Strategy Analysis: Choosing a Software Vendor

Technology and software decisions can be time consuming and stressful. But they don't have to be. As long as you involve every stakeholder and setup good evaluation practices, you will be setting your organization up for a successful transition into a piece of software that will help you accomplish your goals and objectives.

Purchasing new association management software for your association is critical in ensuring the long-term success of your organization. Sadly, many associations we have seen don't take a systematic approach in evaluating what their objectives are and what software packages can best fulfill them. Don't take other people's words, especially salesman. Do your own research and setup a process that will lead to the best decision for your association. Following are some helpful steps I've taken in the past when I've been in your shoes:

Take the time to establish a team within your organization with a project leader to evaluate and analyze options. Make sure everyone understands who the final decision maker is.
Work together as a team to setup an RFP (request for proposal). If you don't have an RFP, download our sample RFP for associations. The key in this step is getting your organization to agree on the main objectives for the project and then a detailed list of requirements that you want the application to do. Make sure to get a lot of people involved in creating this requirements list, and when you get the list completed, send it out to most of your organization to get feedback. Also, as an organization you should have a good idea of your budget constraints.
Do some preliminary research on the web and talking over the phone with potential vendors. Some people like to send out a formal RFI or Request for Information. I like to stay a little less formal at this point. You want to compile a list of potential vendors. Get some verbal understanding of price range and establish whether or not your main project objectives can be accomplished with this vendor.
Based on this information, narrow your list down to 3-7 vendors. and send your RFP out to this list.
Set a meeting date a week or so after the response deadline to go over the RFPs. Make sure everyone on your team has a copy of each vendor's response to your RFP.
In this meeting get each team member to put a quantitative number evaluation to each criteria that you outlined in your RFP. Use a simple numbering system like 1-5, where 5 is the best and 1 is the worst. Add up the total for each criteria for each vendor. Pick the top three in terms of points earned.
Schedule a demo with each of the top three vendors. Make sure you can see how their software will accomplish your main objectives and your priority requirements. Make sure each team member takes good notes from this demo and asks detailed questions.
Setup a meeting with management and group leaders to have your team present their findings.
Schedule a follow up demo with a larger group of people including management, leadership, and team leaders. Ideally, this demonstration is live where the vendor representative is at your location. Remember you are establishing a relationship with this vendor, one that will continue for many years. You need to feel good not only about their software, but about the organization, and your representative.
Setup a final meeting with your project team and organizational decision makers to debrief on your findings. Depending on your organizational dynamics, you might be able to come to a decision in this meeting. Sometimes, there are small questions that need to be answered from the different vendors, but at this point most of your research should be done. A decision should be able to be made at this point by the decision maker (s) for the organization.