Changing Needs, Changing Models – IT Partnership at DSS Consulting

We have been present on the IT market for nearly three decades. Dozens of customers, hundreds of projects, tens of millions of working hours. During this time, we have learned one thing for sure: needs are constantly changing – and we must constantly adapt.

Today, the market is characterized by

• economic uncertainty,
• strong cost-efficiency pressure,
• intense interest in AI,
• the long-familiar insource–outsource cycle,
• and the pressure to digitalize.

In this environment, the question is not what model we offer. It is whether we truly understand the customer’s challenge.

We Don’t Deliver IT Projects: We Solve Problems

Most customers don’t want to buy an IT project; they want a return on investment, faster performance, and greater efficiency. Risk reduction. Fewer errors.

That’s why when we talk about a new collaboration, we always go back to basics:

• What is the business issue?
• What motivates the customer?
• Where do losses, slowdowns, or risks arise?
• What would improve their operations?

Very often, there are no ready-made specifications — in fact, sometimes there is no specification at all. Often, there is no clear technology direction. In such cases, we must be partners in thinking, not just in implementation. 

In a Real IT Partnership, Models Are Not Goals, but Tools

We work with our clients using a variety of models:

• project-based,
• Time & Material,
• complex solution implementation,
• and Try & Hire.

But these are not “products” themselves.

We had a client in the energy industry who worked with us for years in a T&M model in software testing. Then, due to changes in the organization’s operations, they needed more flexible capacity management. Later, they switched to project-based operations.

In all three cases, the question was: how can we keep up with changing customer needs while maintaining quality?

There is no single proven recipe. However, we have experience in how to implement a model change in a way that remains workable for both parties. 

Flexibility Sometimes Means Extreme Situations

We had a corporate client where startup-style product development was taking place: requirements changed every two to three months. In fact, it sometimes happened that it only became clear in the middle of the week whether the project would continue the following week: this is a serious challenge on the delivery side.

Nevertheless, we believe that if this is how the client can move forward, we must adapt.

The same is true for international expansion: when we started working in the German market, we initially thought about providing remote services. But it soon became clear that certain clients expected local presence.

We responded to this with a local resource model – not because it was the original plan, but because it met the needs of our customers.

Insource or Outsource? It’s Not a Question of Black and White

In the current economic climate, many companies are increasingly turning to insourcing. We don’t see this as a threat, but rather as a new challenge. If a client wants to build internal expertise, we can help with that too – that’s why we consciously built our Try & Hire model around this. We can help with

• selecting the right candidate,
• quality screening,
• initial cooperation,

Then, if everything goes according to plan, the expert in question can be transferred to the client.

However, this is not the right solution in every situation: it is not worth building internal competence for a short, fixed-term project. Try & Hire can be particularly justified in long-term, strategic roles.

In every case, we start from the situation at hand. 

What Quality Service Means to Us

When we provide resources for our clients’ projects, we offer more than just speed. The real value lies in the fact that:

• we understand the requirements precisely,
• we screen thoroughly in terms of both professional and soft skills,
• we greatly reduce the burden of selection on the client,
• and we support our colleagues throughout the project.

We have clients who now simply say, “Bring us another person like the last one.” For us, that is the greatest recognition. 

Sales and Delivery: Thinking Together

A working model is never the result of a unilateral decision: Sales represents the customer’s interests, while Delivery represents what is feasible.  We do not believe that either party should impose its own ideas on the other. For us, long-term cooperation is based on the following:

• transparency,
• joint thinking,
• compromise,
• and the search for genuine win-win solutions.

What Is the Ideal Model?

From the above, it is perhaps clear that there is no universal answer to this question. At our last meeting, the CIO of a major bank put it very clearly: he is not interested in what we have done for other clients, but in whether we can provide a working solution to his specific problem.

This is what we believe in: we do not sell models or impose cookie-cutter solutions — we look for solutions tailored to the specific situation, the specific need, and the specific organizational operation. And we put together a model that is sustainable over a period of 5–8–10 years.

 

If your organization’s needs are changing too, and you want a flexible but quality-focused IT partner by your side, let’s talk. What challenge are you facing right now?