eHealth Articles & White Papers

Selecting a Vendor: How to Get The Best Outcome

Linda Barnes - Vice President of Business Development

Shopping is an acquired skill. More than that, to be successful, it requires that the process applied to different purchasing decisions match with the decisions to be made. You do not buy a shirt in the same way you purchase a car. And you don't select a vendor partner for your online initiatives in the same way you choose anti-virus software.

As you might guess, we receive Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from many prospective clients for their upcoming online initiatives. Based on the majority of the documents we see, surprisingly few organizations know how to select a true partner for their online initiatives.

The challenge in evaluating and selecting such a relationship is that there are certain things beyond the functional checklist you need to know in order to evaluate vendors correctly. To do that, you need to allow the vendors some license to answer your RFP creatively. Most organizations get this wrong, including many who make a business of evaluating and selecting vendors for this work.

Easy isn't the answer

The natural inclination is to select a vendor the easy way - that is, to approach the purchase as a tool purchase. It's easy to buy tools. There are organizations that have done lots of ground work for you. Purchasing departments know how to run these selections and it's a comfortable way to approach the process.

So what's wrong with this approach?

Let's consider an analogy for a moment. You want to hang a picture, so you need to make a hole in the wall. You decide to buy a drill bit. It's a tool and most of us understand that purchase process well. You're able tell me just what size bit you want, what material it's made from, and other functional parameters of this tool. A drill bit is an easy purchase.

But you don't need a drill bit. What you want - your goal - is to hang your picture.

Can the drill bit help you accomplish that goal? Only if you have a drill, a person to use it, and a nail of the corresponding size. Without that team, infrastructure and alignment with your existing tools, the drill bit is the wrong answer to solve that problem.

The three key questions

Bringing that back to the world of vendors, it's critical that you have an accurate assessment of your current online initiatives and understand your organizational goals. What you need to know - and add to the selection process - is the answer to three key questions:

• Where are you today?
• What are your goals?
• What are the resources and infrastructure available to participate in this project?

It's important that you first answer these questions and then share the answers with your potential partners. From there, the vendors you're evaluating can provide you with the best solution. They might recommend a different approach than you'd previously considered or suggest alternatives you might also consider.

If you give a vendor essentially the same checklist of functionality as they got from another hospital, chances are they're going to give you exactly the same responses - and the same cookie cutter results. On the other hand, sharing your situation and your goals with the vendor gives them the opportunity to demonstrate to your selection team their creativity in helping you find solutions for your unique situation.

The resources you need to be successful are different based on what you're trying to accomplish as well as the approach you take to achieve your goals. Ben talks about the options in his related article, but for the purpose of this discussion, you should be sure the vendor understands the skill level and manpower you have available - and how your resources correspond with what you hope to accomplish.

It's incredibly frustrating to select a vendor based on what they did for another client ... and then find out later the model client has a 10-person Web team and budget three times the size of yours, putting a similar result completely out of reach for your organization.

Overcome obstacles and select the right vendor for your organization

There can be difficulties to an open exchange of information. Your purchasing or sourcing department may want to limit the information they send, and likely will want all answers to come back in the same format. Their goal is to create a level playing field and make the vendor evaluation process as straightforward as possible. Both are laudable goals, but be sure your goal of selecting the best vendor doesn't get lost in the process.

Providing the most information on the constraints under which the project will operate will help you select the vendor that best matches where you are today and where you want to go, and ultimately gives you the best overall solution - and that's a win for everyone. Happy shopping!