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Summary
A vendor delivers software. A partner delivers confidence. Lessons from FUSION26 on spotting the difference before you sign a contract.
AI is everywhere right now. New tools, new capabilities, new opportunities.
Every parking operator has sat through a flawless demo. The clicks are smooth. The screens load fast. Someone on the other side of the table says, “See how easy that was?”
But how many of those perfect demos actually led to a great partnership three, four, five years later?
That was the question Tammy Baker, COO of Parker Technology, and Amir Sedadi, Chief Innovation Officer at IPS Group, put to the room at FUSION26. Their session focused on picking the company behind the software, and knowing the difference before you sign the contract.
Their line for the day summed it up: a vendor delivers software, a partner delivers confidence.
The Demo Trap
A polished demo tells you what a product can do in a controlled setting, with someone who’s done it a thousand times steering the mouse. It doesn’t tell you what happens when your team is the one clicking, three months after go-live, without a script.
Amir’s advice: drive the demo yourself. Ask to click the buttons. Get lost on purpose. “It drives vendors crazy,” he said, “but it helps you really evaluate how easy that API is.” A vendor who lets you fumble a little, and walks you through it patiently, is showing you more about their support model than any slide deck ever could.
Is the Roadmap Real?
Every technology company has a roadmap. The real question is whether it’s a plan or a pitch.
Amir’s guidance: ask to see the roadmap from two years ago and compare it to what actually shipped. Did the promises hold up? Did customer feedback ever change the plan, or is the roadmap the same slide with a new date on it? And don’t stop at features. Evaluate the APIs behind them. Are they open? Are they timely? Can your team actually support them, or will you need to hire around them?
Tammy added a detail that stuck with the room: her team once had to integrate with a vendor still running on SOAP, a protocol old enough that finding a developer who remembered it was its own project. Technology debt isn’t just the vendor’s problem. It becomes yours the day you sign.
Know the Company, Not Just the Contract
A platform is only as stable as the company running it. Amir walked through the questions that matter here:
- How long has the company been around?
- How often does leadership turn over?
- Is growth coming from strong product, or from private equity rolling up smaller players every 18 months?
Then there’s the reference check most buyers skip: asking about the hard times. Every vendor will hand you their three happiest customers. The better question is what those customers say about the worst stretch they went through together, and how the vendor showed up for it.
Longevity of the customer base matters too. A company with 10-year relationships is telling you something a shiny feature list can’t.
The Experience Doesn’t End at Go-Live
Implementation is the start of the relationship, not the finish line. Amir pointed to the pieces that separate a real partner from a vendor chasing the next contract:
- Clear escalation processes and documented turnaround times
- Coverage that actually matches your hours, not just theirs
- Training and documentation that outlasts staff turnover
- Release notes that track what changed, when, and why
“Customer success” has replaced “customer service” in a lot of pitch decks. The test is whether that shift shows up in how a company actually operates, not just in how it talks.
Kill Your Assumptions
Tammy’s advice on reducing operational risk started with one line: get rid of assumptions. Not “they’re probably SOC 2 compliant.” Verify it. Not “I’m sure they own their disaster recovery plan.” Ask who tests it, and how often.
Tammy shared a real example. Parker Technology’s building has battery backup units, a generator, and two separate internet connections. On paper, that setup looks foolproof.
But during one real power outage, the systems didn’t switch over the way they were supposed to. The fix wasn’t a longer document. It was practice. Every three months, Parker Technology tests this process across all three shifts. That way, the team already knows what to do when a real outage happens. If you’ve never tested your disaster recovery plan, you don’t really know if it works.
Watch for the Yes-Man
Tammy’s sharpest point of the session: be wary of any partner who never pushes back.
“If they’re just telling you yes all the time, it’s going to end up being an issue at some point,” she said, “because they either know it’s not going to happen, or they don’t have their ducks in a row.”
She pointed to her own experience scaling from roughly 100 garages to more than 1,500 facilities. Early on, a customer asked Parker Technology to sign directly into multiple third-party systems before opening a gate. It sounded reasonable at the time. But training CSRs across three shifts on that many systems meant accuracy would suffer, and Parker Technology couldn’t promise 99% reliability on a workaround like that. So, they said ‘no,’ and found another way to solve the actual problem.
A partner willing to tell you no, and then help you find the real answer, is worth more than one who agrees to everything and delivers on a fraction of it.
Five Questions Before You Sign
Tammy closed with the questions she wants every buyer to ask themselves, not just the vendor:
- Does this actually add value to your business, and what’s the real ROI?
- Do you have the internal buy-in to make it work, or will it sit unused?
- Is the roadmap real, and how will you get updates on it?
- What happens when something goes wrong, and will this company still be here in five years?
- Would their current customers buy from them again?
She added a caution that applies well beyond parking: a great golf trip and a good lunch don’t fix a product that doesn’t work. Charisma isn’t due diligence.
The Takeaway
Choosing a technology partner in parking is a five-to-seven-year commitment that goes far beyond a single demo. The vendors worth choosing are the ones willing to be tested, questioned, and occasionally told “no” right back.
Want to talk through what to ask your next vendor before you sign? Reach out to our team to see how Parker Technology approaches partnership, not just software.
Tammy Baker
COO
Tammy Baker has 25 years of experience in process improvement, team management, systems, change management, training and inventory control. She holds a B.A. in Organizational leadership and Supervision from IUPUI.