REPORT
    How to Give a Really Bad Demo: Ten Worst Practices Based on Actual Experience
    Risk and Compliance Edition
    1st July 2025

    There’s no logical reason a vendor would want to give a bad demo to a prospective buyer of its risk and compliance software. Yet, even though more than ten years have passed since Celent published our first edition of this report, poorly run demos still—astonishingly—exist. So, as a service to the industry, we are setting forth these ageless precepts once more, with a focus this time on risk and compliance.

    Giving a bad demo is so obviously against the interests of the vendor—and serves the interest of prospective buyers so poorly—that this report has abandoned the usual “10 Best Practices for Giving a Great Demo” approach. We take a humorous, satirical approach to highlight the ten “Worst Practices” in risk and compliance demos, aiming to help vendors and buyers alike navigate the demo landscape with a bit more finesse (and a lot less eye-rolling).

    To give better demos, simply flip the ten worst practices on their head.

    Authors
    Neil Katkov
    Neil Katkov
    Director, Risk
    Donald Light
    Donald Light
    Research & Advisory