I made a joke recently that I had a “Digital Transformation” swear jar on my desk and after writing this article I will now have to contribute to it eight times. The need for our businesses to evolve is real and technology provides an incredible tool to do that, however keeping in mind the core fundamentals and simplifying investments into tangible business deliverables and removing the jargon will be a key step to making sure that the decisions are the right ones for businesses, not just the ones that are the most topical at the time.

The time has come! It’s been on your mind for a while and now you have a contract that has expired, a service incident that was the last straw, or your favourite account manager has changed one too many times; it’s time to pick a new service provider. Once you decide to make the big change, it becomes real in your mind and a new cycle of evaluation kicks off and a question looms in your mind “How do I select a new partner that takes the things that I have learned over the past years, but also mitigate the risk of the new partner potentially being worse than one existed today.”

Getting your partners and internal teams in alignment to deliver at scale will be incredibly powerful for the timely and required integration of technology across the business. As companies evolve to remain competitive or pull ahead in a world where the conversation is increasingly dominated by AI, Security and modern technology, there is a significant opportunity to set yourself apart. Will you?

This leads to the question, what happens when you realize you have outgrown some of your partners, or have realized that you are on different trajectories? In his memoir Shoe Dog, Phil Knight has a famous quote that states “It’s never just business. It never will be. And if it ever just does become just business, that will mean business is very bad.” With that in mind, here are a few tips on navigating partnerships that have seemingly run their course in a way that reflects the humanity that these scenarios should be approached with.

In his book “Good to Great,” Jim Collins shares the idea that having the right people on the bus is a key element to the sustained success of a business. Collins shares that success hinges on having the right people on the bus, a philosophy that extends seamlessly to the realm of partnerships. As businesses increasingly entrust critical functions to external allies, the ability to assess, select, and manage these partnerships emerges as a crucial skill, capable of shaping the future of an enterprise.

Technology partnerships are broken. There are a tremendous amount of well-intentioned partners and a ton of fantastic relationships, but when I talk to people across the industry there is still a gap that exists. This gap is between the intention of what could be delivered, and what customers are receiving.

After 15 years in the technology service industry, I have seen it over and over again. There is no one specifically at fault here, but I believe that there are three factors that have played into what has become an industry norm of settling.

Having a clear sense of how and where to look for cost savings gets easier over time and with practice, but is not a moment-in-time exercise, but rather an ongoing discipline. There is a tremendous opportunity for business and technology leaders that capitalize on the incoming wave of technology enablement, but balancing innovation with the economic realities of having to reallocate spending will be the real superpower.