5 main factors to consider when choosing a technology partner

After founding Solidstudio, Pawel was an originator in terms of pursuing expertise in eMobility. With the build-up of a solid knowledge-base on industry’s needs & wants, he now keeps a close eye on products’ development. He’s also hugely responsible for the business’ side and designs the business models for our products.

Paweł Małkowiak

Choosing a technology partner: 5 main factors to consider

A skilled technology partner is essential for bringing digital ideas to life. But when it comes to identifying the best technical services for your business needs, where do you start?

Picking the right partnerships can be tricky, and there are a number of factors that require careful consideration. But the aim overall is to find a team of developers who can not only deliver the technical specifications of your digital product, but the necessary support to give it the best possible chance of success.

Choosing a technology partner is not a decision to rush into – it really can be the difference between success and failure. To help steer you in the right direction, here are five important factors to consider when choosing a tech team to work with.

It goes without saying that any technology partner needs to consist of skilled professionals. But what separates great development teams from good ones is that the former fully understands their chosen profession is a highly complex one, which can easily be misunderstood. A quality technology partner will make you feel at ease from the beginning, and be extremely forthcoming with crystal clear advice and guidance to help steer your project in the right direction. This should include helping you identify the best business model, analysis of the market and reliable, honest feedback on how viable your product and its chance of success really is.

Take a minute to look at who makes up the team of any prospective technology partners, and be sure to ask questions about their experience and skills. For example, how big is the team? What are their skills? What do they specialise in? Ensuring the development team you choose has the skillset to see your project through from start to finish is vital.

It can be difficult to gauge what people are going to be like to work in the beginning, but initial meetings should give you a good early indication of the way the team works. And a good failsafe for checking how relevant a company is to look for what services they offer and any achievements in cutting-edge technology like FinTech, Blockchain, Cloud, Saas and AI.

As mentioned above, whichever technology partner you choose should be able to offer expertise and advice at every stage of product development. A great way to notice if there might be any gaps in your pipeline is to take a close look at the services offered, and make sure they fit your business needs. If a development company is offering a variety of services, your custom is almost certainly in good hands.

 , we offer a wealth of talent and expertise, with full-stack services in the areas of:

 - IT solutions should match industry demand, as well as specific organizational objectives, which is why this early discovery stage is so valuable. It’s at this point that a product’s viability is researched and the market analyzed thoroughly before the best software solution is identified.

 - Individual projects have individual needs, which is why a company with the skill to develop custom software is invaluable – it’s the best way of ensuring a software solution fits the business requirements perfectly.

 - Developing a digital product is a complex process. In order to do so successfully, you need an experienced technology partner to support you at every step of the way – from needs analysis and prototyping, through design and development, to launch and ongoing maintenance.

 - If ever there was a time to embrace digital change, it’s now. Integrating technology into your business is a worthy investment if you want to help drive your business forward. A quality technology partner can help you identify areas of your business that would benefit from digital transformation, and offer the expertise to deliver the best possible software solutions.

 - The cloud's rapid rise in popularity means that it now exists in every area of IT. Cloud providers give us the opportunity to use multiple tools and mechanisms that can speed up the delivery process and give users a working product as soon as possible. Hosting an application in the cloud can also reduce operational costs, give an edge over competitors and allow instant scalability.

As a cloud application development company, all of SolidStudio’s products are hosted in different providers such as 

 , Heroku and Google Cloud. We utilize these providers to the maximum and build applications with a fantastic infrastructure, completely tailored to your needs.

 - Financial technology is no longer just about supporting established financial institutions, it applies to any innovation in how people transact business. SolidStudio is a FinTech company, and are very aware that no company can afford financial or reputational losses, which is why we build our solutions to ensure your safety with the highest standards, quality and processes.

 - As technology changes, so does the way society interacts. More and more companies are looking for ways to reduce operational costs - cloud solutions are increasingly being adopted and their value cannot be underestimated. As a serverless development company, here at SolidStudio we can build a simple, scalable API or a data processing platform, with minimum configuration alongside automatic scaling and a pay-per-usage format.

 - Software as a Service (SaaS) is a term you are no doubt hear more and more these days. As businesses begin to realize the benefits of cloud-based software for streamlining and optimizing operations, Saas has become a very popular solution for many. SaaS provides organizations with significant advantages that make it one of the most sought-after software products today. At Solidstudio, we support companies in developing SaaS applications that are flexible, scalable, and provide all the features our clients need to achieve their business goals.

No matter what your level of digital expertise, whichever company you decide to partner with should be open and honest from start to finish, providing explanations and reports that are both easy to understand and completely transparent. Trust in business is key, as is ensuring both parties are on the same page about product requirements, costs and goals.

The pre-development stage is key when it comes to transparency. A good technology partner will allow its clients access to every report and any project management tools related to the project at this time. If that’s not available, even on request, it would be worth looking at other services elsewhere.

The ideal scenario is to pick a development team that can inject as much passion into an idea as you. After all, they will be working on it too, right? If your partners take ownership of your product, they are far more likely to go the extra mile when it comes to delivering the best possible solution within the specified timeline and budget.

But that should absolutely not compromise on quality. Every good development team fully understands the importance of quality and wants to deliver the best possible result. And that will require planning and quality control, including a clearly defined strategy and testing to ensure the right result.

Leaving your most precious ideas in the hands of strangers is an understandably daunting prospect. But it’s the job of a good technology partner to leave you feeling safe in the knowledge that they will not only help you bring these ideas to life but also be very present after they have been realized. At initial meetings, be sure to ask how they will support you in terms of maintenance, promotion, scalability, analytics, and any technical issues that might arise after launch.

A good technology partner will make sure you’re not going it alone, with services that include support before, during, and after a product launch.

After all the information in this article, you should now be able to confidently approach prospective technology partners with your ideas and questions on how they can help you make your digital dreams become a reality. Good development companies won’t hesitate to answer your queries and will do their best to help find clever business solutions, be loyal to your brand and assist you with ways to scale your business in this ever-evolving digital age. You will undoubtedly encounter different levels of technical complexity as your product evolves, so you need a competent, skilled team on hand to help with any eventuality.

If you need any further information on how our services can be of assistance or more information on how to choose the right technology partner for you, please contact us here.

Five important factors to consider when choosing a tech team to work with.

Leading sales, Martyna had a chance to get to know most of our clients on top of having spoken to hundreds of people from the eMobility environment. She’s gained an in-depth understanding of what’s desired or unwanted in the business and she’s now applying that knowledge in her everyday job.

Martyna Wajda

As the digital era continues to evolve, strategic IT partnerships will only become more important. For small to mid-sized companies, in particular, the benefits of having a tech company play a partner role, whereby IT specialists can actively collaborate with the wider team and help inform business and technology strategy, can be considerable.

But it’s not just a one-way street. Forming a mutually beneficial partnership with an innovative technology company, like 

 , can help optimize both organizations. Quality collaborations can help improve everything from how a company communicates right through to profitable revenue, in short, enabling both companies to achieve more than they ever could going it alone.

The key to any successful partnership is, first and foremost, finding the right company to join forces with. At the very least, an IT partner needs to be able to serve your business' needs, ensure optimum IT performance, and has the ability to meet any emerging challenges head-on. Our guide to choosing the 

 for your business outlines exactly what you should look for and what to expect from such collaborations. But for now, let’s take a look at four key ways a strategic IT partnership can be beneficial for everyone involved.

Two heads are better than one, so the phrase goes. So it stands to reason that three, four, five, six etc heads are even better, especially when it comes to implementing long-standing IT systems. But just as an IT partnership can effectively deliver any technical know-how, don’t underestimate the value any business acumen can offer in return. Pooling and sharing resources can be a highly effective way of advancing both parties on the path to innovation and success.

Like any relationship, the more time and effort that goes into it, the more fruitful it becomes. For an IT company to get a deep understanding of a company’s systems and operations, as well as any technological challenge it faces now (and could potentially) takes a considerable amount of commitment, time, and trust.

A sustained, committed partnership offers, on one side, the benefit of on-going, innovative work and, for the other, the delivery of the most effective IT systems. But more than this, a long-term partnership offers both companies the opportunity to get to know each other’s business and build quality relationships with the people who are the driving force behind it, making it easier to work together and quickly adapt to any challenges.

For any reputable technology partner, the success of your business will become as important to them as it is to you. A quality IT company, like Solidstudio, will be creative in its approach to driving innovation to achieve the most effective technology systems for your business' needs. This can mean not only helping a company achieve a whole new level of digital transformation but keeps IT specialists abreast of all the latest cutting-edge technology and at the top of their game.

The cornerstone of any successful relationship is communication, and business partnerships are no different. In order to achieve highly successful collaborations, regular conversations are a must. Here questions such as are objectives being met and if there are new challenges that need to be addressed can be discussed, and key goals and timelines kept on track.

Partnerships offer a great opportunity to practice and develop good communication skills, which are invaluable in business. Scheduling in time for both parties to step back and measure performance at regular intervals can only strengthen a partnership as it moves forward.

For more information on how a tech partnership can benefit your business, get in touch with the Solidstudio team!

Learn about the benefits of technology partnership - does together means better?

The power of tech partnership

Scaling means everything and automation is the key to do this effectively.

Being an eMobility leader in various projects across multiple startups, Piotr was responsible for OCPI and OCPP integration as well as EMP and CPO platforms development. With extensive expertise in the open standards field and eMobility tech solutions, he is leading teams of experienced developers and contributing with invaluable knowledge and experience.

Piotr Majcher

It seems like all anyone can talk about in the business world these days is scaling their technology and automating their processes, but the actual process behind this - including the 

Too many organizations are unaware of how much time and effort it actually takes to effectively scale technology and automate processes, leading to frustration when companies discover that the process is more involved and time-consuming than they initially realized. The purpose of this article is to give you a general idea of what scaling and automating really mean, how to determine if a process should be automated, and show you how 

 can help you determine your business objectives and create custom solutions to meet your needs.

Every organization relies on multiple processes to get work done, either as part of their core business or the operations surrounding it. To scale effectively, companies need to understand the details of their processes and find a way to automate them, whether using technology or other methods.

For example, many organizations rely on automated sales funnels, which rely on automated reporting programs to gather relevant data on potential customers instead of relying on employees to complete this labor-intensive task manually.

understanding project delays and how to avoid them

, the planning stage is one of the most critical phases of any project. When you invest time and energy into the planning phase, you are setting yourself and your team up for success later on. That is why the team at SolidStudio always takes the time to learn the details of each customer’s business model in order to create the best solution to meet their needs.

First, we analyze the process itself: If the current process is flawed or can't be improved, then automating it won't improve the situation because it doesn't actually address the underlying issues. By doing our due diligence and analyzing your business, the SolidStudio team can verify that the current process in place meets your organization's needs and can't be improved before determining if the process could benefit from automation or additional technology.

Once the process has been assessed and found to be effective, we know that we are working on a solid foundation, and we can turn our attention toward the question of automation.

As a product development company, our goal isn't to just throw software at a problem and hope it solves the issue at hand. Instead, our goal is to create solutions for our clients so they can achieve their business objectives. While most of our solutions involve using software, even the most elegant piece of software isn't effective if it hasn't been created with the client's actual needs in mind. By taking the time to understand the details of a client's business, we are able to gain a deep understanding of which processes are vital and are worth automating and which processes won't benefit from automation or need to be improved first.

Determining whether or not a process should be automated can be part of a total 

, which involves integrating the right digital technology tools into different aspects of a business to improve productivity and increase the value they deliver to their customers.

The Benefits of Automation: T-Cup & Cracow Local Tours Case Studies

In this section, we will discuss 2 SolidStudio clients who benefited greatly from automating processes that were previously performed manually: T-Cup and Cracow Local Tours.

 is a health and wellness app that helps customers track their health and overall well-being and sends them regular reports based on the data the app has collected. While these reports were initially created manually by T-Cup’s staff, all of the data was already stored in the app itself, making the report generation process ripe for automation.

 for the T-Cup team that allowed them to take the data in the app and sort it into the correct schema so it could be automatically formatted and sent out to clients. By automating this process, T-Cup was able to bring on more clients while also scaling back on the number of workers they needed in the back office, improving revenue while reducing costs.

Cracow Local Tours offers tours to hundreds of tourists each day, and the sheer amount of bookings made it difficult for them to manage their pick-up and one-day trips effectively.

To help them increase efficiency and better allocate their resources, we worked with them to create an ERP system that automatically matched tour drivers with tourists in the same location, thereby reducing the non-revenue generating driving time between tours. This new system also made it much easier for customers to automatically book tickets for larger groups, which are more profitable than smaller groups taking the same tours, allowing the company to maximize earnings while improving the customer experience.

Using technology to scale and automate processes can be a great way to increase efficiency and make it easier for your business to grow if applied to processes that are already effective and can benefit from automation and technology. Before you commit to scaling or automating a particular process, make sure you have a thorough understanding of the processes you are considering automating and have verified that they can't be improved further. The SolidStudio team is here to help you get this valuable information and create automated and scalable solutions that meet your needs.

What Does it Really Mean to “Scale” With Technology & Automation?

Trust is a must. Especially in running e-mobility business. Here is why.

Having spent over two years developing various components for one of our e-mobility partners I want to share some insights on how to cope with challenges, what to expect from IT partners when developing e-mobility components and how testing various approaches can lead you to some of the breakthroughs.

Before you start, whether you are an aspiring Charge Point Operator or e-Mobility Service Provider, here you can find some valid questions, worth answering: Is there a ready-to-apply business model for long-term prosperity in the e-mobility segment? What return could be expected for now and in the future? What in-house skills are needed and what other partners require for revenue growth? Could technology and data analytics enable the business to provide ‘smart’ solutions? If yes, how? Where is the industry heading to and what are long-term goals?

What we face now, in the era of uncertainty, is another ‘revolution’ dictated by the exhaustion of fossil fuel resources, environmental pollution, and hence the transition to green energy. The EV market, especially in Europe, is growing fast and we face the increasing need for accessible, charging infrastructure, green energy demand, and a change in consumers’ behavior. With a rapidly rising demand for investment, we have a common ground - require a change in consumer habits. Even with rapid-charging technology (50kW+), charge time takes 20 to 30 minutes to reach 80% of battery capacity. But a well-known benchmark - refueling petrol or diesel experience is still out of reach. It seems that there is still a long way to go to achieve full flow, yet without constant development and improvement of the accessible infrastructure, we won't be able to move forward. Providing consumers the multitasking opportunity for rapid EV charging, whether combined with retail sites or bespoke charging 'lounges', together with a shift from a top-up (as opposed to refuel) mentality will be necessary to aid mass adoption.

Below you can find some thoughts on obstacles you may find while developing an e-mobility platform, what to take into consideration while creating a workflow, and what to expect when you start your venture into unexplored areas.

Creating a valid data model from the beginning will be a huge time-saver

Late changes to the data model are time-consuming. MVP or initial variants of the software cover all the basics. When the system does not require a sophisticated model of the charging infrastructure it may be enough to shape the whole charge point as a flat structure. Upon this simple model, more features can be built, till your range grows, and a need to open the platform using some open standard comes up. This action requires mapping development between the internal model and the one introduced by the standard. If the existing model does not support concepts (e.g. Location and Evse) and does not follow general standards, when it comes to the format of IDs, it might demand plenty of work to perform the efficient mapping.

While working for one of our partners, mapping their existing codebase to make it available for open standards, for a team of developers took several months. In fact, if the model would match the standard from the beginning, the integration would require just a simple action, and full integration would be possible within a few weeks.

Lesson learned from this experience: The time for full integration can be significantly boosted (reducing a few months of integration to a few weeks) thanks to the implementation of a ready-made code sequence linking the standard and the platform. Once the standard is properly applied, further action will become smooth and easy.

Creating an efficient architecture of the system from the start prevents many bad decisions

Some aspects of system architecture are specific to the domain. For example:

deciding which processes are synchronous and which are asynchronous

the decision of whether or not some data must be immutable

Understanding incremental improvements and having in mind that not every single aspect can be predicted is crucial. However, knowing the domain certain aspects can be included early in the design process.

Lesson learned from this experience: General concepts, but taking into account these limitations from the very beginning helps to avoid making wrong decisions when designing and developing the e-mobility platform.

Knowing the details of adopted standards is the shortest way to success

OCPI is defined as an open standard. In theory, everyone ought to introduce this standard in the same way.

Lesson learned from this experience: OCPI is not always the norm. Hub Gireve, for example, extends this standard. Some concepts exist and are not part of the OCPI documentation. Some OCPI partners require a certain sequence of specific actions that are actually not part of the standard. It is worth knowing this upfront when designing the CPO/eMSP end system.

The domain knowledge provides you with solving individual cases

Having the domain knowledge within the development team allows participating in specific direct business conversations about e-mobility. Becoming familiar with general concepts, e-mobility background (CPO, eMSP/EMP, EVSE, eMI3 ID, OCPI, OICP, OCPP), ubiquitous language, different market approaches (public/private/fleet charge points), we can immediately proceed directly with the specific business issues that are to be done, rather than technical details (as a reliable tech partner we already know them).

Lesson learned from this experience: We have learned that getting to know a specific area takes time, but once explored, it allows us to catch common parts. The observations turned into concrete e-mobility solutions, thus are an improvement for the future. Combining domain knowledge with high-level technical skills provides quick integration and unlocks business processes.

It might sound a bit cliche, but without having great, skilled, and curious minds on board I cannot say that the progress we witnessed would be possible.

Lesson learned from this experience: In addition to specific technical skills, in such projects where many questions are asked and actions require a constant search for efficient e-mobility solutions, the spirit of a truly matched team of individuals appears.

Knowing the challenges from the scratch, making observations, and drawing conclusions for the future on how we could boost integration, we have spent a couple of weeks developing ready-to-integrate components for Open Standards. Full e-roaming is possible to achieve faster.

 – The component being an Anti Corruption Layer between any CPO/eMSP system and any OCPI partner (hub like Gireve and p2p partners like other CPOs and eMSPs). The component has the whole OCPI registration process modeled with the token-based security mechanism. It maps all OCPI calls to the internal backend API (this part is open for modification for the concrete backend system).

 – The component and test suite allowing to execute e2e tests of the platform using OCPI protocol. Testing OCPI allows a complete test of bidirectional processes that are part of OCPI.

 – The component is an OCPP server being able to connect to the charge point using OCPP (2.0.1) protocol. It is a proxy for the whole communication between the charge point and the CPO backend system.

 – The component is a software Charge Point that allows e2e testing and monitoring of the CPO platform.

Soon our work will be done with this extra e-mobility component:

When life gives you lemons… it is up to you whether you choose to make a lemonade or order the lobster tail. If you have any concerns while developing your e-mobility platform, need advice, or wonder which directions to take when setting up your next goals feel free to reach out. Here you can find some experience and knowledge, as well as ready-to-implement e-mobility solutions.