Software selection
Select the right enterprise software with the Xtentio-method
Software selection is about making the right decision about new enterprise software for an organization. Software markets are polypolistic, meaning that companies can choose from a large number of vendors depending on the software category. The challenge for organizations is to select the most appropriate software vendor for their needs from the large number of vendors available.
By using a software selection methodology, organizations systematically move through the process of requirements gathering, evaluation, comparison of proposals, and decision making.
Benefits of the Xtentio-method of software selection
We are 100% independent of software vendors, service providers and integrators. We are not subject to any partnership obligations and do not have to meet any distribution quotas.
In a nutshell, we are not interested in which supplier ultimately wins the contract. Our only interest is your business – your very specific functional and business requirements for the new enterprise software must be met in the best possible way. This is what we strive for.
This unique selling point allows us to be truly neutral and to serve only one partner in the entire selection process: Your company.
In most cases, business software will be used across departments. Therefore, it is critical to involve all relevant stakeholders in the software selection process to ensure that all relevant requirements are addressed.
In addition to the purely functional requirements, there are also IT-related, commercial and strategic requirements (e.g., operating model of the new enterprise software, data protection requirements, usability requirements, country of origin and server location of the provider, implementation model). Xtentio’s software selection method also ensures that all relevant decision makers are involved at an early stage to avoid later delays in the software selection process.
The creation of core criteria, including a comprehensive catalog of user stories, forms the basis for the longlist-to-shortlist process.
After defining the core criteria and identifying the relevant software market, we provide you with a multi-stage negative selection.
In the first stage of the negative selection, we eliminate vendors that are not relevant for further analysis based on non-functional criteria. The result is a longlist of vendors.
In stage two, we present a provider longlist based on detailed provider profiles. You will receive relevant information about the software vendor and their product or service.
Here, in particular, we incorporate our expertise in the form of market insights. From our years of consulting experience and implemented projects, we can share insights that you will not find on any vendor website.
At the end of this second stage, it will become apparent which of these vendors will make it onto the vendor shortlist based on your functional, business and strategic requirements.
The third step is to identify a shortlist of vendors – typically three to five vendors with whom you could potentially work on a project based on your requirements. Shortlisted vendors will be invited to a vendor workshop for a targeted product presentation based solely on your very specific storybook.
Our collaborative software selection platform, corate, lets you make software selection decisions without Excel chaos.
In advance to the vendor workshops, we have already completely mapped all criteria and user stories of your story book in corate. The participants of the vendor workshop can follow the vendor pitch in a very convenient and transparent way while adding ratings for the individual criteria.
At the end of the workshops, the entire group of decision-makers will have complete, functional vendor evalutations that can be directly compared.
Based on your storybook and the workshops, the vendors will now provide an estimate of the project effort and a quote for the project implementation, including the required licenses.
Here, too, we make use of our market insights based on years of consulting experience. We analyze all incoming quotes and effort estimates for you and highlight any noticeable anomalies.
This way, you can quickly see where suppliers differ in detail, which costs are realistically estimated (and which may have been artificially “underestimated” in advance), and ultimately where there is room for negotiation for the purchasing department.
Contracts are negotiated with at least two vendors and progressed until contract readiness. Since things can happen on the home stretch, we recommend that you always have a fallback.
Based on your functional, commercial and strategic requirements, as well as the negotiated contracts, all facts are now transparently on the table. Your decision-making group is now empowered to make the right decision about new enterprise software.
Lisa Limbach
Head of Sales
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Your path to selecting new enterprise software
Software selection-as-a-service: We support you from requirements gathering to the final decision
We begin by working together in identifying the relevant stakeholders for the planned software selection and by clarifying important project parameters (e.g. planned implementation or replacement time, budget, requirements for the internal decision-making process).
We then work with the decision-making group to capture all functional and non-functional requirements in detail, taking into account business and strategic aspects, and create a catalog of criteria.
Using Xtentio’s proven software selection methodology, we generate a shortlist of vendors and have them present their respective solutions in vendor workshops based on a pre-defined storybook.
In the final phase of software selection, we help your team compare vendors, analyze commercial proposals, and highlight key negotiation opportunities. Your team is now empowered to make the right decision about new business software.
Do-it-yourself with our software selection platform corate
Want to use our proven selection tool corate for your own software selection? We are happy to provide our software selection tool corate for your project.
With the help of corate, multiple decision makers from your organization can work on the criteria catalog from the beginning. Upon request, we can provide you with a pre-packaged set of best practice criteria for each software market.
For vendor comparisons and vendor pitches, your team can use corate as an evaluation platform to store and compare live evaltuations. A facilitation feature also helps your internal project manager keep track of the agenda and participant evaluations during vendor workshops.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Software selection ist gezielt darauf ausgerichtet, Unternehmen in der Identifizierung, Bewertung und Auswahl von Softwareprodukten zu unterstützen, die optimal auf ihre individuellen Anforderungen und geschäftlichen Zielsetzungen abgestimmt sind.
Der Prozess startet damit, dass wir gemeinsam mit ihrem Team und allen relevanten Stakeholdern Anforderungen, Ziele und alle wesentlichen Informationen sammeln, strukturieren und auswerten. Unser Expertenteam bei Xtentio, nutzt sein Fachwissen, um eine umfassende Analyse durchzuführen und potenzielle Softwarelösungen zu identifizieren, die optimal auf Ihre Anforderungen zugeschnitten sind. Im nächsten Schritt erfolgen eine eingehende Bewertung und ein Vergleich der herausgearbeiteten Lösungen, um die optimale Option für Ihr Unternehmen zu ermitteln. Dabei entwickeln wir nicht nur eine Negativselektion und erstellen eine Longlist an Anbietern, sondern gelangen gemeinsam über eine Shortlist und Anbieterworkshops zu einer fundierten Entscheidung. Schließlich erhalten Sie von uns eine umfassende Empfehlung, begleitet von klaren Erklärungen und fundierten Begründungen für die vorgeschlagenen Softwarelösungen. Unsere Herangehensweise stellt sicher, dass Sie die bestmögliche Entscheidungsgrundlage erhalten, um Ihre Softwareauswahl erfolgreich und zielgerichtet durchzuführen.
The Softwareauswahl bietet eine umfassende Bandbreite von Softwarekategorien an, darunter zum Beispiel PIM (Product Information Management), DAM (Digital Asset Management), CPQ (Configure Price Quote), sowie viele weitere geschäftskritische Anwendungen.
Die typische Dauer des Softwareauswahlprozesses variiert in Abhängigkeit von verschiedenen Faktoren, die eine Rolle spielen. Diese Faktoren schließen die Komplexität der Anforderungen.
In der Regel erstreckt sich dieser Prozess über einige Wochen, wobei die genaue Zeitspanne je nach dem Umfang des Projekts variieren kann. Unsere Experten arbeiten engagiert daran, den Auswahlprozess effizient zu gestalten und sicherzustellen, dass die bestmögliche Lösung für Ihre Anforderungen ermittelt wird, ohne dabei Kompromisse bei der Qualität einzugehen.
Ja, bei Xtentio, bieten wir umfassende Unterstützung bei der Implementierung der ausgewählten Softwarelösung an. Unsere Services umfassen nicht nur die Implementierung selbst, sondern auch begleitendes Projektmanagement and Schulungen. This integrierte Herangehensweise gewährleistet eine reibungslose Einführung der ausgewählten Softwarelösung in Ihr Unternehmen.