Tech Evaluation
Selecting the technology to evaluate can be an overwhelming experience. Let MRXplorer partner with you to sift through the many options and narrow the options to those that meet your needs. I can then walk your team through the rest of the evaluation process, including creating a scorecard and collaborating with IT and Legal departments to make sure all technical requirements are being captured in the evaluation phase.
This phase follows a needs assessment conducted by MRXplorer or that you've completed yourself.
Interested in doing this phase yourself? Enter your details below to access the MRXplorer Technology Evaluation Framework, where you will find detailed steps including detailing your requirements, creating a scorecard (free template), selecting the evaluation team, and preparing for the final decision meeting.
Timing: varies depending on scope, starts at 4-6 weeks
Pricing
$20,000 (narrow scope, 1 tool to be selected at the final decision stage)
$50,000 (evaluating tools within a category, 2-4 tools to be selected at the final decision stage)
$150,000 (overhauling an entire tech stack)
Moving away from the clutter
A Fortune 500 customer had a large market research team and the vendor list to go with it. Without a central budget for vendors, team members were free to select their own tech solutions as long as they fit their needs and own project budgets. As part of a privacy review to comply with upcoming GDPR regulations, the team was instructed by finance and legal to consolidate. Not only was there opportunity to reduce spend, there was also the opportunity to reduce data privacy risk.
It was a year-long effort, but once finished, we reduced the total spend on tech solutions by 25% and processes were standardized as a by-product!
You've identified your team's tech requirements, and you're ready to go shopping!
The tool selection is borderline absurd - why are there so many solutions and platforms? Do they all do the same thing, or do they all do different things?
The answer is: it doesn't matter. What matters is what you need, and whether what they provide matches those needs.
To ensure you are getting the right tools into your portfolio, consider these best practices.
1. Always include at least one person who will be an active tool user. Their input on how steep the learning curve is, how user-friendly the platform is, and whether the tool delivers on its promises will be absolutely crucial to the decision-making process.
2. Always involve your IT and Legal departments early. Trust me, this will save you so much frustration later on if you've decided on a tool it turns out you can't use because it doesn't meet an IT or legal requirement that you didn't know existed until it was time to get the contract signed. I've seen contracts take months to resolve between tech vendors and buyers because of clauses that needed to be refined until both legal parties were satisfied.
3. When selecting a project to use as your test project, use a project you've already run with a previous vendor. Do not use a live project. Using a project where the data is needed for a critical business decision or a timeline is non-negotiable for a test with a vendor only sets you and the vendor up for failure. There will almost always be something that happens during the evaluation process that can jeopardize a timeline. There is an added benefit to using a project you've run before: you have a baseline against which to test the data accuracy if the project was recent. This can help you determine how much you can trust the tool to deliver valid results, and it can help you when it comes to training your stakeholders on an upcoming platform change.
Download the Technology Evaluation Framework for a full step-by-step guide and more best practices for this stage of your tech purchasing!
