Selecting the Right Technology Vendor

TechSoup has recently posted NPower's indispensable Selecting the Right Technology Vendor, a downloadable worksheet that will guide you through the selection process. This step-by-step guide also includes criteria for evaluating vendors, ways to tailor the decision-making process to your organization's particular needs, and a sample guideline for creating your own weighted vendor-evaluation matrix.

How does your organization select technology vendors? What strategies have you found particularly helpful? Share your tips here.

Interesting question.

I wanted to add a question about budgeting. For companies that adhere to best practices in technology, what's the range of budget, as a percentage of overall budget, that most spend? Are there third party studies of this that I might use to educate a management team?
For a $20M org with residential programs, advocasy programs, research programs and community programs, would services like GetActive and Ketera be cost effective?

Personally, I feel that this is one of the best articles TechSoup has posted in some time. I think selecting the right vendor goes past an RFP and the actual product solution and dives more in-depth to the actual experience of the consultancy/vendor and their actual knowledge of technology as a whole and project management protocols. Since coming to a NPO from the "corporate world" i have seen a few consultants (offering solutions where NPOs are their target market) disregard the importance of project management processes from concept to closure. While a consultant/vendor may have a lot of nice promotional paperwork and good presenters, be sure to really press them on what they actually know and get a better sense of their company. Its very difficult to disengage a project after the contract is signed and you are ready to start implementation and have serious issues.