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When I meet with mid-sized enterprises, I often encounter an underserved audience of IT professionals in need of a better partner. These companies typically have annual revenues ranging from $50 million to $1 billion. They operate with lean IT teams—sometimes just one to three people—managing dozens, if not hundreds, of systems. They rely heavily on vendors and contractors and maybe have a single project manager driving initiatives. If this resonates with you, read on.
Current Vendor and Contractor Engagements
Vendors often prioritize larger clients, leaving mid-sized enterprises at the lower end of their target lists. The economics do not favor these companies: vendors frequently deploy oversized teams for tasks that could be handled by a single individual in half the time. This inefficiency inflates costs.
Moreover, vendor solution engineers often lack real-world experience. Their engagements are overly scripted, focused on selling products rather than addressing customer-specific needs. These interactions feel transactional, with little emotional investment or shared ownership of the customer’s challenges. Discounts are used as a superficial incentive, driving a race to the bottom on price and further deteriorating the quality of offerings. It’s a downward spiral of diminishing value.
Contractors, on the other hand, are typically experienced and knowledgeable but face different challenges. Their business model is built around ensuring their teams are fully utilized, leading them to scope projects generously and stretch timelines. This creates inefficiencies that inflate costs. Time-and-materials contracts, while seemingly flexible, open the door to underbidding and unforeseen “who could have seen this coming” scenarios when complications arise—and they always do.
Many contractors also face profitability pressures, leading to offshore outsourcing. They may specialize in platforms like MuleSoft, but they lack control over the product’s roadmap or source code. This limits their ability to deliver tailored, impactful solutions, leaving customers to bear the brunt of these shortcomings.
The Partner Mid-Sized Enterprises Need
What mid-sized enterprises truly need is a partner who behaves differently, offering:
- A Platform and Solution Engineering: Combining technology and implementation expertise to address specific business challenges.
- Operations as a Service: Taking responsibility not only for deploying solutions but also for operating them effectively over time.
- Specialized Expertise: Focusing on key pain points rather than trying to do everything.
- Long-Term Partnership: Building relationships centered on shared goals and mutual trust.
- Fixed-Bid Contracts: Demonstrating accountability by having skin in the game.
- Leadership and Coordination: Taking charge of projects and managing vendors and contractors to ensure outcomes are delivered.
We call this approach the “Palantir Model.” While we cannot speak to Palantir’s exact methods, from the outside, it appears they follow a similar strategy, driving measurable results for their customers.
How PolyAPI Achieves This Model
At PolyAPI, we’ve made strategic decisions to align with this model:
Unified Platform and Services
We offer both a powerful platform and implementation services. The platform provides a competitive advantage, enabling our team to deliver faster and more cost-effectively than traditional service providers. This integrated approach also allows us to:
- Evolve the platform based on real customer needs.
- Assign engineers flexibly to customer projects quickly when they are needed.
- Eliminate inefficiencies like “bench time” that plague traditional contractors.
Operations Integration
As we operate the platform ourselves, we also manage customer-specific solutions. This gives us unparalleled insight into real-world use cases, enabling safer and more effective platform evolution. It ensures that operational improvements directly benefit both development and ongoing operations.
Higher Value, Fewer Customers
Our integrated offering—combining platform, implementation, and operations—generates higher revenue per customer than our competitors. This allows us to work with fewer customers and invest more deeply in each relationship. While others compete in a race to the bottom, we focus on delivering unmatched value.
Personalized Engagements
We prioritize understanding our customers’ unique challenges. Unlike others who charge for discovery, we conduct initial consultations free of charge. This enables us to:
- Design tailored solutions that truly address customer needs.
- Gain valuable insights into real-world problems.
Even when customers choose another partner, we walk away with lessons that improve our offerings. More often than not, customers recognize the quality of our service and choose to work with us.
Work With Us
If you’d like to explore how we can help with your integration projects, email us at hello@polyapi.io, sign up for free or book an intro call!