their clients' data is hosted, under which jurisdiction and with what access, will answer you in one sentence.
If the answer starts with "well, it depends", take the time to dig. It's not necessarily a problem, but it's necessarily a conversation.
What is NOT in the quote?
Overruns almost never come from the visible part. They come from integrations: the accounting software with no documented API, the export that arrives in an unexpected format, the authentication that has to go through an internal directory.
Explicitly ask for the list of what's excluded. An agency that has delivered similar projects will be able to give it to you, because it has already been caught out.
None of these questions is about technology. That's deliberate: at this stage, technology is the least decisive topic. What decides the outcome is how the team opposite works when something doesn't go to plan.
Ce sujet touche à notre expertise Audit & Consulting.
We start with a conversation, not a quote.
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