Source Beyond the “Hype”, Bias, “Insights” Reviews and “Magic” to Buy the Right Tech for Your Enterprise Needs
Buying the right enterprise technology is notoriously overwhelming, even for the most seasoned IT Executives. Getting bombarded with marketing hype, biased reviews, and conflicting opinions has skewed the enterprise tech decision-making process, making it difficult for IT executives and their peers to make objective and informed decisions. To make an informed decision that aligns with your business requirements and long-term goals, you need to evaluate enterprise technology based on objective criteria, rather than “hype”, “insights” “magic” or incentivized reviews from organizations with different needs.
Here’s how to purchase enterprise tech using objective criteria.
The Importance of Assessing Enterprise Tech with Stakeholders Using Objective Criteria
Evaluating enterprise technology based on objective criteria is important for several reasons.
As Gartner points out, this process should include identifying critical stakeholders, aligning objectives, securing budget (which often comes from outside of IT), and monitoring progress throughout the evaluation and deployment of technology solutions. By following these steps, purchasers can ensure that their investments meet their goals and that they’re satisfied with their decisions. At Olive, we agree and can add some further reasons why:
1. You Need Accurate Evaluation to make the Right Decision when Buying Enterprise Technology
Objective criteria provide an accurate evaluation of the technology’s capabilities and limitations. It helps you identify the strengths and weaknesses of the technology and evaluate it based on its ability to meet your organization’s needs.
2. The “Hype” May Create Unrealistic Expectations
Hype can lead to unrealistic expectations and over-investment in a technology that may not actually be suitable for your needs. Evaluating the technology based on objective criteria helps you avoid being swayed by marketing hype or buzzwords.
3. You Need Stakeholder Input to Avoid Making a Biased Decision
Evaluating technology based on objective criteria helps reduce bias, whether it be personal bias or bias from incentivized reviews. This ensures that your evaluation is fair and impartial.
4. To Align the Decision With YOUR Organizational Goals
Evaluating technology based on objective criteria ensures that you choose technology that aligns with your organizational goals and objectives. This helps ensure that your investment in the technology will be productive and beneficial to your organization.
Bias in Enterprise Software Selection: How It Happens and What to Do About It
How to Buy Enterprise Tech and Make the Right Decision
When your enterprise embarks on a technology evaluation, it must be based on objective criteria, rather than hype, bias, or incentivized reviews from organizations with different needs. The decision must be backed by your company’s data, not review or historical industry data. You can take that information into consideration, but it is only one piece of the puzzle.
1. Define Requirements
Before evaluating any enterprise technology, you need to define your specific business requirements. These could include things like scalability, ease of integration, security, cost-effectiveness, user-friendliness, and support for specific platforms or devices. Make a list of your requirements and prioritize them based on their importance to your business.
2. Look Beyond Marketing Hype
Enterprise technology vendors often make bold claims about their products, but you should look beyond the marketing hype and focus on the actual features and capabilities of the technology. Don’t rely solely on vendor-provided marketing materials.
3. Consider the Vendor’s Track Record
When evaluating enterprise technology, it’s important to consider the vendor’s track record in delivering high-quality, reliable products and services. Look for vendors with a proven track record of success in your industry, and check their references to ensure that they have a reputation for delivering on their promises.
4. Evaluate the Technology’s Scalability
As your business grows, your technology needs are likely to grow as well. When evaluating enterprise technology, consider how scalable the technology is and whether it can accommodate your future growth plans. Look for technologies that can easily integrate with other systems and that can be customized to meet your specific needs.
5. Check for Security and Compliance
Enterprise technology is often used to store and process sensitive data, so security and compliance are critical considerations. Look for technologies that have robust security features, such as multi-factor authentication, encryption, and access controls. Additionally, check that the technology is compliant with relevant regulations.
6. Evaluate the Technology’s Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Enterprise technology can be a significant investment, so it’s important to evaluate the technology’s total cost of ownership (TCO) over its entire lifecycle. This includes not just the upfront costs of purchasing and implementing the technology, but also ongoing costs such as maintenance, upgrades, and support.
By following these guidelines, you can evaluate enterprise technology based on objective criteria and make an informed decision that aligns with your business requirements and long-term goals.
Enterprise Technology Buying: Smarter and Faster with Olive
The status quo in sourcing data for tech buys has notoriously been in the hands of a few big-name brands that gather incentivized reviews. Research from these review platforms indicates that 80% of technology buyers would rather decide on what enterprise tech to purchase based on reviews. Yet, 70% of tech projects fail. Enterprises know there is a problem here, yet they continue to source tech based on “magic” “hype”, bias, “insights” or incentivized reviews from organizations with different needs.
No matter how far tech and marketing have come, the only way to know for sure if you are making the right enterprise tech decision is to perform a thorough evaluation and solution comparison. Olive guides you through this notoriously overwhelming process, with better data based on stakeholder needs, rather than reviews.
Make an Informed Decision that Aligns with Your Business Requirements and Long-Term Goals
Backed by your own company data business goals Olive’s technology evaluation platform gives you actionable, objective insight into solutions that meet your requirements. The platform helps your organization collaborate to align on a decision 3x faster than the current status quo. Olive saves your organization time, improves collaboration, and streamlines the entire tech purchasing process.
With pre-built technology evaluation templates across multiple verticals and solutions, you and your organization can kick off projects instantly, and focus on innovation. Olive empowers your organization to align on mission-critical priorities and requirements.
