Buying a Software (or subscribing)

Introduction

?In the past I have shared articles on how to select a suitable software for your organisation/business unit and on how to decide whether to get it developed (internally or otherwise) or buy/subscribe an available product. As I have been on the other side, and as I have seen this process happening with different teams, I thought of sharing a few pointers that would make a technology adoption a smooth experience for you.

The Million Dollar decision

The first step in the process is about taking the decision, Yes! The million-dollar decision to go Digital. The whole world is moving digital, if your business has not adopted a digital approach yet, then you are far behind and are playing a catch-up game. That aside, if you have taken the decision, then what? Let’s dive into those steps without much ado.

Blessings!

Any decision which involves an investment needs to be 'blessed' by the board or a board committee like the Audit Committee or the Risk Committee. It may also need an in-principle approval from the MD or CEO. This perhaps is the starting point. The need here is to explain the need to go digital and convince them of the investment and its benefits.?It is good to enquire at this level, as to whether the investment would be from your budget, the organisation's IT budget or Digital initiatives budget. If there is no budget, and you are starting with the idea mid-way in a FY, it is also important to get a go ahead on an out of budget spend. If that is not possible, it helps to add/get added the budget into the next FY budget. The real action begins post this level.

The Specs!

This perhaps is the most important step in the journey. This is when you decide what exactly you need. At this level you need to look at all your challenges, your wants, your needs and the good to haves. Do go ahead and write down all that is required to move your current process digital and also some more features of functionalities to move the process itself to the 'next level'. It is important to have a clear idea of 'what you need'. The clearer you are, and the more details you have about your requirement, the easier the next steps get. Do not hesitate to put all you want in to a 'requirement document'. Don't bother about the format or its name, just ensure to put all your requirements in that - that's all that matters!

Your best Friend - IT/Digital initiatives team

The very next step is to approach your IT or Digital initiatives team with the requirement.?The decision to make or buy shall be taken at this level. It depends on two things

?1) Your IT policy

?2) Your IT team's bandwidth to take up new projects.

(We are presuming here, that the organisation can develop applications internally, if not it is a straightforward decision to start looking for a vendor to develop or a product to adopt).

It is important to know that a decision based on point 2 above, shall also depend on the immediacy of your need.

It would be useful to read my earlier article on Make Vs Buy to help you take a call.?https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/digitalising-internal-audit-make-buy-santhosh-nellayappan

Let's continue on the premise that the decision at this stage is to adopt a software product.

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Evaluating Options

It is time now to explore the options in front of you. There are many ways to reach out to possible product providers starting from simple internet search. It is good to evaluate multiple options before you zero down to your preferred software. No Product out there in the market may meet all that you have put down in your requirements document. If there is, then it is a match made in heaven, not that it is impossible. The key here, is to have a clear priority on your requirements. You would need to take a call to go with the most suitable option available among all, especially one that can do a bit of customisation to bridge the gap as much as possible. It is important to have more than one options in your bag at this stage.

1. Your choice may not meet other evaluation criteria that you have in the organisation.
2. You may need to have multiple commercials proposals as part of your procurement policy.

The final decision may be a trade-off between the L1 on meeting requirements standpoint and L1 on price point. You are the better judge here, to pick your choice.

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There's more than what meets the eye!

Choosing a preferred vendor based on the business requirements is only one of different things that needs to be done. You must, at this stage involve other teams that have a play in this decision. IT, IT Security (CISO), Digital Initiatives, Projects, Procurement, Vendor Management to name a few, are some of the teams that may need to involve here. Procurement team is a good first option to go to, as they do this day in and day out, as the procurement process and the teams that need to sign off, differs from Organisation to Organisation.

Not involving all teams here, would mean that you hit a roadblock later on and I am sure you can ill afford a challenge like that when you have made up your mind.

Once you have all sign offs and decisions from IT/IT Security on whether to Buy or Subscribe, whether to host internally or on the product cloud, you are good to hand this over to the procurement team.

Once you have a zoom in on that one Product, post negotiations, you need to get the Legal team also involved, as you need to finalise on the contract/agreement.

It is important to sign off a 'Scope of Work’ and 'SLAs' with the software provider so that it can go into the agreement.

The budget or without budget buying approval also needs to be in hand at this moment so that the procurement team can proceed with issuance of the Purchase Order.

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To conclude

The whole process seems very complex and troublesome, it looks like there is lot of running around to do, but trust me, like anything that we do, a bit of planning and some preparation will make life easy for you, as well as the software provider/s.

What leads to confusions and delays is when some of these aspects and stakeholders are missed. They do have a meaningful say in the procurement, for reasons well established by your own policies and processes and at the end of the day, it all adds to safeguarding the interests of your organisation.

Do let me know if this helped you, in the comments

Happy buying!