Vendor Assessment (Part 1 - Company Background)

In your BA life every now and then you are faced with a decision whether to develop the product in-house or outsource it. I am not going to discuss the in-house- VS outsource in this blog, I am assuming you have come to conclusion with the stakeholders that you are going to outsource the development and that when the main question comes in as to who should we outsource to?.

Outsourcing development is a major investment for any company and requires careful and complete evaluation of the quotes received from the various software development companies.

Start by separating the “must have" criteria from the "would like" criteria. Proposals that do not meet all of the "must have" conditions should not be evaluated further. The final recommendation should be then made via a weighted assessment of the proposals.

Company Background

The first Impression

• Did the company get back to you on time?
• Were the people dealing with you were professional?
• Did the company’s representative asked any questions?
• Did the company’s representative understand the requirement

Total Employees

• These criteria will determine the resource available to execute and maintain the project.

Experience and References

• Experiences will determine if the company has developed a similar project, this is reducing the learning curve and increasing the quality of the product delivered.
• References will be used to determine if the earlier project they executed were delivered on time, as expected and within cost.

Stability

• How long has the company been in business
• Will the company be in business in five years?
• Good market standing

Customer service

• These criteria will ensure we are dealing with a professional company.

In my next post I will continue talking about software development criteria.