Software Vendor Selection
Software Vendor Selection Approach
The global marketplace for enterprise-class product design, manufacturing and supply chain software is complex and constantly evolving. There is no shortage of vendors competing for your business, but with dozens if not hundreds of software providers all claiming to offer best-in-class products, how do you choose the right technology for your organization? You want to choose something that meets your needs and will leave you room to grow without paying for bells and whistles that you will never use. An incorrect choice could prove costly and cause more harm than good.
Leveraging our unique experience implementing and integrating the entire spectrum of digital tools for industrial digital transformation, our team of experts can provide the Software Vendor Selection services needed to help you navigate the complex landscape of available products and solutions in order to find the one that is best suited for your business today. At Engineering Industries eXcellence, we believe that the most successful software vendor selection process is:
- Based on well-defined business requirements
- Unbiased and open to all software vendors and solutions
- Inclusive of all key business stakeholders who will be impacted
- Committed to creating a consensus, not endless discussions
- Focused on making the best overall selection for the business
- Executed by an experienced consultant that both understands the process to be transformed and has technical experience implementing the solution in scope
Software Vendor Selection Activities
1. Solution Requirements Gathering
Our expert consultants will start by analyzing or, if necessary, writing your user requirement documentation to ensure that all of your stakeholders have a clear understanding of the business objectives for the proposed technology solution.
- Our team will visit the project site for a survey of the existing processes as well as any legacy or supporting systems in place.
- Our consultants will conduct alignment workshops with your Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to identify points of pain, understand short and long-term needs, as well as the overall strategic company initiatives.
- Our team will provide high-level training on the solution in scope to help educate SMEs on features, functionalities and benefits of the system (i.e., ISA-95 overview).
- Our team will work with your SMEs to prepare a User Requirements Specification (URS) document that lists and ranks the expected features and benefits of the solution in scope.
- Our team will prepare a Request for Information (RFI) document that can be sent to potential software vendors in order to solicit information about each of their products.
2. Software Vendor Data Gathering
Once documented, your business requirements will drive the rest of the software selection process as we help you identify, solicit information from and compare the vendors and solutions that best fit your organization's specific needs.
- Our experts will recommend up to five potential vendors, but will also ask for your input based on prior due diligence.
- Our experts will issue an official RFI to each potential vendor and each vendor will be given the same amount of time to respond.
- Our team will review, grade and report all software vendor responses via a gap analysis. This report will highlight which of the solution requirements identified can be covered by each vendor’s off-the-shelf solution, as well as those which would require customization for the requirement to be met.
- After the RFI responses have been evaluated, a small number of the best-performing vendors (short list) will be invited to your project site in order to perform a complete live product demonstration based on the URS/RFI. Our team will drive the conversation and guide you through understanding the key strengths and gaps of each solution.
3. Data Analysis & Final Selection
The final phase is aimed to help answer any remaining questions you may have, as well as for our expert team to make a single software vendor recommendation for your organization. Regardless of our recommendation, of course, the final software vendor selection is up to you.
- Our team will prepare and present a final report recommending which manufacturing software vendor is best suited for the implementation.
- Our team will answer any final questions, then it is up to you to make the final decision on vendor selection.
Engineering's Advantage
When navigating the global marketplace of software vendors, you need a partner with the industry, technology and business experience required to sort through the noise and guide you through the advantages and disadvantages of each option. You need a partner who can cut through the sales pitches and help you perform an apples-to-apples comparison among the available solutions, so that you can make the best decision. Our vendor-neutral approach combined with our team's experience implementing design, manufacturing and supply chain technology solutions for real customers across industrial sectors makes Engineering Industries eXcellence the right partner to lead or support your software selection initiative and help you understand the real value of each proposed solution for your business.
Our software vendor consulting offering includes:
- Vendor selection services for Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software
- Vendor selection services for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software
- Vendor selection services for Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) software
- Vendor selection services for Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) software
- Vendor selection services for Supply Chain Management (SCM) software
- Vendor selection services for Asset Management software
- Vendor selection services for Simulation Modeling & Decision Science software
Interested in speaking to one of our experts? Contact us at info@indx.com.
