Build trust
We believe that the strong relationship that we want to engage into with our customers can’t be established without trust. Trust is not something that we give lightly, nor expect to receive at first sight.
By explaining our principles to our customers, showing them repeateadly that we follow them, we expect that they will gradually learn to trust us. At the same time, if the customers respect what they promise, we will build trust in them on our side.
Respect our promises
By delivering what we promise, we expect to be able to build trust. By keeping our word, we intend to gain respect, and to establish a durable relationship with our customers.
Be honest
Getting a contract by lying about our abilities to finish it on time, to later have to extend dead-lines (and charge more for it) is not an acceptable policy for us. In our project estimations and developments, we believe in telling the truth to our customers, because it’s the only way to get respect from them.
Make a carefull work, finish up to the details
Although this should be clear and evident, it’s not always the case that the work for which you, the customer, paid is finished up to the small details. An application which is 99% finished may be worth nothing if the 1% of code remaining is vital to be able to use it efficiently. A customer shouldn’t have to check up to the small details to see if he got what he paid for, to know that all promises have been fullfilled.
We will insist with our customers about the necessity of finishing what at first might seem to be just costly details if we feel they are needed to assure future project maintainability, optimum usability or better stability.
Avoid conflict of interest, make them clear when they arise
Should we have any conflict of interest between for example a customer project and our goals, we’ll expose them to the involved customers.
Don’t rely on any single company
Tying the proposed solutions to any problem to the product(s) of a single company might be very risky. What if the company goes bankrupt ? What if they decide to stop supporting and upgrading the product ? Is there any way out of that ?
What if the company to which you are tied decides suddenly to rise their prices ? To change the rules under which you can use their products ?
The use of standards is one way to avoid the risk of being held in hostage by a company. If the standards that you follow are widespread, you’ll have the opportunity to switch of provider.
Open source products are another way out of such a problem: by having the source code of the product that you’re using, and the permission to modify it, you can, if needed and economically viable, continue to develop it, or pay to have it developped, even if the original maker of the product has stopped working on it.
Finally, source code access under escrow can also be a solution in some cases, depending on the circumstances.
Use standard solutions
A standard is a published, royalty free, open specification or software component written or developed to provide a solution to a given problem.
When possible, we use standard components and protocols in order to
- assure perenity, interoperability and extendability of our applications
- build upon the best practices of the industry, which are often distilled in the widely accepted standards
- Avoid locking our customer with any solution provider, being the providers of the technology that we use, or being ourselves