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PoCs - Protecting your investment with the open road test

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15 February 2010

Comments

  • Great post Catherine and absolutely aligned to our view.

    The POC is a an excellent way of driving evidence based insight as opposed to vendor biased content into procurement decisions. They embrace the end user (so important for downstream solution adoption and advocacy as roll out begins) and allow the organisation to truly road test product capability and vendor cultural fit without investing a significant amount of capital.

    We're actually seeing an increasing number of our clients embracing the POC but often as a result of our active encouragement. Roll on the day this is the norm.

  • For core systems, I can imagine that a PoC is quite a lengthy and involved process, so some investment from the insurer seems reasonable. For other system, companies can consider the alternative to being tied-in with perpetual licenses by selecting software as a service (SaaS) solutions. If there is a solution that fits a company's needs, and is backed by a flexible contract, SaaS offers the equivalent of a continuous live PoC. The vendor is constantly having to prove that they can deliver if they are to keep the customer's business.

    After a certain amount of due diligence this may be a more cost effective approach for the customer. Rather than investing to trial multiple systems that are literally just being tested, SaaS gives the opportunity to benefit from the software for real and swap it out later if it fails to live up to expectations. For new requirements especially, including business process improvement / workflow automation, this can be a great alternative to "try before you buy".

    Phil Ayres
    http://blog.consected.com