Learn how to take an objective approach to choosing the right tech vendors for your needs, with a refined decision framework, and unbiased insights from SaaSCom.
Purchasing the right solutions, from the most reliable tech vendors is crucial for any organization. In today’s world of rapid digital transformation, companies are investing more money into tech enhancements than ever before. Businesses are working with tech experts to streamline their transition into the cloud, improve customer service and communication, and minimize operational costs.
Unfortunately, choosing the best tech vendors to work with is becoming increasingly difficult. The technology industry is one of the world’s fastest-growing and most competitive sectors.
Making the right decision for your business is complicated when you need to review a landscape filled with thousands of security, AI, connectivity, UC, and contact center providers – all offering similar products and services.
Often, companies end up choosing popular companies surrounded by hype, regardless of whether they can truly serve their specific needs. Alternatively, they turn to resellers for guidance, who can only offer fragmented views of the market based on their own portfolio.
So, what’s the solution?
Why Choosing Tech Vendors is So Complex
Ultimately, the biggest reason that choosing between tech vendors is so complicated today, is there are too many options. There are hundreds of well-known and up-and-coming companies supporting every aspect of the tech landscape, from CCaaS, to SD-WAN, and beyond.
It’s no wonder that 55% of organizations find it hard to identify the right supplier, when they’re overwhelmed by so many similar solutions. The issue of “choice overwhelm” in the current tech market is further exacerbated by a few common problems:
Buyers Don’t Always Know What they Need
Many companies looking to invest in new technologies approach the market with a broad view of what they’re actually looking for. They might be aware of certain problems they need to fix, such as issues with complex network management and security, or limited network performance, but they might not be aware of whether they’re actually looking for SD-WAN or SASE solutions.
Alternatively, some buyers might have a broad idea of what type of technology they need, but not what the most important capabilities or features for their specific requirements are. For instance, you might assume that you need a full contact center solution, but if you already have phone systems and existing technologies for customer service in place, you might actually only need one or two extra features to bridge the gaps in your portfolio.
Companies Need to Make Choices Fast
Companies investing in technology are fighting a constant battle to stay one step ahead of their competition, stakeholder requirements, and customer expectations. Businesses today know they need to innovate fast to avoid falling behind. This often leads to a rushed decision-making process, where conducting extensive research, and assessing crucial factors take a back seat.
The demand to act quickly often prevents businesses from performing the right level of due diligence when choosing tech vendors. This often means they end up choosing a solution that doesn’t fully address their needs, fails to align with their goals, or even introduces features that overlap with capabilities in other systems – creating waste.
Resellers Offer Limited Insights
Resellers are valuable resources for companies that need to access and implement technology quickly. However, there are issues with relying on resellers to make decisions about which tech vendors to work with. Most modern resellers rely on reports like the Gartner Magic Quadrant to determine which solutions to include in their portfolio.
This makes sense, since these reports help to highlight popular vendors with high profit potential. However, they also offer a limited view of the market. Most reports ignore valuable “up-and-coming” vendors in favor of established companies, leaving resellers with a select pool of tech providers to promote to their user base. This means companies could miss out on opportunities to work with other vendors that better-serve their needs.
Making an Objective Choice: Top Tips for Your Decision Framework
At a time when choosing the right tech vendors is so complicated, companies can’t afford to make fast-paced decisions based on limited knowledge. Doing so means you could end up wasting money on technology with features you don’t need, or solutions that don’t match your requirements.
Successful decision making relies on two things: building the right framework for assessing your choices, and accessing the right support. Let’s start by looking at the key steps you can take to improve your decision framework, as you invest in the latest tech trends.
1. Collaboratively Identify Goals and Priorities
First, at the start of any purchasing process, it’s important to establish why you’re investing in a specific piece of technology. Stakeholders throughout the business should come together to identify the key challenges they want to overcome, and the goals that need to be accomplished with new tech.
Look at the things that matter to your company from multiple angles. For instance, if you’re investing in a new contact center, your main goal might be to improve customer experience. However, any CCaaS provider can promise this. So, narrow down your choices based on key problems you want to solve. For instance, determine if you want to:
- Reduce call volumes and improve efficiency with AI and automation tools.
- Streamline your technology stack by combining UCaaS and CCaaS tools.
- Improve employee experience with integrated workforce management apps.
- Boost sustainability with cloud-based platforms that enable remote work
Remember, when assessing your goals and priorities, it’s worth auditing your current technology stack, to see which features and solutions you don’t need to invest in twice.
2. Think Long-Term
The goals you set for the technology you’re choosing should align with your wider long-term business goals. For instance, if, in the long term, you want to consolidate your technology stack to reduce costs, then investing in multiple disparate forms of technology now to achieve short-term targets will drive you further away from that ambition.
Alternatively, investing in a solution that has the flexibility you need to access additional features, and extend your portfolio at a later stage might make more sense. Identifying your long-term goals will also help you to identify other important factors to consider when looking at your options.
For instance, if your aim is to take advantage of all the benefits of sustainability and green IT, you know you can narrow tech vendors down by looking at their focus on sustainability.
3. Set Criteria for Assessing Tech Vendors
Once you’ve set specific goals and priorities, the next stage of the selection process is identifying the specific criteria you’ll be using to score tech vendors, based on their ability to serve your needs. Typically there are around five different types of assessment criteria to evaluate:
- Functional: The specific functions and features you’re going to be searching for (and ignoring), based on the goals you’ve established.
- Technical: The factors involved in implementing the technology, integrating it with your system, and accessing the benefits you need.
- Support and services: The level of assistance offered by a vendor with training, implementation, and ongoing support post-purchase.
- Reputation: How much you can trust the vendor, often based on case studies, reviews, overall business performance, and future roadmaps.
- Pricing: The overall costs associated with interacting with a vendor, including ongoing fees, contract terms, licensing agreements, and so on.
4. Consider Your Sources of Insight
Now you need to identify where you’re going to get the insights and information you need to assess all the vendors that could be suitable for your tech needs. As mentioned above, relying exclusively on market reports from analysts like Gartner, and reseller suggestions will give you a stifled view of the market. So, where can you turn for more objective insights?
For instance, can you rely on IT consultants with deep knowledge of the type of technology you want to invest in to guide you towards the right solutions? Can you draw information from your existing team members, stakeholders, and reputable network contacts for a broader view of what’s available?
How much weight will you give to the various forms of input you’re given and why? For instance, can you trust a reseller to give you the best suggestion based on your specific requirements, or is there a good chance they’ll guide you towards the solution that delivers the best profit margins for them?
5. Evaluate Your List Thoroughly
Once you’ve created a list of potential tech vendors to choose from, think about how you’re going to narrow down your options. Don’t just trust recommendations from resellers. Do your own research to assign a score to each vendor based on your specific needs.
For instance, you might use a combination of user reviews, research into technology features and customer support information to score vendors on a scale of one to five for each of the factors that matter most to your company. Make sure you’re using the same breadth of information when scoring each company, to ensure a fair assessment.
Consider actually reaching out and speaking to your top tech vendors directly. Ask them how they can resolve the issues your company might be facing, and record their answers. Alternatively, request a demo of multiple products and solutions so your team members can assess the functionality in depth and share their own feedback before you make a decision.
Choosing Tech Vendors: The Power of Independent Consults
The steps above will help you make more informed decisions about which tech vendors to invest in based on your specific priorities. However, the view you have of the market, and how well you can make choices based on all of the options available to you, will depend on your “sources of insight”.
As mentioned above, there are various avenues you can turn to for information about tech vendors, but most common options have their limitations. Resellers are limited to promoting what they offer in their portfolio. Analysts are restricted to promoting companies based on factors that may not matter to your business (such as the vendor’s annual profit margins).
Even your internal staff members probably have a limited view of the market. That’s where IT consultants, like the experts at SaaSCom, become so valuable. Unlike resellers and most industry analysts, IT consultants have a comprehensive view of the market, and a knowledge of your business, goals, and challenges they can use to make personalized suggestions.
IT consultants:
Are Truly Objective
IT consultants aren’t tied to working with specific vendors. They take a comprehensive view of the market, paying attention to both established companies, and startups and newcomers in every aspect of the technology industry. This means they can offer objective opinions and suggestions.
At SaaSCom, we don’t drive companies to specific tech vendors just because they’re popular, or because they pay us high commissions. We evaluate the individual priorities, goals, and challenges of each company we work with, to provide personalized guidance. That means you’re more likely to end up with a shortlist of solution relevant to your specific requirements.
Have Genuine Expertise
The role of any IT consultant revolves around being a true expert in their field. They don’t choose vendors to promote and work with because they’ll have a better impact on their profit margins. They focus on educating themselves on the industry trends, best practices, and new opportunities in their space so they can deliver better service to their clients.
At SaaSCom, our consultants even undergo regular training and certification processes connected to all of the various swim lanes of Tech. We have AWS and Azure solution architects, AI experts, and specialists with CISSP, CISM, and CSSP certifications.
Provide Access to Powerful Decision-Making Resources
IT consultants don’t “sell” products, they guide companies towards making the right decisions, providing insights, expertise, and valuable resources or tools that companies might not get elsewhere. They not only use tools, like self-guided assessment platforms and reports themselves, they can pass these solutions onto their clients to help them through the decision-making process.
For instance, with a sales assessment platform, companies can input data about their specific needs and requirements into a system, and access personalized recommendation plans in minutes. This reduces the time required to research the market, and shortlist vendors manually, without restricting the pool of options companies have access to.
Going Beyond the Hype: Choose the Right Tech Vendors
Making the right decisions about which tech vendors to work with can be complicated, particularly in such a cluttered and competitive marketplace. As technology continues to evolve, the number of options companies can choose from will only continue to increase.
The only way to make sure you’re making the right decisions for your needs, is to look beyond the hype, and take an objective approach to building your vendor shortlist.
If you need unbiased support, guidance, and expertise to help you take the next step in your digital transformation journey, contact SaaSCom today.
