With the Internet boom taking off in a big way in India, most companies want to jump on the Net bandwagon as soon as possible. However, choosing the right person or team that can deliver what you envision can be a tricky proposition.

The following points are more or less based on my experiences as a technology consultant. I’m assuming that you’re new to the business of computer consultants and that you don’t have a virtually bottomless budget to advertise for one, or to call up the most expensive one. Here, I’ll try to tell you what to look for, the right questions to ask, and how to proceed in choosing a consultant for your Internet business.

Look around, ask around, read around
Try to get a feel of the Internet scene. Find out about consultants working in different areas of Internet technology. Contact lists on Websites are a good place to start, but remember that not all good Internet consultants even do Websites. This is only meant as a good place to start.

Ask friends, colleagues, and relatives about consultants they know. You may find it easier than you think. Everybody seems to know someone "doing" computers nowadays, and the companies they work for might be a good starting point. Remember that the number of clients that a consultant has is not as important as the number of repeat clients. This is an indicator of how satisfied customers have been with the work done.

Read the past few issues of popular computer magazines. Look at the types of technologies being talked about, even if you are a novice. See what the regular contributors write about and try to find a pattern there. Do these patterns match what you have in mind? Contact them on e-mail to establish a rapport. Many of us may give you some free advice on certain areas, especially if you give us some useful feedback on any of our articles.

Maintain communication
Once you have a list of possible consultants for your project, open a communication channel with them and maintain it. Ask them what they work on, current projects they’re handling, etc. This will let you find out the kind of actual work they are into. Ask them for references you can look up—published material, stuff on the Web, or even other satisfied customers. Follow up these references religiously. Make sure that the work they claim to be theirs is actually theirs. Even, or especially, in the Internet world, unscrupulous persons can pass off others’ work as their own.

Choose
To choose the correct consultant, you’ll need to know exactly what you’re looking for. Do you need someone to create your Website with 100 pages of static text and graphics, or is more dynamism needed in the form of database access, search engines, and the like? Or are you concerned not with Web development, but more with security-related aspects of the Internet, because you want to open your internal company Web server to a select few customers and don’t want any unauthorized persons coming in? Consultants can be specialists in some areas, or experts in many. The communication you’ve had with them should have helped you in establishing their strengths.

If required, call each one of them to present their core areas of expertise. Do a little homework beforehand and be prepared yourself. For example, if it’s a Web development project, ask them about their skills and experience in technologies like ASP, PHP, XML, XSL, XSLT, etc. Everyone knows PERL and Java applet programming, so that’s nothing great. Strengths in packages like Adobe Photoshop shouldn’t be a criterion at all. If the project is on network infrastructure, the consultant should have expertise in proxies, firewalls, IP masquerading, subnetting, virtual domains, etc. Not only will researching some of these topics let you ask the right questions, it’ll also help you understand your requirements better.

Brainstorming with experts
Technology consultants are experts in their fields. Brainstorming sessions with the chosen person or team about your project plan will give you a good feel of the technical feasibility of the project. These sessions will not only iron out most of the holes in your plan from a technical angle, but will also let you estimate the time and effort required. Brainstorming sessions are a very important part of the project, and you must treat them as such. Many companies think of these sessions as a free service that the consultant needs to give them. Remember that the consultant is actually sharing a lot of "domain-knowledge" with you at this point, which could potentially save you a lot of moolah at the end of the day. Treat it as an investment.

Have a business plan ready
If you’re planning a big project, make sure your business plans are rock-solid. That is, you should have worked out exactly what service you wish to offer, the business-related issues that you foresee, the budget, and the business revenue model if any. Many of the things could become clear during the brainstorming sessions with the consultant. Make a detailed project plan for yourself. This will reduce confusion later. Changing the specification midway through a project will cost you time and money, and may be bad for your business in the long run.

Contract
Make a detailed and specific agreement between yourself and the consultant. Since most projects involve only a digital transfer of information, or in some cases—as in the case of network setup—not even a transfer; deliverables, measurements, payment terms, sign-off agreements, and acceptance criteria should all be part of the contract.

Finalé
Consultants are always glad to help, most of the time for a fee of course, but sometimes even for free. And their domain-knowledge is what makes them so important for the success of any endeavor on the Net. Wish you all the best for your venture.

Vinod Unny is a technology consultant at iSquare Technologies