Because there are now numerous schemes aimed at providing third party certification to technology companies tendering for business, is there are any real benefit in spending time and money on it these days, particularly in times of recession?
Graham Chick, CEO of GemaTech responds:
Absolutely not! The best way for any organisation looking to select a vendor is to know that they are choosing the most suitable people and company to work with. The only way to achieve this is by good old fashioned relationship building. Choosing by trust and authority, not by certification.
Relationship building is the cheapest and fastest way to know which vendor is the best fit for you. As it still costs money to check out the 3rd party certification company anyway, why not invest this time and money in understanding the tendering companies better themselves?
This leads me onto my next point. I strongly believe that the tendering process is an unnecessary barrier to sale for the sake of being seen to be fair. This is a process which is flawed by the fact that the purchasing organisation will, more likely than not, have already chosen their preferred supplier anyway in the lead up to the tender being issued. It also means the customer ends up actually paying more for the product or service because the tendering companies have to employ bid teams in order to respond to the tender. This can only affect the bottom line price of the product or service they are supplying, and therefore both parties incur more costs.
