Vendor selection

Professional ICT specialist services to manage the procurement process from requirements gathering to tender management.

Selecting the product vendor and the integrator partner had to be mutually exclusive but often they were not due to the discount structure and the rebates that various vendors offered to channel partners (i.e. Systems Integrators) based on business volume, certifications, and other relationship considerations. The constant question was how to decouple the symbiotic relationship between vendors and systems integrators (SIs) in order to get the best tangible and intangible outcomes that such a relationship could deliver. What was needed was a Deal, not a pure contract only but where the deal was enshrined by a Contract.

To position the client so that the IT industry relationships did not compromise product selection and/or the price point for the infrastructure and services. The approach delivered marketplace contestability and selected the best product and SI, at the best price while also meeting the project and future IT support needs.

Frame locked in a vendor discount structure for a product range on a project basis that was extended over the life of the product while selecting a systems integrator based on delivery capability, references, price etc., not just due to their partner status with the vendor.

This was achieved by:

• Sending an Expression of Interest (EOI) to the key players in the market segment (e.g. to the leaders/visionaries in the Gartner Magic Quadrant) to:
  • Gain insights into the current capabilities and where the product was heading in the future e.g. open standards, automation etc.
  • understand the commercial construct i.e. project price and % off RRP for the entire TCO period.
• Developing a high-level set of functional and non-functional requirements and evaluating against the EOI responses.
• Short listing the products and performing a Proof of Concept (PoC) for the mandatory requirements to ensure there was interoperability between the proposed products and the existing applications and products and services the organisation had in an on-premise hosting environment and in the Cloud.

The next stage was a Request for Tender/ Proposal (i.e. RFx) to the short listed systems integrators to source professional services. The selection of SI’s was based on previous business relationships and recommendation from the marketplace. This tranche of works had the following key steps and outcomes:

• Selected a systems integrator that was best of breed in the products and services being considered.
• Procured the IT infrastructure from the leading products available in the marketplace previously identified.
• Developed a comprehensive set of functional and non-functional requirements, genericised Bill of Materials (BoM) and other supporting documentation to enable the normalisation activity i.e. to compare apples-for apples, not oranges.
• Set the evaluation criteria and communicated the proponents what was important to the buyer.
• Managed the tender process through the client’s procurement team (procurement, legal and IT stakeholders) to ensure that the best product was selected, at the best price, and matched with a quality delivery partner.