Small Vendor “Risk”
What is the real risk of choosing a small, innovative vendor for your critical IT projects? On the one hand, you can purchase a product built by a vendor that specializes in a specific functional area, is passionate about customer success, and adjusts priorities to meet your particular business requirements. On the other hand, you can choose to purchase an average product, built by a vendor that has a product list bigger than the national debt, is passionate about their profitability, and pressures customers to buy into a grand vision.
What choice do you make? Which option will ensure the success of your business objectives?
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Analyzing Identity 
May 12, 2010 at 1:39 am
Gerry, I would like to comment, even if your question was mainly aimed to a final customer.
As you know I’m from a small specialized innovative vendor, thus I’m in the classic situation of having to fight everyday to demonstrate the soundness of our offer.
I would like to add another point that comes from my direct personal experience: viability!
I remember that about one year ago we were having a discussion with a very large Italian Telecom Operator 😉 and they were arguing that even if our product was very innovative, they were looking for solutions from a large vendor that could assure the support and evolution of the product in the future. They felt that a small company like Engiweb was not able to guarantee this. Rather they chose to support a popular three-letter company that has offices all over the world, so that they could make the same affirmation made by Emperor Charles I of Spain; that their realm was “the empire on which the SUN never sets”.
….. and we know what happened: this company was acquired by the ravenous and omnivorous ORACLE that is dismantling their offer and the Italian short-sighted Telco is obliged to look elsewhere.
We can thus ask: did they use a Risk metric that distorted the actual Vendor Risk evaluation??