Laura’s Winning Ideas

Once you’ve found the juicy data you’d like to import, you can issue an RFQ (Request for Qualifications) to vendors. You want to narrow the list to those who can plug and play with your existing systems.

The last time I did this, we started with a list of 60 potential vendors, and this first step narrowed my list to about 30. You are looking at all CRM, Enterprise management and proposal management softwares. There are probably over 100 firms you could invite.

Then, I create a sample database from the existing system. This will be used for testing all prospective software, and I let the vendors know this in my outline for the next steps. At this point several vendors who knew they were joshing when they answered the RFQ, dropped out.

Migration costs serious money. In most cases, it will cost as much as the software, maybe more. Don’t tolerate the excuse that it is too difficult for the sales division to migrate your sample database. Take the clue that if they can’t do it easily, it will cost you too much to install their software.

Another half-dozen dropped out when they received the sample database and list of reports we would require them to generate at shortlist. some complained that it was too much work to migrate the sample database. Since this was a tiny percent of the existing database, that wasn’t reassuring. Some had systems that could not replicate our fields and would “ditch data.”

We got down to 5 or 6 vendors, who were invited to present their product to a committee of stakeholders. The choice quickly came down to two firms, with a third trailing. The last three were asked to set up a demonstration on their software, using our sample database and producing the reports we’d disclosed earlier.

My client loved this process:
1) I saved him many hours by not allowing vendors to circle the place hoping to snag time with he or his staff.
2) The process kept us focused on the features and benefits, and kept gee-whiz extras where they belong, as an extra nicety, not a driver of the decision.
3) They were able to involve the stakeholders in the process without burning time. It is frustrating to listen to presentations from vendors who are dancing and unqualified in some aspect.

Another discussion of this is here: Designing Dynamic Databases