TOP 10 Criteria For Software Tool Evaluation

During the years working as a Sales Engineer and Senior Consultant, I was involved in many evaluations of different software tools. I have seen many different check lists. Some were divided into different themes, some had “must have criteria”, others had fields to fill in like full/partly/not fullfilled. Many companies are expecting to send the RfP back in less than a week but then they never decide or the decision is postponed by several months. I have very rarely seen an evaluation based on all important factors.

Sometime I could recognize different factors, but sometime it is only a huge list of functionalities.

So let´s talk about how to do an evaluation, where all important factors are involved. But how to find these factors? What is the best process to do an evaluation?

Before starting an evaluation, every should agree on a process, how to evaluate a software tool.
Here are the 5 stages of a software tool evaluation: Five Stages

Here is my list of the TOP 10 factors for a software tool evaluation:

• Functionality
• Usability
• Collaboration
• Scalability and Architecture
• ROI
• Integrations
• Compliance
• Service & Support
• Vendor Trust
• Future Proof

I´m not saying, that every evaluation must have all factors included, but less than 5 of these factors will make every evaluation obsolete.