{"id":1283,"date":"2010-01-21T01:00:26","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T09:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1283"},"modified":"2009-12-24T13:30:31","modified_gmt":"2009-12-24T21:30:31","slug":"the-vendor-demo-test-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1283","title":{"rendered":"The Vendor Demo Test Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"

I must say that Jim Holincheck wrote a quite persuasive piece<\/a> a couple months ago on why vendor scripted demos will go away.\u00a0 In today\u2019s environment of SaaS applications, it\u2019s so much easier for organizations to set up sandboxes for potential customers to play around in rather than the old model where client server applications forced vendors to show prospects the tools in a demo environment.\u00a0 (wonderful analogy to follow by the way\u2026)<\/p>\n

Consider the following scenario.\u00a0 Let’s say you were going to buy a car and you were unsure which car to buy.\u00a0 Maybe there are three or four that are in the size and price range you want (your short list, if you will).\u00a0 You would likely go to dealers for each car and do a test drive.\u00a0 You would get behind the wheel and drive the car and get a feel for how it operates and what you like and do not like (or would like to change depending on the options) about the car.<\/p>\n

Now, let’s think about it how it would work if a car test drive was like selecting business applications.\u00a0 In this case, you would have the car salesperson drive (demo) the car for you while you sat in the passenger seat and asked questions.\u00a0 You could have each car salesperson drive the car along the same route (scripted scenarios) to see how each car handles the course you have outlined.\u00a0 You would be able to compare “apples to apples” and probably gain some insight into what differentiates each car in terms of the driving experience.\u00a0 However, you would not really know how well the car you select drives until you actually buy it and drive it home from the lot.\u00a0 ((Holincheck, Jim, December 10, 2009.\u00a0 \u201cThe End of the Scripted Demo Era.\u201d\u00a0 Retrieved from http:\/\/blogerp.typepad.com\/ on December 24, 2009.))<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But as is my way, I\u2019m going to play devil\u2019s advocate, and honestly I\u2019m persuaded by my own argument.\u00a0 Giving up the control to the demo is just too risky for an application vendor.\u00a0 The main purpose of the vendor demo is no longer to evaluate feature functionality.\u00a0 Most vendors that get short listed are going to be able to meet 90% of the feature functionality that any customer needs.\u00a0 The remaining 10% is customization, workaround, or just called a loss.\u00a0 It almost does not matter what the feature functionality is anymore, we\u2019ve gotten over the functionality battles and are now in the usability battles.\u00a0 The new purpose of the demo is that potential clients get to see the overall usability of the system and how end user employees and managers would interact with it.<\/p>\n

Here is why the pre-contract sandbox is risky.\u00a0 When you put an application in the hands of HR for evaluation, the entire tone of the evaluation shifts.\u00a0 Now, HR practitioners and evaluators are sitting around looking at feature functionality.\u00a0 And they are looking at it with the lens of what breaks and goes wrong without having the vendor SC sitting there telling them how it works or what other clients have done as a workaround.\u00a0 Top it off with the thought that the SaaS system is not sufficiently configured to run through the potential customer\u2019s use cases, and you have functional and process failures galore.<\/p>\n

I hate to say it, but I think the proper IT resources get the fact that a sandbox is just a sandbox.\u00a0 But your core HR practitioners don\u2019t have the same application experience and can\u2019t remove themselves from the core of their day to day functional activities.\u00a0 I\u2019ll echo a couple of Jim\u2019s last words in his post:\u00a0 \u201cAm I way off base?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I must say that Jim Holincheck wrote a quite persuasive piece a couple months ago on why vendor scripted demos will go away.\u00a0 In today\u2019s environment of SaaS applications, it\u2019s so much easier for organizations to set up sandboxes for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,36,3],"tags":[91,93,92,94],"class_list":["post-1283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-implementation","category-vendor-management","category-vendors","tag-jim-holincheck","tag-scripted-demo","tag-vendor-demo","tag-vendor-selection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1283"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1285,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions\/1285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}