Hi all,
I'm the new IT jack-of-all-trades person at a small design-build company. Prior to my joining, getting software approval basically meant talking to the owner and explaining the benefit and the cost. If it was reasonable, it got the green light.
As we're growing, I'd like to build a more formal process. Where would you start for a small company to make sure we're doing our due diligence?
Tried replying yesterday, that didn't work :) Hi FairestDog!
Having been where you are, setting up a more formal process is something small(er) companies should definitely do, so kudos on thinking about that. I'd suggest trying to gather some indication of your current cost per head, not to do accountancy, but it will definitely improve your gut feeling when adding something new about the cost of something.
Jumping ahead to 1password (and explaining why putting gut feelings into it) - do note that I just take 1password as an example (although liking it myself for obvious reasons). Back in the days we selected 'just family accounts' as being good enough. People could store their own (and company) credentials and all would be fine. The real key though was (like Microsoft and others do with school kids) making sure people either use the things at home or at work and cross-like them vice versa. If you look at it from a company perspective, having them using 1password at home would ensure they were better 'secure employees' at work too and not just 'password123456' everywhere.
In that light, paying the business with family value is just a small increase, but does provide 'your IT department' but also the boss, with some valuable insights and also the ability to track certain things within 1password. To the next item, always negotiate with vendors to get the best deal. The price on the site isn't necessarily what they expect you to pay. Taking 1password as an example, for a small company Team might be opportunistic but having a solid conversation with both AgileBits sales as your company owner might lead to a better deal for business (which includes the family accounts). Also, you'll get 5 family members to freely use 1password while you work here might be a great thing to add to your recruitment strategy :)
So back to the accountancy, you should have some financial insight. Going for broke and use the number one leading forceful sales platform might be a no brainer at their steep prices (though negotiating down is almost a guarantee) but you'll have no control over your data. Stepping in with a local ERM/CRM platform or even one that came from an open source background (like Odoo) might bring you more value for money while retaining the option to take out your data. It's also a numbers game, couple of years ago I did a full ERM/CRM selection and our financial analist couldn't go pass the 'for time writing' we have to pay a full open-source license - in numbers she was right, but paying a (lower) fixed fee for every employee where that would also allow managers and employees to handle time-off and planing was much cheaper than the higher fee for managers and the financial department. Sure, the lower fixed fee will become higher once you grow, but it saves you from shuffling data between various systems.
So as for due diligence make sure you always keep your integrity and alignment with the financial department and owners/management. One thing could be to generally follow RFP/RFQ processes, basically (not to keep typing) pick a longlist of potential vendors, create some rating chart to come down to a shortlist. Then create new rating criteria and company (or in-depth) requirements before going into meetings with those so you have a clear path forward, after the meetings and proposals come in you can easily rate them and also let the ones that don't make it know why they scored less. Do remember and make it clear upfront (especially as a small company) that you have a 'compatibility' or 'like-minded' criteria between your selection committee as a big factor. They will surely understand and additionally providing them feedback on 'why not' will help them as well (writing proposals is not cheap, though most companies provided them for free). As for final due diligence, after selection do convince the selected party for a trial or kick-off and heads-up the second on the list you will do that. If things fall apart, you don't have to renegotiate with the second-best all over again (with a weaker position).
