Who loves the incumbent vendor?
Categorised under: Content management
Alan Pelz-Sharpe has written about the pros and cons of incumbent CMS vendors during a selection process. To quote:
On the one hand, being the incumbent, Vendor X is at a real advantage to supply this new technology over anyone else. They have an existing relationship with the IT group, procurement department, and at least some business users. So they know you and they know your business to some degree. Equally important they know your IT expectations and limitations. Of any vendor they are the ones to beat, and should be able to not only pitch, but price at a point that will make you smile.
All good advice. In the work that we do, we always get our clients to automatically include incumbent providers on a short-list, in addition to the vendors we highlight. That helps to cut through the opinions and internal politics, and the two-edged nature of the incumbent relationship tends to even the playing field.
James Robertson is the Managing Director of 