Last month’s article described the need to understand and document the reasons your company is embarking on the task to source and implement a new IT solution and the detailed requirements that it should meet.  This month’s article looks at the critical process of selecting the right solution and supplier. 

The process to select a solution should start with a review of what is available on the market and you should endeavour to seek advice from within the industry as to which solutions and suppliers are likely to be most suitable.  Bear in mind that negative experiences with suppliers are not always solely attributable to the supplier!  Initial contact will be followed up by visits to understand your initiative in more detail, from those who are likely to give it serious consideration.

The Invitation to Tender, or Request for Proposal document should be sent to a pre-selected and brief list of suppliers – I would suggest no more than half a dozen, or the task to perform a meaningful evaluation of responses is likely to become unmanageable.  If you have structured the document in such a way as to allow responses to be “scored”, so much the better, and a series of short, structured demonstrations is a good idea and would allow for any ambiguities to be removed, before you decide on the shortlist.  

Once you have your shortlist – I suggest two - take the time to engage in a more detailed evaluation of the remaining solutions.  Needless to say, the key attributes of the proposed solution should fall in line with your requirements: 

Functionality – does the system do the job?  Depending on the scope of your requirements it may be unlikely that you will find a 100% fit.  Gaps can be filled via software development but will add to the overall cost, or worked around, however, there is a point at which manual workarounds – especially for key processes – cease to be cost effective. 

Delivery – the supplier should be able to illustrate a comprehensive and realistic approach to delivery – typically the key activities and dependencies - training, configuration and testing support, data migration and technical consultancy. 

Technology – the system should be compliant with your current platform, unless you have the appetite to acquire new skills to support it, or it is being provided on a hosted basis.  It should have a scalable and open architecture to allow integration with existing and future enterprise systems, unless you are certain this will never be an issue.  Do not ignore the requirements of your disaster recovery plans.  You may need a solution that can be simultaneously deployed over a number of servers in a number of locations.  If the solution is to be hosted – and this can relieve you from the challenge of supporting the solution in house – make sure the service incorporates adequate contingency for business continuity.

Supplier Credentials – look for financial stability, industry knowledge, capacity and local presence (without it implementation costs can be high and support service poor).

Maintenance – this is often subject to a separate contract and should be responsive and available during the hours you need it.  Ensure that you gain a commitment to service levels and – if you can get them – service credits for failure to comply.  The maintenance contract should provide a commitment to provide regular upgrades, in order to keep the product supported on a current technological platform and, to remain compliant with legislation as this moves - free of additional charge – it is in the interest of the supplier to ensure the system remains saleable!

Contract – this is for the mutual protection of you and the supplier and should incorporate, apart from standard clauses, statements of requirements, functionality to be delivered and spread payment dates linked to implementation project milestone dates. If in any doubt, seek professional assistance. 

The conclusion of your efforts should be the commencement of an engagement, which will see the successful delivery of a solution, which satisfies all interested parties.  Next month I shall describe the steps you can take to prepare before delivery commences, which will minimise the risks of failure.

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