Evaluate the vendor before the vendor evaluates you.
What should an IT vendor evaluation include? Five things, weighted for your situation: fit to the actual requirement rather than the demo; total cost over the term including exit; risk, meaning security posture, financial stability, and dependence; contract terms, especially renewal, price escalation, and data return; and references from organizations like yours, not the three the vendor chose. A template makes the comparison consistent across vendors so the decision can be explained afterward.
Why most evaluations go wrong.
The vendor supplies the criteria. The demo answers questions you did not ask. The reference calls are curated. And the contract is read after the decision, not before. The template exists to reverse each of those.
What is in the template.
A requirements sheet
Written before any vendor is contacted.
A scoring matrix
Across five areas, with weights you set.
Twenty questions
That separate vendors from each other, including the ones about what happens when you leave.
A reference-call script
That asks for a customer who left.
A contract checklist
For the clauses that cost the most later.
A word on independence.
This template was written by an advisory that is sometimes compensated by providers its clients select, and that discloses it every time. It is built so that a vendor who pays us and a vendor who does not are scored on the same sheet. How we're paid
Get the template.
Delivered by email as an editable document. One email with the template. No sequence.
If the evaluation is already underway.
Send us the shortlist, or the proposal you are leaning toward, and we will tell you whether it is fair.
How many vendors should be in an evaluation?
Three is usually enough to see the spread; more than five and the comparison stops being rigorous.
Should I tell vendors they are being scored?
Yes. The ones who object are telling you something.
What is the most overlooked criterion?
Exit: what it costs and how long it takes to leave.
Get the template, or get a second opinion.
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