Thursday 6 April 2017

Saved By Zero

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy


I was having a chat last week with a client, during a working lunch and as you do, wandered off topic on to some previous software procurement projects they had suffered. As most experienced people in this sector know, everything is generally perfect in demo-land. A magical mix of Disneyland crossed with the inside of hut 8 at Bletchley Park. In fact, it can be somewhat quicker cracking the German Inigma code, than getting straight answers out of most software sales people.

I am too polite to name the specific solutions, or sales people, but it was all going swimmingly apparently. Lovely glossy brochures, sharp suits and everything was possible. Well that seemed to be the answer on just a too many occasions. Call me cynical, but if anything is possible, why couldn’t the demonstrators knock up something a bit nearer the clients’ needs, with all that ‘flexibility’? 

Maybe there was flexibility, but it all took an age to do and perhaps some of those things being requested had never been attempted before? Either way, some in the audience were less than impressed and smelled a rat.

When asked about future roadmap for the solution, there was none, some warm words, which again didn’t really cut the mustard. Software is something that should be always developing and getting better. So, it’s essential to see how much investment will be going into a solution, to keep it relevant and up to date.

The crunch was when the supplier was asked, “How many customers have you got?”, followed by “How many have been live with this solution, for more than six months?”. The eventual answer, after a trip around the Almshouses, and a few repeats of the question, was zero.

Note those two questions.

I know many organisations who have just asked the first question, felt confident and purchased solutions, they are still years after, trying to get working properly. It reveals the value of perseverance and accessing someone to help you through the process. I have certainly asked those questions quite a lot in my career. Sometimes it’s good to have a Mancunian willing to persevere in the room!

Do checkout my Mancunian tones on Soundcloud here.

Related Post: Make your development pipeline feed your asset management 



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The Fixx – Saved By ZeroThe Fixx – Saved By Zero.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


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2 comments:

  1. Before retiring I did many, many procurement exercises for clients.

    I had one in particular where the client has one major requirement, which we required to have confirmed in writing was meet by systems as a prerequisite. Four suppliers committed that they could do this.

    We set up a demo of the systems, and one supplier, on being asked to show this feature, said "oh it can't do that" .

    The Chief Executive said "what? " and had it repeated. He got up and walked out, almost immediately followed by the Director of Finance.

    Sometimes suppliers do appear to have a tenuous grasp on veracity.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, so true!

      I was scoring a recent tender submission that came through a portal opportunity. The supplier was scoring 5's & 6's out of 10, until pretty much the last paragraph, where they admitted, they had no experience of doing this work ever before. That went against one of the early questions, that stated a 'product' was needed.
      At least they were honest I guess!

      Delete