How To Make ICT Puchase Decisions: Part One
How To Make ICT Puchase Decisions: Part One
Deciding on the best strategy when approaching a large ICT purchase can save thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours. Quantum’s Craig Tamlin begins his series on navigating the tendering process with this overview.
Tendering for IT has become an overly complex process.There is no question that, in the world of IT, we’re all stretched beyond belief. No longer does anyone have the luxury of endless time to investigate every last nuance of every product or offering on the market in order to make an informed decision. Leveraging your extended team is important to keep the momentum going at a good pace in order to best support your business objectives.
At the end of the day, you are trying to make the right decision, as quickly as possible so you can get on with implementing your chosen product or solution.
Fundamentally, somewhere out there is the “right” or “best” solution for your business at any point in time. Your job is to find it:
• With minimal effort.
• While maintaining good relationships with your suppliers (vendors, integrators or both).
• While minimising the day-to-day impact to your team
Your goal – prior to implementation - is to swiftly derive the business benefits afforded by this solution.
Supplier Relationships
For any IT department, the value of suppliers in this process cannot be underestimated. Many are pleased to go the extra mile to ensure you make a well-informed decision. They are taught that selling is about relationships, and want to form long-term relationships with you. They also know that not every time will their solution be the right one for your needs. How you treat your suppliers can either make or break you next time. You need to avoid a reputation of being a time-waster, and gain respect of your suppliers so they are prepared to help you with your future purchases and with on-going support.
Two Common Tender Mistakes
Before going to tender, consider these:
1) If you already have a solution in mind, and you’re happy with the supplier and the price, just go and buy it. If you do go to tender and it ever gets out after the business has been awarded that you really wanted that solution all along, then those unsuccessful bidders may never want you to waste their time again. All too often purchasers who think that they’ll just “throw it out to tender” just to see what comes back on the off-chance something better will surface is a poor show.
2) If you already know what you want, issuing a tender which has specifications so precise that you’ll only get one compliant bid shouldn’t be a tender. Even if you’re issuing an RFQ (Request for Price Quotation), if you know the product you’re looking for, name it clearly. Save the likely unsuccessful bidders from wasting their time.Understand that many integrators or resellers have preferred pricing arrangements with vendors based on their business volumes and that a formal process may not be necessary to obtain the best price. If in doubt, ask the vendor channel manager to describe the relationship between the integrator and vendor. They, too, want to make it easy for their partners to minimise the effort spent winning business.
Are you in an organisation which mandates the tender process for purchases? If it doesn’t feel right, challenge the “rules” which say you must go to tender.
I will be continiuning this series in the next issue of IDM where I will deal with, among other things: scoring using a common decision criteria and – of course – the Vendor’s perspective
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