I caught George Crump’s blog this week at www.networkcomputing.com about “vendor end-arounds”, and a lot of what he wrote sounded painfully familiar. In the blog, he speaks about IT people who have to make decisions about new technologies they’re interested in, and what steps will play into that process. In particular, he zeroes in on whether “new” companies get a fair shake in the process, and what problems arise when the big boys of the field get involved.
After 18 years of working for both large and small vendors, I have to agree with his observations. Crump notes the major pitfalls of new and early-stage vendors, and I’ve seen (and caused) many of them firsthand.
The extent to which a big vendor will go to prevent a small vendor’s technology being chosen over their own is astounding. Let’s play this out in a hypothetical: Vendor A is the big-boy vendor, and Vendor B is the little guy. The IT department of Company C (the interested buyer) scopes the project, defines their criteria, and builds their budget. Then, they start in on vendor evaluation.
It’s around here that Vendor A will start throwing their weight around. Vendor A’s sales reps and higher-ups will call managers at Company C whom they know from past projects. They’ll name-drop everybody they know in early meetings to find out who has the most influence on the buying decision, and they’ll foster the illusion that everyone they know at Company C wants Vendor A to be chosen. Sometimes they’ll come armed with white papers, analyst reports and case studies to highlight that Vendor A is superior to every other player in the market. IT people are familiar of the so-called “independence” of these sources, and should reconsider their validity.
Crump makes a strong argument at this point: IT managers at Company C should warn the entire organization of these tactics in advance of the start of the vendor evaluation process, because what comes next is downright dirty.
If Company C chooses to go with the new technology offered by Vendor B, Vendor A will take the gloves off and really go for broke. Anybody and everybody at Company C becomes a target for lengthy lists on why Vendor A’s solution is better, and how Vendor B’s technology will kill Company C. The entire corporate ladder will be scaled: Vendor A’s CEO will call Company C’s CEO and try to convince them one-on-one.
How do you combat this? Crump suggests, and I agree, that everyone at Company C should be, by this point, armed with a full list of talking points supporting their decision to adopt the Vendor B technology. Everyone should be prepared to defend the decision to any callers or executives from within or outside Company C.
And now for my mea culpa. Although not every Vendor A out there will take these scorched-earth tactics, many do. I would know; I’ve done it. To be fair, I truly believed the Company C I was dealing with should have chosen my Vendor A over the Vendor B they were considering. But I knew then and I know now that many Vendor B’s out there have excellent ground-breaking technology. I suspect that’s why my last job, and this one, have been with the Vendor B’s of the world.
What are your thoughts on this? Should Vendor A companies do everything they can to get the deal? Is all fair in love, war, and technology adoption?