Which comes first, the agency or the platform?

It’s a classic ‘chicken-and-the-egg’ kind of scenario. What should come first, your agency or your platform choice?

Our MD, Jonathan Healey, provided some words of wisdom on how organisations can go about selecting their agency and platform. From technology research and influencing factors to why you should look for an agency that challenges your assumptions, we cover everything that can help you decide which should come first below.

Do clients make a decision on the agency or the technology first?

From our experience, it's a bit of a mixed bag and I wouldn't say that there's a trend to it. Sometimes clients come to us having already selected the technology, sometimes they don’t have any technology in mind.

It also depends on what the client is trying to achieve and the current condition of their digital estate. It's not uncommon for a client to have an existing implementation on a platform we work with, and they want to retain that. In this case, the technology decision has been made up front.

We're normally quite sensitive to situations where there’s no room for manoeuvre on the platform choice. If we feel the platform choice is perhaps wrong or misguided, we will certainly challenge it.

What is some good advice when choosing an agency?

Selecting an agency can be an overwhelming decision, especially without knowing much about the landscape. 

There are agencies out there that will push their solution or focus on selling themselves rather than promoting a solution that fits the business requirements. It's like the old saying, ‘when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail’.

The other difficult thing is that sometimes we don't know what the business requirements are until we're quite a long way down the road. If you're in that scenario, you need to be confident that the single solution an agency is promoting can cover a lot of possibilities.

This might be one of the reasons why selecting a DXP solution over a headless CMS was previously a safe choice. With a headless CMS, certain services were guaranteed, but anything else you wanted to do with your digital estate required another product. Whereas, a DXP like Umbraco, Kentico Experience or Drupalcan most likely cope with whatever you throw at it.

In recent years, matters have become more complicated as buzzwords like ‘DXP’ and ‘headless ’ have been complemented or replaced by ‘composable’. No longer a binary choice, platforms can now be evaluated on a spectrum between the two extremes. More choice is a good thing, but it also introduces complexity to the decision-making process.

It also comes down to whether the agency has experience solving the problems you're up against. Often, clients will insist on sector expertise, which is sensible, but I would look broader than this. Even if they have that sector experience, they may not have solved the exact challenges that you have. Some of what makes an agency good is its ability to adapt to the scenario.

An agency generally goes down one of two routes: they either heavily specialise in a niche sector, or they'revery good generalists. By and large, for most businesses, a good generalist agency will be able to cover most of the requirements.

Are there any downsides to deciding what technology you want before engaging with an agency?

It all comes down to what level of research you’ve done and the advice you're taking. I think when a potential client says to us, “We want to use this platform”, the very first question we ask is, “Why? What makes you think that that is the right solution for you?”.

Sometimes what we'll find is that a client is very well informed. Perhaps they've used the product before, they like it, and they know it can fit their scenario. I think that's a good case for a client putting forward a platform they want to use.

But sometimes there's a consultant in the mix who is driving a particular technology agenda. At times, we've completely disagreed with the selection in those scenarios. This can be a big challenge if the client isn't open to a change of approach.

Something we notice, thanks to us being more platform agnostic than other agencies, is that making a choice can be like buying a car. There's a certain amount of brand loyalty that exists and people want to stick with what they know. There's an existing relationship and it's convenient. But what if that situation changes and a better solution can be found?

Businesses that are ultra-loyal to a particular technology or platform should question if it is genuinely the best option or whether they are just going with it because they don't know any different.

What would influence choosing the right provider of those technologies?

In terms of the actual management of text and images on a page, there really isn't a poor CMS on the market these days. If all you're ever going to need to do is manage text and images, pretty much any CMS will do. You're probably going to pick one that's really cheap or has no license cost attached to it.

But once you start to go beyond these needs, that’s where interesting conversations start. For example, do you plan to transact on the site now or in the future? What type of transaction are we talking about? Audience also comes into it - are you selling B2B, B2C or both? What's the purpose of your site? Is it purely informational or a lead generation site? If it's a lead generation site, what volume of leads? Does it need to integrate with a CRM? What about language, geography and localised content?

And then there is your budget to consider. If you want a product that is going to be well supported, that has a very clear road map, and that has a large agency ecosystem, there is a cost associated. But are you wanting to spend £2,000, £10,000, or £50,000 a year? These are all possibilities with credible vendors, dependent upon what you require, and the level of support needed.

What is your recommendation for businesses that haven’t made a decision on technology yet?

Be completely open to a recommendation and allow your agency to advise based on very clear business objectives and requirements.

Businesses will often choose something because they've heard of it. The classic example of this is WordPress. Every marketer has heard of WordPress. If you want to throw up static content very quickly, WordPress is almost certainly the way to go. But if a platform comes across the table that they haven't heard of, there is an immediate scepticism towards it.

It's well worth exploring the opinion of industry analysts. Have a look at sites like G2, Gartner and Forrester to get a better understanding. Quite often there are great platforms out there that people haven't necessarily heard of because they don't work in the industry. Equally, just because you've heard of a platform doesn't necessarily mean it's the right option for you. It could just mean they've done a better job at promoting it.

How does IDHL guide clients towards the right decision?

For us, discovery phase and platform comparison is the best-case scenario - whether that’s purely to decide the CMS or to work out what the right approach is.

The discovery phase allows clients to go into a tech choice with their eyes wide open. During this process, we look at both your immediate business needs and long-term objectives, as well as the current state of technologies and company culture. Does your organisation have a natural affinity to a commercial product or gravitate to something more open source?

As you start to look at these requirements, the technology choice could change. The discovery phase helps validate our suggestions, ensuring we’re not just making assumptions. This is one of the big risks of going with an agency that isn’t flexible in terms of platform. If business needs change when you're halfway through your design process, what do you do when you’re locked into a platform choice because that's all the agency offers?

Once discovery is concluded, we move on to platform comparison. This detailed collaborative review process evaluates different platforms based on your specific requirements now and in the future by breaking down strengths, weaknesses and individual platform features. Using these insights, we can suggest platforms that address actual client needs over flimsy gimmicks and strong marketing stories.

You've mentioned consultants, internal stakeholders and agencies. Who else influences technology decisions?

Sometimes, internal IT teams are stakeholders in that decision too. The systems that are already in place can affect technology choice, so we very much welcome the engagement of internal teams.

For example, if there are existing integrations into a CRM, that can sometimes lead a conversation down a certain path. This is due to the perception that a particular technology will work better due to an existing integration. Speaking from experience, that's often a fallacy. Just because a certain platform says that it has an integration with another product, it doesn't necessarily mean that it’s the better choice.

There is also a limitation of what a marketing team can do from a technical, time and knowledge perspective, so it’s important to understand the capabilities of your team. All three of those things can potentially be overcome, but in very different ways.

Often, clients want to be able to do everything themselves, but it must be easy and not take any time – usually, these things are conflicting. Some CMSs are easier to use than others in certain scenarios, but simplicity is often removed from the equation if you want huge flexibility. It’s important to evaluate what your website priorities are.

So, what's the best approach?

If you don't know what technology you want, choose an agency first but look at their flexibility, their experience and find a partner you trust to take you through that discovery process. Consider whether anything is incentivising the agency to recommend a particular technology or if there are any kickbacks involved.

A common question from customers is ‘Does it carry out a particular function?’. The answer is usually going to be ‘yes, we can make it do that’, almost regardless of what the function is. Instead, ask ‘What technologies do you work with?’, ‘Why do you work with them?’, ‘Why are you recommending that to us?’. 

A positive thing to look for in an agency is asking questions and challenging your assumptions. If you're simply looking for a supplier, which many businesses are, then that's absolutely fine. But IDHL is not the right agency. If you're looking for a partner who's going to engage with you and work collaboratively, we're the right choice.

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No matter where you’re at in your web project, the platform and the agency you use are the top two factors for success. We take a consultative approach to help our clients find a platform with partners that always deliver an Enterprise grade solution.

If you’d like to find out more about our approach or speak with one of our experts about the route that could be best for you, don’t hesitate to get in touch.