Appendix D: Sample General Vendor Review Criteria

Sample General Vendor Review Criteria

• Who started the company, when, and why?
• What were the initial products?
• Who were the initial clients?
• Describe growth in products, staff, and so forth.
• What have been the changes in focus and client base?
• What are the significant accomplishments?

Vision/Core Values

• What is the vision of the company?
• What are the core principles, i.e., the three to six statements that define the company, that will stay the same regardless of internal and external change?

Company Financial Position

• Is the company publicly or privately held? Is information available to the public?
• Does the company voluntarily disclose debt structure, financial projections, and planning?

Products and Services

• What are the key products, basic architecture, hardware platforms, languages?
• What is the product orientation -- i.e., toward what computing environment, solving what business problems?
• What are the types of products -- extent of customization vs. turnkey installation?
• Is there an overview of the development process, testing and evaluation procedures, release schedule?
• Are projects always or usually completed on time?
• Are deadlines met?
• How are budgets established?
• What are the life cycles of products?
• Is the market niche(s) changing?
• What are the projections?
• How is the need for upgrades, new products assessed?

Facilities and Staff

• Describe status and security of facilities.
• Are there any plans for new facilities?
• How many original employees were there?
• How many of the originals remain?
• Describe the ideal employee.
• Describe the typical employee, e.g., education, experience, etc.
• How are employees hired?
• What is the rate of staff turnover?
• Describe the general morale of the employees.
• Are open positions filled relatively quickly?
• Is there competitive compensation?
• Describe employee benefits.
• Describe staff training, cross training.
• Describe employee evaluation.
• Who is promoted and why?
• Who are the leaders in the company?
• What is the functional expertise of the staff?
• Do staff skills match client needs?

Policies and Procedures

• What are the written procedures for product development?
• Are products always developed the same way?
• How are problems tracked?
• What are the legal procedures and policies, e.g., contracting standards?
• Are there any extant legal complications?

Organization and External Relationships

• Are formal organization charts available and up to date?
• Describe staff coordination, communication.
• What are policies and traditions on ethics, security, integrity?
• What is the management style?
• What are the user groups?
• What are the advisory groups?
• How are user expectations and satisfaction surveyed, assessed, and/or measured?

Innovation and Planning

• How are good ideas encouraged, recognized, evaluated, incorporated?
• Is there any formal planning and plans (e.g., operational, multi-year, disaster)?
• For project planning with goals, objectives, deliverables, budgets, responsibilities, staffing levels, and deadlines -- how are changes to these plans accommodated (change order process)?
• How does the client participate in planning?

Self-assessment and Quality Control

• How is quality assured?
• How is customer/client satisfaction measured?
• What is the method of self-assessment/benchmarking with management, employees, clients?
• Is there credibility with clients, competitors, the professional community?
• Who are major competitors, and how is competition monitored?

Sample Financial Module Review Criteria

• What are the product specifications, development history, and present status of the financial module?
• What is the number of modules?
• How are user interfaces developed?
• What are the existing architecture, hardware platforms, databases, and software development tools?
• What are future plans for the product's architecture, hardware platforms, databases, and software development tools?
• Are there plans to move to an open environment? client/server architectures? UNIX-based products? Are products compliant with the Open Software Foundation's Distributed Computing Environment (DCE)?
• What is the accounting structure?
• Does the module take advantage of relational database tabular structure?
• Is it integrated, stand-alone, or other?
• What are the software report capabilities? Do they leverage database capabilities?
• Are there adequate code documentation and user documentation?
• How are user control requirements met?
• Who is an ideal or typical customer?
• Has the client base changed, and are changes in the target market anticipated?
• How much product customization occurs?
• Is code being changed for any reason?
• What new functionality has come into the product, e.g., is an object-oriented approach anticipated, have graphical user interfaces been developed?
• Is there technical support for customers, help lines, user group meetings, and so forth?
• Are there team arrangements with hardware vendors? with customers?
• How do staff acquire new functional expertise when required?

Sample Evaluation and Partnership Criteria, California Lutheran University

Evaluation Criteria

Strategic Partnership

1. Has the vendor developed a preliminary plan or a list of potential partnershiprelated activities (i.e. participating with CLU in trade shows and academic conferences, teaming with CLU in innovative joint marketing ventures, providing grant contacts, etc.) that could help achieve CLU's mission through the partnership?

2. Has the vendor committed to implementing the plan or participating in activities that will support CLU's mission?

3. Are either parts of the plan or some of the proposed activities outside the boundaries of CLU resources, capabilities, preferred lines of business, or organizational culture? If yes, does this severely damage the feasibility of the proposed plan or set of activities?

Conformance to the Vendor's Mission:

1. Has the vendor clearly stated its corporate mission?

2. Does a partnership as CLU perceives it effectively support the vendor's mission? If not, this is a potential risk that must be managed and mitigated.

3. Has the vendor developed a preliminary plan or a list of potential partnershiprelated activities that could help them achieve their mission through the partnership? If the plan or the list of activities do not convince you that there is a strong correlation between the vendor's mission and a CLU partnership, this is a potential risk that must be managed and mitigated.

4. Are either parts of the plan or the proposed activities outside the boundaries of CLU resources, capabilities, preferred lines of business, or organizational culture? If yes, does this severely damage the feasibility of the proposed plan or set of activities?

Practical Partnership

1. Are the vendor's vested interests clearly identified?

2. Are these vested interests consistent with the vendor's mission statements? If not, this is a potential risk that must be managed and mitigated.

3. Are the vendor's vested interests in conflict with CLU's vested interest or business practices?

4. Has the vendor acknowledged CLU's vested interest and made a commitment to serve that vested interest?

5. Have each partner's responsibilities and expectations been very specifically defined to ensure a mutual understanding and agreement to the proposed responsibilities and expectations?

Economic Partnership

1. Are the financial strategies feasible within CLU's financial capabilities?

2. Are any of the financial strategies outside the boundaries of CLU business philosophy or practices? If yes, does this severely damage the feasibility of the entire financial strategy?

3. Are the financial strategies based upon realistic financial projections and data?

4. Are the explanations of the financial strategies, the data that support these strategies, and the revenue-sharing strategies clear, concise, and not open to multiple interpretations or in need of clarification?

5. Are the revenue-sharing strategies equitable to both CLU and the vendor?

6. Does the financial strategy provide for a technical and service solution that strongly supports CLU's mission statements and [project] mission statements?

7. Does the financial strategy strongly support achieving the vendor's mission statements? If not, this is a potential risk that must be managed and mitigated.

Partnership Criteria

Strategic Partnership

A commitment to work within CLU's resources and capabilities to establish a partnership and develop a plan that will directly support CLU's strategic vision, which includes:

• Earning distinction in the learned professions.

• Achieving rank as an institution of first choice of students regionally and beyond.

• Equipping students for meaningful lives and successful careers in the context of technological, ideological, and social change.

• Providing for the professional, economic, cultural, and social welfare of the communities in Southern California and beyond.

• Growing into an institution of 2,200 undergraduate and 1,200 graduate students.

Conformance to the Vendor's Vision:

A commitment to work within CLU's resources and capabilities to establish a partnership and develop a plan that will directly support the vendor's strategic vision (as defined by the vendor) which could include:

• Entering or solidifying its position in the market.

• Gaining or maintaining a significant competitive advantage in the market.

• Meeting its longterm strategic goals (i.e. sales, growth etc.).

• Enhancing the vendor's image in the community by demonstrating social responsibility.

• Gaining regional visibility.

• Gaining increasing exposure and credibility in the marketplace.

Economic Partnership

• Graduated scales constraints of payments to meet CLU's budget constraints.

• Expanding vendor opportunities as CLU grows.

• Participating in mutual R & D of new opportunities.

• Sharing with the vendor additional CLU revenue resulting from capabilities provided by vendor through innovative financing strategies and joint CLU/vendor marketing ventures.

• Sharing with CLU additional vendor revenues resulting from joint CLU/vendor marketing ventures.

• Developing realistic financial projections.

• Ensuring an acceptable return on investment for each partner.

• Improving CLU's grant positioning by helping establish a track record of providing students with sought-after capabilities and services costeffectively.

Practical Partnership

• Openly recognizes and supports each partner's vested interest.

• Specifically details each partner's responsibilities and expectations.