http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/02/22/evaluating-vendors-2/ Jeff Nolan's take on innovation, entrepreneurship, tech and stuff that interests me Thu, 17 May 2012 21:05:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/02/22/evaluating-vendors-2/comment-page-1/#comment-158 Jeff Wed, 22 Feb 2006 23:19:54 +0000 http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/02/22/evaluating-vendors-2/#comment-158 John, In all honesty, I never much concerned myself with that side of the business as I was focused on venture capital at the time. It would be disingenuous of me to suggest that competitive and market factors didn't skew the whole process, but I was always impressed to the degree that SAP product people took customer feedback into the product planning process. With that in mind I am quite confident in asserting that this process was much more substantial than what most software companies do, which is summed up as a lot of head nodding and words of agreement only to go back to engineering and do what they wanted to do anyways. John,
In all honesty, I never much concerned myself with that side of the business as I was focused on venture capital at the time. It would be disingenuous of me to suggest that competitive and market factors didn’t skew the whole process, but I was always impressed to the degree that SAP product people took customer feedback into the product planning process. With that in mind I am quite confident in asserting that this process was much more substantial than what most software companies do, which is summed up as a lot of head nodding and words of agreement only to go back to engineering and do what they wanted to do anyways.

]]> http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/02/22/evaluating-vendors-2/comment-page-1/#comment-157 John Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:38:38 +0000 http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/02/22/evaluating-vendors-2/#comment-157 As the vendor, how did you weigh the customer feature requests? I'm guessing you had to weigh them against the importance of each customer based on strategic value, revenue, etc. You also probably had to factor in the competitive landscape too among other things. Sounds like a lot of weighing going on.... As the vendor, how did you weigh the customer feature requests? I’m guessing you had to weigh them against the importance of each customer based on strategic value, revenue, etc. You also probably had to factor in the competitive landscape too among other things. Sounds like a lot of weighing going on….

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