Beware Desperate Software Vendors
I resisted writing this blog, however an unpleasant practice with serious business consequences has become such a common occurrence, my conscience drove my fingers to keyboard.
Being a software solution supplier, we find ourselves under a constant state of evaluation by prospective new users, largely because if a business hasn’t already had a bad experience with another software product, it has heard of those who have and is seeking to avoid either making a mistake others have made or a second mistake themselves. It’s not surprising that after investing time and effort evaluating and acquiring software, no one wants to discover they made a bad decision that must then be lived with for years to come. Too many businesses who engage us have been down this road, paralyzed by its bad effect. This is why nGenue is fully committed to participating in thorough, fair, and honest evaluation processes. But what happens when other software vendors competing for the same contract are not so committed?
It’s not my nature to cast aspersions against other vendors or anyone individually. Over the last year however, we have experienced a steady stream of competitive evaluations where other vendors have been intentionally misleading to the potential detriment of the evaluating business. Allow me to share an example of how this plays itself out.
Evaluating companies generate business requirements documents (RFIs, RFPs and such), seeking detailed written responses, followed by live software capabilities demonstrations that support requirements. At nGenue, we look forward to this; to supplying the written detail and the opportunity to demonstrate out of the box, fit for purpose capabilities. Increasingly, we have received feedback from evaluating companies that certain other vendors, lacking in capabilities, “blow smoke”, fail to supply clear written responses and deliver canned demonstrations, relying on the too frequently used statement, “you won’t be seeing that in this demonstration because that’s functionality we enable during implementation”. Translated, this last statement equates to ‘we will attempt to custom build the functionality you need at time and materials cost to you, that is likely to never deliver what you require’.
Most recently, a customer representative stated to us, “When we first spoke with your competitor, before they knew we were considering nGenue, they gave us a price estimate that was much higher. After we mentioned nGenue, the same vendor presented a big drop in price; a red flag to us. When we sought to clarify their deliverables, we discovered that we, not them, would be responsible and accountable for the software implementation to achieve our desired outcome – i.e., all the risk was on us. I guess that epitomizes the expression, ‘you get what you pay for’”.
Allow me to clarify that not all software vendors are so unscrupulous, but when a software vendor behaves in a manner resembling the preceding, trust your instincts and apply increased diligence. It’s also a good practice to require vendor contracting documents reflect all software functionality as being out-of-the-box, requiring no implementation “development” or “coding”. Doing so will protect your interests against desperate software vendors seeking to make you the newest notch in their belt.
Distributors, LDCs, Marketers, Pipelines, Producers, and Utilities face increasing competitive and compliance pressures, requiring increased operational efficiency, data integrity and process improvement. Their operational systems must support this, but most don’t. Engage us and we’ll show you how to make a breakthrough. It’s what we do for natural gas companies, and we are experts in our field.
~ Ken
