Software Selection & Vendor Management
Buy for fit, not for the demo.
A software choice is a three-year decision made in a six-week sales cycle. The wrong pick doesn't announce itself: it just quietly makes every process built on top of it a little worse, and by the time that's obvious you've migrated your data into it.
I sit on your side of the table. I write down what you actually need before anyone gives a demo, score the shortlist against that list instead of against the pitch, and negotiate the contract. Then I run the rollout and train your team.
Key outcomes
Select with confidence
The requirement is written down before the first demo, so you're comparing tools against your list, not against each other's marketing.
Optimize your spend
You stop paying for the enterprise tier to get one feature. I do the negotiation, and I know what these contracts actually flex on.
Accelerate team adoption
A tool nobody opens is worse than no tool, because you're paying for it. Training and written procedures ship with the rollout.
Service offerings
I take no referral fees, no reseller margin, and no vendor commissions. If I recommend something, it's because it fit the scorecard.
Needs analysis and RFI/RFP
I sit with the people who'll use the thing and write down what it has to do, in enough detail that a vendor can be held to it.
Vendor-agnostic evaluation
A scorecard built from your requirements, filled in from demos and trials rather than from feature grids the vendor wrote.
Procurement and negotiation
Pricing, term length, and the SLA. The last one is where most of the risk sits and where nobody reads carefully.
Implementation and training
I run the rollout, configure it, and train the team in the actual tool, not in a slide deck about the tool.
Results
You end up with a decision you can explain: here's what we needed, here's what we looked at, here's why this one won, here's what we paid. That document is worth as much as the tool, because in two years somebody will ask, and the person who remembers will have left.