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Advanced
How To Guide
Choosing eBusiness vendors and software
2 . Selecting an eBusiness Vendor
The starting point for any vendor selection exercise
is drawing up a detailed "Definition of Requirements".
This document will be sent out to prospective vendors
who will use it as the basis of their proposal. All
the stakeholders in your project should get the opportunity
to contribute to the definition of requirements - no
detail should be considered too trivial for discussion.
Once the Definition of Requirements is finalised it
should be sent to appropriate vendors for consideration.
From the responses received it will be possible to draw
up a list of preferred vendors who should be invited
to present their proposal to an evaluation team representing
the stakeholders in your project. It is a useful exercise
to draw-up an evaluation matrix outlining the criteria,
with relevant weightings, you will use to select a vendor.
This will serve as a "cheat sheet" during
the evaluation meeting, and as an important "reminder"
document when making a decision later among multiple
candidates.
Tied or Independent?
When choosing between vendors it is important to know
if they are tied to a particular technology or parent
technology company. All eBusiness vendors are not created
equal. Many customise and resell software developed
by other companies (value-added resellers (VARs)). These
vendors are expert in creating solutions based on specific
software but may do nothing else. As such there is a
natural motivation for these companies to try and shoehorn
your project into a form that suits their software.
The "when all you have is a hammer, everything
begins to look like a nail" syndrome. VAR's are
excellent solution providers when the solution required
is a natural fit for their underlying technology, but
the suitability of their technology should be examined
closely. Also, some vendors act as representatives of
particular larger technology companies and are limited
to providing solutions based on the larger company's
technology. Again, there is nothing wrong with this
if the technology fits, but it is something to be aware
of nonetheless. The prior two points do not imply that
independent vendors are necessarily better - they may
not have sufficient specific expertise to provide the
best solution. Each project and vendor needs to be evaluated
separately.
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