Millions: What it can cost if you don't properly vet vendors

Earlier I read "How IBM Conned My Execs Out of Millions" over on Kuro5hin.

The piece is a complete reposting of the same article on Tristan Yates blog.

Basically, he draws a complete roadmap for driving a project, or in this case, not driving, a project to disaster.

What's sad is that they had already hired a consultant who knew IBM's games and didn't listen to his advice.

Compound that on the fact that upper management never bothered to get input and buy-in from the people who knew the network, systems and requirements best.

It's a recipe that's so easy to follow. You have a huge project to complete. You have a deadline. Your bonus is tied to that deadline. You talk to a few vendors about the project, most of whom are up front and honest that they can only do one piece. Then you talk to one group of salesmen who promise you that they can take care of the entire project, soup to nuts, no problem.

You buy it. And ultimately they don't deliver the goods. In fact your staff is left to pick up the pieces so you actually pay twice for the project.

The lesson in all this? Be very careful with whom you do business. Check all vendors for complex consulting projects thorougly. Heck, anytime you are spending more than $1500 on a piece of software, I suggest you check the vendor out thoroughly and see how others like the product. You might even go further and make it $1000 or $500. You can't dig deep enough into a vendor's history before selecting them over a competitor.

Also remember that it's better for your company to retain control over the project. Pick best of breed vendors for each piece and YOU manage the project strategically. If you expect a single company to be able to come in and perform all parts of a complex plan, you will quickly realize in the deployment phase how wrong-headed this approach is.

Trust your people and your instincts as well. Keep key people in the loop of the project and get them to take an ownership role. If your experts, from both the technical and user community, aren't on board, the project will most likely be a failure. If your gut tells you something isn't quite right, then don't ignore it just because you think it will be easier to pick one vendor.

Cost/benefit analysis isn't easy and even when you do all the legwork, you can still get it wrong, but you will be much better off if you do your best to figure out all the angles of a project before signing contracts.

And remember that you aren't looking for the cheapest price. You are looking for the BEST price. The best value is with the vendor and products that meet all of your requirements at the lowest price possible.

Anyhow, it's better to take it slow during the initial planning phase in order to find the right vendor and not just the one that looks better.

Or you can do things the hard way and hopefully learn from your mistakes if you don't end up flipping burgers because of them that is.

    Found today on Randy Holloway Unfiltered, but also previously linked to by Robert Scoble.