Eight Tips For Creating A Vendor Short List

February 23, 2006 from Managing Automation and based in part on an interview with Michael Burns - "Your list of requirements should match up with pre-defined critical success factors (CSF) -- those things you must do well in order to be successful as a business, adds Michael Burns, president of 180 Systems Ltd., a business consultancy in Toronto. "If a requirement can't be mapped directly to a CSF, then it's not critical."...

When creating your RFP, Burns suggests asking vendors to respond not with a yes or no but with a number between one and seven. "When they say yes, that can mean anything," Burns says. You can get more specific through a numbering system, where a "6" might indicate that a feature is available in the current release of the software, a "5" that it will be available in six months, and a "1" that it would require a major modification or workaround. Combining your weighted requirements with these weighted responses will give you a way of scoring vendors to determine which makes your short list, he says.

You might be tempted to skip the reference check process, assuming you'll get only positive responses. However, according to Burns, "forty percent of the time, the reference is not a positive one," he says. "It's amazing how little vendors know about their customers." Burns offers a checklist of questions to ask each reference and advises that you tell each one a little about yourself before asking any questions so that they have a level of comfort with you.
Don't spend time on system demonstrations until you've narrowed your list to a handful of finalists. You can even take a two-pronged approach, Burns suggests, where the first demo is done over the Internet and the second one is more in-depth. In all, you should attend no more than four demonstrations, and limit each to two to three hours, he says. Ask demo attendees to identify major strengths and weaknesses, he says."