banner ad graphic for Callidus Software – Gain a competitive advantage with Callidus. Learn more at www.callidussoftware.com

Tag Archive for 'Vendor Selection'



Pizza and Chopsticks

Published
by
admin
on July 2, 2009
in Miscellaneous
. 0 Comments
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

Yesterday, a friend was laughing at me because I was eating my pizza with a fork and a knife.  For the record, I usually only use them when my pizza is too hot to hold with my bare hands.  We started to talk about pizza eating habits, and she started talking about a person she knows who eats pizza with chopsticks.

The points I want to make today is that there are usually many tools to perform the same job, and that the choice of ’solution’ is often a matter of opinion and personal preference, as long as the solution (chopsticks) can meet the requirements (eating the pizza). It is also for this reason that it is important to identify who is the person who will make the final decision, because various team members might have a different idea about what the ideal solution is.

Tags: , , ,

Related Posts:
No related posts

Which SPM Vendor “Sucks” the Most?

Published
by
admin
on February 12, 2009
in Miscellaneous
. 2 Comments
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (5 votes, average: 4.8 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

Every day some people are landing on LeapComp by searching for “[vendor name] sucks”, “which SPM vendor sucks”, etc. I thought I would share my perspective on this matter. I think I probably got some attention?

I don’t think that any sales performance compensation vendor can claim that 100% of their customers are very satisfied with their solution. There is often at least a few people who have had a bad experience and like to believe that it’s all the vendor’s fault.  So what else can cause an SPM project to fail?

Look in your own yard
Did you nail down the requirements properly? Was the scope well defined and communicated? Did the scope slowly creep up until the project was an entirely different beast? Did new requirements enter the picture? Did you support the implementation team adequately by providing them with all the documentation, information, access to subject matter experts, etc, in a timely manner? Did your team provide the required help when necessary and actively helped out with the implementation efforts? Was the schedule reasonable or did you have try to cut corners by skipping over some planning or testing efforts?

Not the right solution?
So maybe from your implementation-support perspective, everything was flawless. So could the problem be that the solution you selected didn’t meet your needs? If you do a poor job at defining the project scope and high level requirements before selection a commercial solution, how will you know if it really meet your needs. Ahh, but that’s the Catch 22! How are you supposed to really know all your needs without knowing more about the solutions? Maybe you KNOW that you want to do analytics, but you don’t really know what the application can do for you exactly… So you end up selecting a solution claiming to have best-of-breed analytics only to realize that it can’t do what you want. Read my vendor selection posts for more ideas on how to select the vendor who will best meet your needs. Hint: I think it’s a good idea to get help from someone who knows what they are talking about and who have worked with many SPM solutions… but I could be biased, that’s one of the things I do for a living.

Maybe it was your implementation partner that was not so great?
Could you do all this and still have a failed project? Yes! You spent all this time selecting a vendor, but how much time did you spent selecting an implementation partner? Maybe you just assumed that a big system integrator like Accenture and Deloitte were the best because they are already working with your company on other projects. Or maybe you selected the cheapest company on the block. Maybe you just selected the vendor’s implementation team thinking they must be those who know their products the best. I would assert that even more important than selecting the right solution, you must ensure that there is a good fit with the implementation partner you select. After you choose a solution, you won’t need many interactions with the vendor; but with the system integrator, you will need to work with them for some time! Do your homework, check their references, find out other companies who have used their services and ask them about the outcome of the project. I wrote another short piece about choosing an implementation partner where I discuss some pros and cons of large companies, versus vendors, versus boutique consulting firms.

In conclusion, before deciding to exclude a vendor from your search based on some horror story, consider that any failure to an enterprise system integration can be caused by many factors, and that the vendor is [usually] never fully responsible for the failure.  Also make sure that you select the best implementation partner.  Finally, support them well during the implementation.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Related Posts:
Resource Center
SPM Vendor Selection Part 5: Reference Calls

SPM Vendor Selection Part 6: Getting Help!

Published
by
admin
on November 25, 2008
in Miscellaneous and Planning and Selection
. 0 Comments
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

If you go shopping for a new car, and if you don’t know anything about cars, what do you do?  Trust the dealer?  Talk with a few dealers?   Read books and reviews about the cars being considered?  Bring a friend who DOES know something about cars to avoid getting ripped off?  In this last post about vendor selection, I will discuss a few ideas of where it is possible to get some help with the sales performance management vendor selection process.

Get help from a company experienced with vendor selection efforts
Getting help from an unbiased, experienced third party is the most obvious course of action.  This third party will be able to assist you with every step of the process we have discussed so far, from shortlisting the “best” vendors for your requirements, to writing an RFP doing a good job at describing your specific requirements, to helping out with the RFP evaluation and demo evaluation.  I’ll just add a note that I’m regularly involved on vendor selection projects with OpenSymmetry.

Pros: A consulting company with a lot of vendor selection experience will be able to guide you through the process and help you in making the best decision for your specific situation.  They will bring a lot of value by being able to answer your questions, create or review the vendor selection deliverable, provide additional insight about the various vendors/solutions considered and provide expert advice early on in the process.

Cons: Hiring a consultant / consulting company to help out with vendor selection will cost something; sometimes too much for a small budget implementation.  Not all consulting companies are as experienced or as unbiased as they claim they are, so it is important to verify the experience and the company’s reputation.  Checking references and ensuring that a company is not getting any “referral fee” from the vendor selected is also important to ensure there is no bias towards a specific vendor.

Get help from an SPM Vendors
Dean Thomas from Merced Systems discussed earlier this month how valuable it is to involve SPM vendors early in the RFP / requirement gathering process to get a good RFP.  Indeed, most vendors will usually be helpful in providing information and ideas when creating an RFP.

Pros: Vendors usually want to appear to be “good guys” and be on your side during the selection process.  There is much to be said about the importance of developing a good relationship between vendor and client, and helping you here is planting the first seed to what the vendors hope to be a long lasting relationship.

Cons: As I pointed out earlier in a blog comment, getting help from a vendor is a bit of a grey area.  When involving one vendor, other vendors should also be involved to be fair, and this can be complicated.  Involving vendors may also create a notion that some are favored more than others.  Finally, some vendors may also use this opportunity to recommend requirements which may give them an advantage over their competitors.  SPM vendors are familiar with their application, but sometimes they lack the knowledge of other solutions which makes it hard to think out of the box…  even with the best intention they may give an advantage to their solution.

Get help from the Internet
Just stating the obvious, but there is a LOT of information on the Internet about vendor selection, RFP writing, etc.  Good places to start looking for SPM specific information are the vendor’s websites and sales performance management blogs.  Looking at vendor selection deliverable for other software solutions more commonly used than SPM could also be valuable; CRM and ERP solutions are other applications which will share common requirements with a sales performance management solution including security, data, etc.

Pros: The information is free…

Cons: The quality and accuracy of the information can be biased.  For example, many vendors provide pros and cons of on-premise versus on-demand solutions; usually these studies are heavily biased towards influencing customers to select an on-demand solution which is usually more lucrative for the vendor.  Be wary of vendors who require you to share contact and project information before sharing white papers, templates, studies, etc with you.  This is only a sales stunt and you may have a hard time to get rid of their sales team.

Get help from me
If you have any questions or if you would like to brainstorm a few ideas, I would be pleased to talk with you and help out… for free.  The only catch is that I hope you will share this blog around in exchange for the help, and keep me in mind if you ever need help with “real” work.  I promise you won’t be constantly harassed after contacting me :-)  You can reach me by e-mail at julien.dionne@opensymmetry.com or by phone at 613-482-2556.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Related Posts:
Resource Center
SPM Vendor Selection Part 5: Reference Calls

SPM Vendor Selection Part 5: Reference Calls

Published
by
admin
on November 20, 2008
in Sales Performance Management and Vendor / SPM Solution Review and Info
. 0 Comments
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Loading ... Loading ...

As I mentioned in a previous post, the vendor selection process can be very similar to hiring someone.  After the screening interview (RFP), and the in-person interview (demo), it’s now time for the reference check of our top two candidates.

SPM Vendors are usually quick to provide the required references.  I think that in general they are pretty honest, but be concerned if they tell you that the entire implementation was very smooth and if they have nothing bad to say about the solution at all.   When applying for a job, I never provided a reference who would say anything bad about me, and I’d usually prep them about what they should say.  I’m sure these arranged references could be scripted as well.

To avoid the potential for a biased reference, many choose to talk with other companies who implemented the solutions being considered.  Whether you are looking at the vendor’s press releases, or if they provided a client list in the RFP, figuring out who is leading the implementation, or who is responsible for compensation at a certain company is usually not such a hard task.  Conferences are also a good way to meet people who have been through the implementation process, with all the pains involved.

Some reference call questions…
The goal of the reference call is to find out if the experience of others is as rosy as what the vendors may have described it.

This is your chance to find out more about the product, if they are happy with the functionality and usability, some of the pros and cons, upgrades, etc.  It is also a great opportunity to find out more about the actual implementation of the solution; how long did it take (and how long was it supposed to take), any lessons learned, etc.  Finally, a very important piece if to find out how well the vendor is supporting the application post implementation; can they resolve issues and answer questions in a timely manner, where there many issues, how was the experience in general?  Finally, after the RFP and demos, there are probably some areas in which you would like to confirm or validate what the vendors mentioned; is the plan communication tool really worth while?  Are the upgrades really THAT easy?

Evaluation
Some people like to factor in the reference calls in the total evaluation score.  Others use it to validate that a vendor/solution is as good as they think it is.  I don’t think there is a good or a bad way, but there is a risk to think “the reference check will be worth 5% of the overall score and the highest score wins”.  Why?  Because if every person you are calling complain about a horrible product and a horrible experience, it could be a deal breaker!

Next Steps…
The next step is to negotiate pricing with the two vendors.  Usually, the top two vendors are still in the process, because obviously pricing can be a major decision factor, but also because a vendor might be more willing to negotiate pricing and other factors knowing that they still have a competitor.

That’s it!  Smile!  At the end of the negotiations, you should be ready to draft a contract with that vendor to provide the incentive compensation solution!

In my next post I will talk about how to get ready for the implementation of the solution, and where to get help for the entire vendor selection process.

Tags: , , ,

Related Posts:
Resource Center
SPM Vendor Selection Process

SPM Vendor Selection Part 2: Shortlisting SPM Vendors

Published
by
admin
on November 10, 2008
in Planning and Selection and Vendor / SPM Solution Review and Info
. 0 Comments
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (2 votes, average: 2.5 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

Now that you realize how large the proposals are going to be, it is obvious we want to invite only certain companies; having to evaluate 20 different proposals would be a good waste of time. Usually, between 3 and 5 companies are shortlisted for this process.

So how do we pick the companies to be included in this list? It depends on many criteria and on the context. The most obvious criteria are the number of payees, the complexity of the compensation plans and the requirement for an on-premise versus an on-demand solution. Many vendors also focus on a specific industry and should be considered for the list.

The next step is to look at the company’s reputation. Some of them have been in the market for a long time, and some are pretty new; some of them have many live implementations, others are still trying to find clients; some of them are profitable, others are not; some win awards and make the Garners list, others are almost unheard of. What do others say about the applications being considered? The importance of these questions should help further refine the list.

The next big question remaining is, can the applications remaining on the list meet your high-level requirements. This can be hard to answer without knowing the vendors and their solution, but some of this information can be found on the web and on my blog. This is why it’s important to know what is important to you? Assuming every solution will give accurate results, what are you looking for beyond that? User friendliness of the administration interface? Reports? Analytics? Ease of maintenance? Modeling? Do you have any other technical requirements? Is support of a specific database required?

Finally, do you need a best-of-breed application, or would you consider a “lesser known” vendor if the price was significantly cheaper, or if they had a very strong focus in your industry? Obviously some solutions are very expensive, and others are… well not as pricy, some are very focused (often in the insurance industry), while others are generic.

After considering all of this, it should be possible to bring down the list to the 3 to 5 vendors we are looking for. Avoid making the common mistake of only considering the companies rated promising or positive on the Gartner ICM Marketscope… others are likely to have very viable solutions as well.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Related Posts:
Resource Center
SPM Vendor Selection Part 6: Getting Help!

SPM Vendor Selection Process

Published
by
admin
on November 5, 2008
in Planning and Selection
. 6 Comments
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (3 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

A lot of my readers end up on LeapComp looking for information about various vendors. I presume this is because they are considering getting a sales performance management solution at some point. In the next few posts I will discuss the vendor selection process, and I will address the following topics:

  1. Creating a good Request for Proposal (RFP)
  2. Creating a shortlist of vendors to be considered
  3. Getting the most out of sales performance management vendor’s demos / Proof-Of-Concepts / Interviews
  4. Conducing reference calls
  5. Negotiation
  6. Getting help

Let’s look at the first topic; creating a good RFP.

Creating a Request for Proposal (RFP)
A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a document inviting companies, in this case SPM software vendors, to submit a proposal. The RFP includes many sections including the project definition, the project requirements (functional and technical), vendor questions, an explanation of the selection process, scoring process, etc. The quality and completeness of the proposals will only be as good as the information provided in the RFP, so it’s important to get this document right!

Before even starting to write an RFP, make sure you understand your business needs, business and technical requirements.  I wrote a scenario about the importance of getting the requirements right, which is relevant again.

Organizations often have an RFP template which they use for every RFP they send out. These templates will include common information such as a letter of invitation, instructions to bidders, a common glossary, and other forms. If you do not have such common template, you should look at various examples, and pick which sections you want. Many places on the web have “sample RFPs”.  Here is an RFP gold mine, containing all Canadian’s government issued RFPs.  They are not specific to SPM, but they can provide some good ideas.

Requirements and vendor’s questions

Formulating good requirements, and good questions for the vendors, is key to ensure the “winning solution” is the best fit for your organization.  After all, you don’t want this winner to not meet one of your “must-have” requirements which was left out of the RFP.  Secondly, what could be the best system for one company is not necessarily the best for yours.

Asking questions such as “The product must be able to calculate commissions accurately”, or “The product must be robust”, is bad.  Why?  Because this is the type of questions every vendor will answer “yes”.  Not only is it important to ask questions specific to your needs, it is important to ask questions which will distinguish vendors from each other.

Specific must-have yes-or-no questions could be “The solution must be able to support multiple calendars”, “the solution shall be hosted in a data center with a SAS 70 accreditation” or “the solution shall be able to integrate with SAP without significant configuration”, are examples of questions which may be important to you, and which not all vendors may be able to check “yes” so easily.  In general, most yes-no questions will be answered by “yes”.  That’s why RFP for packaged solutions often add other answer options such as Supported,Modifications, 3rd Party, Customization, In the future and not supported. I would also recommend leaving space for vendor’s to add comments on that spreadsheet.

When scoring the RFPs, relying on these answers will give very similar scores.  That’s why essay-type questions are often preferable, and can be a good complement to those questions.

Questions such as “Describe how your organization supports customers and resolves issues” will give a better picture of what the vendor has to offer compared to asking the question “can resolve issues in a timely manner”.  Essay questions will also make the scoring more time consuming and potentially more subjective.
When formulating questions, first think about major categories such as compensation, technical, organization, etc.  Keeping your specific needs, requirements and current challenges in mind, write questions related to each of those categories.

So you get the idea, the proposals will often be pretty large documents.  That’s why my next post will focus on short-listing SPM vendors.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Related Posts:
Resource Center
SPM Vendor Selection Part 6: Getting Help!