Digital transformation projects: Supplier selection
Having completed all the essential groundwork its time to go to the market and find a supplier that can both deliver and maintain the digital technologies and systems that will help you achieve your objectives.
However, its easier said than done.
So what are the processes involved and what are the key questions that need to be asked?
Very broadly, there are eight steps to ensure there is a full, detailed and accurate information exchange between you and prospective suppliers:
- The preparation of tender documentation to ensure you are fully briefing suppliers on your organisation, objectives, data, processes, functionality, resourcing, timescales, budgets etc
- Identify potential suppliers that are likely to be able to provide a solution and then issue tender documentation
- Develop a scoring system so that suppliers responses can be fairly and impartially assessed.
- Meet with suppliers that wish to tender and provide further clarification/information where required.
- Shortlist down to two or three suppliers
- Undertake due diligence on prospective suppliers
- Arrange presentations and demos of proposed technology and system solutions
- Engage all departments in the decision making process prior to making a final decision.
However, there is also an underlying consideration that is often very difficult to assess during this process - do you have the trust and confidence in your chosen supplier to become a long term partner that can successfully work hand in hand with your organisation?
CEO/SMT questions
- What should be included in our tender documentation - have we missed any important details?
- Are we presenting ourselves as a knowledgable organisation in command of its objectives and requirements?
- How can we best articulate the connection between our objectives and our functionality requirements?
- How can we obtain standard tender documentation templates used for similar projects?
- What can we learn from other membership organisations that have undertaken a similar process?
- How can we obtain confidential supplier assessments from other membership organisations?
- Has our tender documentation pack been agreed and signed off by the Board, project team and all relevant departments?
- Before we start the tender process do we have a reasonable idea of the likely costs and timescales - and how much flexibility do we have?
- How do we review the supplier market and identify prospective supplier - who are the leading contenders?
- How will our choice be affected by the level of our internal technical and digital competency?
- How much hand-holding will be required during post-implementation - and who offers the most relevant training and support packages?
- How do we consistently and fairly evaluate the different responses from different suppliers against our set of requirements?
- What due diligence do we need to undertake - and what specialist financial and legal expertise do we need?
- How can we technically assess whether the proposed technologies or systems will deliver the functionality that we require?
- How confident are we that staff will adopt the software shortly after the implementation has been complete?
- How/who will make a final decision after the shortlisting process?
Staff questions
- Does the tender document fully reflect the future requirements of my department?
- How can we check whether the solutions offered by prospective suppliers will actually work - and will it make my life easier?
- Is it possible to undertake some dummy testing of the competing technologies and systems?
- How do we meet the staff from support team rather than the supplier sales representatives and senior management?
- What is the quality of the user training - and will we be to access existing user groups after implementation?
- Is user support provided on an ‘on call’ basis or via a remote ticketing system?
- How do we get sufficient face-to-face time with prospective suppliers to establish who we can trust and depend on?
- Do we get an opportunity to contribute to the final decision on supplier selection?
- Are we confident that the organisation will make the right decision?
- Will this new system put me out of a job?
Supplier questions
- Has the organisation fully briefed us on their objectives and requirements - can it be trusted?
- What additional information is required?
- Has the organisation received consultancy advice on preparing the tender documentation?
- What confidence do we have in the project resources and technical capabilities of the organisation?
- Does the organisation have a designated, experienced project manager that will the single point of contact??
- Are their budgets and timescales realistic?
- Do we have the resources and capacity to fit their project into our planned workload within agreed timescales?
- Has the client undertaken an in-depth analysis of its data - what quality issues are there and what problems might this present?
- What due diligence do we need to undertake to ensure that the organisation is well managed and financially sound?
- How can we obtain a reliable assessment of the culture of the organisation and whether its a good fit?
- What is the overall level of risk?
- Overall, does this represent an opportunity for us to develop a long term mutual partnership?
“Recently the supplier market has shrunk as a result of takeover and consolidations and there is now less choice available. At the same time suppliers have been progressively moving away from bespoke solutions to pre-developed ‘out of the box’ application modules. These modules (e.g. membership, events, marcomms, publications) include most of the standard functionality required for the membership sector but can also be tailored and partially adapted to meet specific requirements.
This means that organisations often have to compromise and accept a ‘best fit” rather than a ‘perfect fit”. Consequently this puts even greater pressure on the processes involved in choosing a supplier.
The value of working with an independent consultancy is that you can fast track a number of these processes and get expert advice so that you don’t waste time or money:
- Consultancies can provide and complete on your behalf a range of tried and tested tender documentation templates that list most of the usual functional requirements e.g. CRM, web or learning management systems. This will ensure you don’t make any costly mistakes through inaccurate or incomplete specifications. These tender templates are structured to mirror the application modules that most suppliers are likely to offer and makes it easier for responses to be evaluated on a like-for-like basis.
- All tender documentation templates includes instructions on the response format to ensure that the organisation can compare ‘apples with apples’.
- As a result of the in-depth work undertaken through the ‘Requirements Gathering Stage’ a consultancy will have developed a good understanding of your culture and the level of digital and technical competency in your organisation. They will therefore be able to offer a current assessment of the supplier market and can guide you on those suppliers most likely fit your needs - and eliminate those that are not a good cultural or technical fit.
- Consultancies can manage on your behalf the tender phase to evaluate and score the responses and provide full results reporting. More importantly, they are supplier agnostic and provide impartial advice and highly refined scoring systems to ensure you make an informed decision on responses to tenders
- They offer the technical competence, knowledge and experience to evaluate how/whether supplier solutions offer the required level of functionality and can offer expert insights during supplier demonstrations.
Ultimately though its a leap of faith. The consultancy will ensure that the information exchange is very thorough so that you alone can confidently make the final decision on whom you wish to work with.
If you’d like to discuss what you have read above, or learn more, then please contact the author, Ben Sturt, founder and lead consultant at Chrysalis Digital at [email protected] or +447469 768 990 or his colleague David Darrah, Business Development Director at [email protected].
