Increasingly, organizations are distancing themselves from software and implementation vendors during their business application software (ERP/CRM) selection processes in an effort to maintain (the illusion) of control; an approach that more often than not increases, rather than decreases, project risk.

There is a mistaken belief within procurement circles that doling out treasured corporate information on a piece-meal basis, in concert with protecting business sponsors from vendor interactions, somehow results in enhanced project success. While this strategy may prove effective when sourcing commodity items like office supplies and janitorial services; it fails miserably when applied to selecting business application software and its associated implementation partners.

As evidenced by figure 1, the “buy-side” of the software/partner selection experience carries little risk at the front end of a selection process whereas the “sell-side” engages at its highest risk point. The longer vendors pursue an opportunity, the more information they collect to inform their approach, price, and likelihood of success. After a decision has been made vendor risk (from a sales perspective) evaporates. They have either been awarded the business or asked to disengage, which, while disappointing, is finite. The prospect/”buy-side” however, now sees it’s risk increase in direct proportion to how little information and access they provided the winning vendor during the discovery/selection process. Cost-overruns, “scope-creep” project delays and a vast sea of other unknowns begins to surface; all a direct result of keeping the vendor community at arm’s length.

figure 1

While prospects may maintain control and mitigate their perceived risks throughout the limited term of a selection process (6 months on average), there is no cap on the magnitude and duration of risk they are exposed to once they land on a vendor and begin implementing a business process infrastructure that has to support their leadership team and operational objectives for the next 6 – 8 years (in a project category that sees better than 65% of its projects fail).

Rather than distancing potential future business partners from your project’s strategic initiatives and its key stakeholders, engage them deeply. A thorough understanding of your an organization’s current and anticipated business challenges, coupled with a meaningful exploration of the project objectives and priorities will expand the quality and clarity of the solution; and significantly decrease project risk. Loss of (the illusion) of control is rewarded with increased solution clarity and budget accuracy.