Vendor Selection
Selecting the correct vendor is hard. Knowing what you need and what you need to do takes experience.
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Today’s business world is complicated. It is hard for businesses to be experts in everything they need to excel or even comply with. Vendors bring that expertise but selecting and implementing the right one is not easy. Just because a vendor is big or widely used does not mean it fits your business needs or requirements.
Unless you are willing to rebuild your processes and procedures, implementing the wrong vendor can cost more than the software. It can cost you your employees and customers.
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Selecting the correct vendor means understanding the new or updated processes, and the requirements. It means selecting the correct set of vendors that might be able to supply that functionality and testing them to make sure the correct one is selected.
Gathering the correct requirements, identifying vendors, validating their capabilities, are all daunting tasks that require specific skills and time that current staff probably don’t have.
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Vendor Rationalization is a specific case of vendor selection. Several vendors might have the same or similar software and all be in use by the company. Looking at the overall vendor list and their offerings could lead to economies of scale in pricing. It also means less points of contact and wasted time running from vendor to vendor.