Are you business grade?

Time to talk about what's being delivered. 

I constantly get clients coming to me with their own horror stories about having their websites created by artists, not engineers or developers. What this leads to for the most part is websites that don't evolve, don't provide relatively easy ways to keep pace with burgeoning tech. This doesn't mean that engineers and developers have it right either, if someone is delivering you a proprietary development, they damn well should be able to provide support for that system for years to come. Problem is that rarely happens and there are lots of clients stuck with proprietary developments that are difficult and expensive to update and manage.

If you are falling into these scenarios your consultant/designer/developer is not providing business grade solutions.

What is business grade? Simply put is a rock solid compliant development (website) that is "plug able" (meaning it can Have functions and resources added without re-tooling), accessible to edits with only a browser and most importantly is using off the shelf products that are not custom built. This last bit is very important. For a business site to exist tomorrow despite the fact the developer has disappeared is paramount, and that is simply achieved by using tools that are readily available and easily mastered by many.

In other words, no handcuffs, no long term contracts, no provisos, and delivered to you as a complete package with database on a weekly basis.

So that is business grade and if you adopt this as a baseline many things will fall into line as a result. If you are settling for less then this you may be tempted to do so based on budget limitations, but heed the advice as it will save you plenty of money and time in the long run.