Your digital strategy is paying dividends. With a solid content strategy and an understanding of your buyer’s journey, you are confident in your ability to influence customer experience to drive discoverability and conversion. But with that sophistication comes an intense demand for brand and product content. With that success comes a need to connect with and sell to buyers directly.

These capabilities require software and third-party services to function at scale (or at all). Ecommerce platforms allow for transactions to occur. Product information management systems centralize and provide access to product data inside and outside the organization. User-generated content systems collect and display reviews, questions and other social content. And this leaves digital leaders with a difficult problem to solve: when and how to deploy infrastructure that supports meaningful, cost-effective customer experiences.

There’s a danger in relying on service and software providers for the answer to this question – primarily because many organizations claim to do it all. They can manage any type of data. They can interact with any third party in any way. They can create any type of content you need. They’re not just a PIM – they can manage your inventory, track consumer buying behavior, store your digital assets. They’re not just an ecommerce platform – they can be your PIM, your payment gateway, even your dropshipper.

Find someone who will partner with you

Organizations that push this type of message tend to define value in ways that are meaningful for their immediate organization rather than ways that are deep and meaningful for their customers. They view an organization’s technology budget as a finite spend, and thus chase other pieces of the pie – adjacencies where they have exposure, but no depth of experience.

Conversely, providers that define value in terms of creating customer value deem their customer relationships to be a true partnership. Product management within these businesses promotes deep collaboration with their customers to uncover and solve for greenfield, contextualized and genuine customer problems. These providers are less worried about share of wallet because they don’t view their value through a strictly competitive lens, but rather through a vision they share with their customers. They’re not in a footrace for competitors’ dollars. They’re jointly building business cases with their customers for resources that weren’t there before.

Identify vendors with expertise versus those that oversell

Just because a software or service provider has a diverse offering doesn’t necessarily mean they lack depth in any one of those areas. There is such a thing as a Lebron James of the marketing and tech world. Some companies truly do have experience, relationships and a proven track record in a variety of disciplines. Separating muscle from marketing shouldn’t be difficult.

Organizations driven by customer value are –by nature– more open and collaborative with the ecosystem at large. Other technology companies trust and respect them because they have a track record of generating value from partnerships where everyone wins. Of course, competition is healthy, every provider has strengths and weaknesses, and moving into adjacent markets is natural. But, competitors with depth of experience and expertise command respect from both customers and competitors alike. In contrast, competitors and partners tend to know when a company lacks credibility in a field – when they expand into adjacent markets and “fake it ‘til they make it.” They often find themselves in competitive bids where this player has very little depth or proof of performance.

Another reason other technology and service providers may distrust a peer is because that company has a demonstrated behavior of learning a new market from its partners, developing a rudimentary understanding of the problem space, and then attempting to replicate it themselves. Rather than rely on the depth of experience, robust functionality, established market relationships of its partners, businesses like this are parasitic partners looking to replace that adjacent business on some timeline.

Why does depth matter?

First, organizations on a mission of manifest destiny lack depth and focus. They’re not innovating. They’re not collaborating with their customers to solve practical business challenges. And they don’t have enough experience or grit to drive meaningful return on investment.

They lack depth because their goal is to do just enough to capture a business’ Technology or Marketing budget, but they don’t have the expertise to guide you through difficult problems. How could they? They simply haven’t seen enough of them. They don’t have a strong viewpoint or methodology through implementation, and thus the probability of failure is high.

Think of it this way. The challenges and opportunities you currently perceive in your digital strategy are the iceberg above the water. There are a host of challenges and opportunities that are lurking below the water, yet to be discovered. A seasoned partner will have encountered those “below the water” challenges before. They anticipate them. And they can help you avoid (or capitalize on) them as they arise. A partner with little proven experience or who lacks the safety net of a network of industry relationships can’t help but struggle against these unforeseen obstacles.

Second, platforms and providers that lack depth fail to scale over time. They aren’t interested in going deep enough with their customers to realize long-term, scaled customer value, and that means they’re only interested in solving a problem if it means a customer terminates a contract. These solutions lack sophistication to begin with, and rather than generating value in the immediate problem space, the provider is focused elsewhere.

To use the “iceberg” analogy again, providers that lack depth don’t have the experience to anticipate ways in which your business may struggle to scale in the future. Businesses who are learning as they go are learning with you: you are their experiment. They’re narrowly avoiding catastrophes (if they’re lucky), learning as you’re learning. But experienced practitioners have the foresight to prevent these narrow misses altogether. If this experienced partner is doing their job, the alarm never needs to sound because they’ve been providing sound counsel all along.

Find a guide who is capable of helping you grow

Organizations that do this right are constantly working alongside their customers, ensuring they’re getting the most value from the solutions they provide. They explore business problems and opportunities together, they listen and learn from their customers to drive innovation, they introduce and bring partners together to help solve business challenges, and they invest where their clients have shared gaps and opportunities.

Content creation and experience provider Syndigo builds long-term, meaningful relationships with retailers and marketplaces where consumers buy products. They understand that the process of crafting world class customer experiences relies on an enormous amount of data coming from brands and distributors, and the process for collecting that data is difficult and expensive. What’s more, it’s not good enough to leave ones and zeros on a loading dock someplace. Retailers need help ensuring that data makes it to its intended destination consistently and accurately. Many of the largest retailers in the United States rely on Syndigo for high-quality, brand-approved product information that drives meaningful customer experiences.