Skipping the Vendor Dance

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by Peter de Jager

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Choosing a service provider is a common occurrence in business. Typically, you discover a problem and a decision is made that you don't have the necessary skills, resources, time or inclination to solve it yourself. You decide that handing it all over to someone else might not only be cost effective, but convenient.

In a world of business problems, the Year 2000 problem is unique. Every modern company is affected by it, must fix it and shares exactly the same immovable, uncaring deadline. Also, everyone is drawing upon the same limited pool of resources to solve it.

Year 2000 is technically unique. It demands an examination of every aspect of your business. The childishly simple nature of the problem, dates rolling from 99 to 00, quickly snowballs into the most complex tangle ever faced, due to the vast, and largely misunderstood, intricate system of dependencies which support and power modern organizations.

These aspects, of this once in a lifetime problem, makes selecting solution vendors difficult than merely sending out RFPs (requests for proposals), waiting for responses and finally creating a short list of candidates for face-to-face interviews. Unique problems demand unique solutions. Of all the aspects mentioned, one becomes the single driving force behind all Year 2000 related strategies and decisions. The deadline is fixed, immutable, unavoidable and unforgiving. Forget this fact at your peril. Time is short.

Combining this fixed deadline with the demonstrable fact that our systems are currently broken, and with our dismal historical track record of on time deliveries of computer projects, we are left with no other choice than to make the right decision the first time.

There is also no time for the traditional bureaucratic rules surrounding procurement. We cannot afford the luxury of taking months to carefully consider all the angles and obeying all the rules. We have to do something not know in Corporate America, we have to make decisions based upon minimal information quickly and accurately, and then stick by those decisions for the duration.

Before sitting down in front of a list of several hundred possible solution providers, recognize the reality of what they can and cannot offer;

•There are no silver bullets, no magic wands, no panaceas which will make this problem go away.

No matter the solution selected, you will still have to take inventory of your applications, find the source code of all programs, identify and correct all date calculations, recompile all these changes and then test to make sure that what has been changed is correct.

Even if identification and correction could be reduced to zero, there is still a tremendous amount of work remaining in the area of testing alone.

•There are no real guarantees the work performed will be 100 percent error-free.

Programming is an exercise in human frailty. Mistakes will be made, so focus on making sure the key business processes upon which we depend are as error-free as humanly possible.

•There are no real guarantees that staffing levels can be maintained through the life of the project.

As demand for programmers grows, it will become more likely that key people will be raided from projects and become more difficult to replace. These HR issues must be taken into account in all project plans.

•You cannot outsource responsibility.

A vendor can provide you only with their best effort; the final responsibility, for success or failure, rests with the owner.

With these constraints placed on your expectations, you are now ready to start evaluating the services provided by vendors. The first action is to find out who provides the solution you are seeking. This stage is identical to any vendor search. You gather information from every available source.

•Advertisements and Articles

•Conference Presentations

•Internet Web Pages

•Internet Discussion Groups

•Advertising Brochures •User Groups

These will help you zero in on the vendors providing the type of service you are seeking. You would normally send out an RFP describing your situation, what you are looking for and requesting back proposals and pricing information. You would do this if you had time to spare, but spare time is obsolete. Instead, you take your possible list of vendors and seek information from the following sources;

•Internet Discussion Groups

•User Groups

•Your Peers

You are seeking answers to the following questions;

1.Does the vendor deliver what they promise? 2.How do their services compare to those offered by other companies? 3.What is it like working with this particular vendor?

While providing the answers to one and two are favorable, question three becomes the most important. Why? Because once you have decided on a vendor, you'll be stuck with them until this project is complete. The time remaining does not allow for changing horses in midstream. Besides, as we move forward, vendors will less likely have the resources available for late comers.

This information allows you to create your first short list and meet with vendors. Given the amount of time you have already spent pre-selecting, the meeting is already past the introductory stage. Their technical people must be present, and specifically the people who would be working with your company should you decide to go ahead.

As a part of these meetings you require access to two customer lists. Those who are currently using the services of this particular vendor, and those who were once clients. The first is easy to obtain, the second will be more difficult.

The second list tells the most about a vendor. In particular, about whether or not you can trust them. When you decide to work with a Year 2000 vendor you are not just bringing on a hired-hand, you are entering a partnership with someone who, if they fail, will severely impact your business. In short, you are getting married - for better or worse - until 2000 do you part.

Another important question to ask is, whether or not they have the staff available to meet your needs over the life of the project. Reality is they cannot guarantee their staff will not leave for greener pastures. The best you can hope for is hearing that they already have the staff on-hand to work on your project and that past turnover was minimal.

Once you have had these initial meetings with the vendors, you'll be ready to make a decision. You know what they deliver and if it matches your needs. You will know if it matches their advertising; you will know a bit about their culture and way of doing business; you have met them, shook hands with them and looked them in the eye. You know enough to do business with them. You are ready to sign a contract. You are ready to make a commitment.

This is not the normal way to make business decisions and it is certainly not the American way to select a vendor. Business has learned well the lesson "decisions made in haste are repented in leisure." Dancing with vendors, for months at a time, is a time honored tradition. It's the American way!

It would take a year to make this decision properly, but businesses have -- for reasons that defy rational, logical explanation -- left themselves less than a year to make the decision and solve the problem. What choice do we have other than the first vendor we think can do the job properly and who we feel we can trust?

You could spend more time on this; you could interview them again; you could start out with a pilot project just to make sure; you could do a lot of things to get that extra information necessary to feel more comfortable. That takes time... something in short supply. The January 1st 2000 deadline will arrive on time regardless of how comfortable you are with your vendor.

Through all this we have yet to discuss pricing. What will it cost to fix this and what should a vendor be charging you? These are the wrong questions to ask, it implies that if cost is too high then you won't fix your systems - which is not really an option. The real question is 'Do you want to do business on January 1st 2000?,' If the answer is yes, then you will choose to fix what must be fixed, no questions asked.

Having said that, the question 'How much?' still retains some legitimacy. After all, you must still make the payments and it would be irresponsible to suggest you pay whatever the vendor demands. Due diligence demands price comparisons and that means fees are negotiated.

Careful though, your time is short and a month spent dickering is a month lost, which nothing can recover.