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 There are numerous software packages available to meet a variety of
requirements, tackling virtually every business problem, organization, and
process that exists. An organization that is open to such solutions can
enjoy tremendous benefits, including lower costs, reduced risk, and
industry-tested solutions. The key to enjoying these benefits is to
evaluate the available solutions and determine which offer the best fit for a
given organization.
Package and Vendor evaluation must look at several different dimensions to
determine fitness. At the highest level of requirements, this includes:
- Functionality (Business Requirements)
- Environment (System Requirements)
- Corporate info (Vendor Requirements)
Each of these major categories is refined further into subcategories until a
comprehensive matrix of discrete requirements is created. This matrix
provides the structure within which competing vendors and their solutions can be
evaluated. It also provides a mechanism for traceability and
accountability, so that the requirements gathered can be used as the foundation
for subsequent statements of work, system design, and test planning, without
losing the link back to the origins of any given requirement.
Evaluations can range from relatively simple market surveys to full-blown
Requests for Proposal (RFP), depending on the size of the effort and the amount
of risk that must be mitigated. NOVUS can tailor the evaluation process to
the specific requirements of each client.
Key Benefits
- Potential for reduced costs and implementation schedules
- Ability to choose the 'best of breed' from the field of competition
- Leverage the expertise of a specialized development team
Reference Accounts
- SBC Communications
- SBC had numerous Web Sites and intranet portals, each a stand-alone
operation with little, if any, consistency between them. Maintenance
was difficult because of the redundancy and discrepancies across sites.
They asked NOVUS and Integrated Architectures to evaluate their environment
and available packages in portal implementation, personalization, and
content management. We conducted extensive interviews with
stakeholders across the organization and generated a large matrix of
requirements. We surveyed the industry to find the best offerings in
each category, and we sought out synergies between packages in the different
categories.
We then created a set of architecture proposals using the packages that were
most suitable for the tasks.
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- Teligent, Inc.
- After Teligent had gone live in larger markets throughout the country,
they asked NOVUS to undertake an evaluation of competing billing vendors in
the marketplace to make sure that their chosen system (the incumbent) was
still the best one for the job, given our new understanding of Teligent's
requirements. We started with the original requirements matrix
specified for the earlier selection, revised and refined it with our
new-found knowledge as well as that of the stakeholders. We conducted
site visits with key vendors to gain a more in-depth understanding of their
offerings.
After all this, we prepared a presentation of the top tier players in the
marketplace, comparing and contrasting each with the incumbent.
Executive management was satisfied with their original choice and retained
the incumbent.
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"Any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-- Arthur C. Clarke
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