I recently sat through several vendor demos for a partner who is in the market for a health care claims administration platform. These systems are large ticket items and the vendors ranged from large and well entrenched vendors with years of experience in the market to small and relatively new vendors with fewer than ten partners.

Several of the key decision makers for the partner were very focused on whether or not the various vendors invited to participate had chosen to make their presentation in person or via the web. While this seemed to make little difference with regard to the product overviews once each was under way it was discussed several times throughout the two day period during which the demos took place. Each vendor was made aware of the view of the partner and made their decision to travel or to demo via the web and phone from an informed perspective.

Several vendors traveled to Des Moines for their presentation and at least one chose to do so exclusively via the web. One well regarded vendor with significant market-share chose to send sales staff to present in person. The two salesmen from Vendor ‘X’ arrived to make their presentation in well-tailored suits with ties. The lead salesman was wearing a shirt with French cuff and cuff links. So - from the partner perspective - these individuals invested the proper time and preparation for their presentation. So far, so good!

The Vendor X presentation began with the normal pleasantries and they passed out copies of the Powerpoint slide deck in color. As the salesmen walked through their presentation they connected a technical resource via Webex who spoke in greater detail about the different business features and advantages of their system. To me it was apparent that the salesmen in the room were involved in the presentation but weren’t in fact doing the demonstration. Maybe that is too fine a distinction to make and I’m not even sure that all present that day would agree with me. The two guys in suits made a fine impression regardless of their actual function or purpose.

About one hour into the two hour presentation/demonstration I stepped away for 5 minutes. When I returned to the room they were covering the underlying technology of one of their core modules. The salesmen were talking enthusiastically about the virtues of COBOL.NET. Wow! I did a double-take and rather than interrupt and expose my obvious ignorance I quickly Googled COBOL.NET to confirm that the language actually existed. Sure enough, it’s a Microfocus product.

I know my partner was satisfied that the various presentations given were a success and that there are several vendors with products that we want to further investigate. That investigation will include site visits to out-of-state technology vendors. We need to ensure that they aren’t two guys working in a garage. (hmmm….)

If we (Source Allies) can take anything away from this it is that customer perceptions are very important and that some non-technical customers may have some very specific requirements that have nothing to do with technology. Seller beware!

After the demos wrapped up the partner’s staff and I compared notes internall.  I did not bother to explain to the partner that ‘two men in a garage’ is a reference to the founders of Hewlett Packard, a really large company by any standard today.  I also didn’t bother to give them my deep thoughts on COBOL.NET although we covered that briefly.  As for the suits and cuff links, well quite frankly I like wearing cuff links.

Functionality, flexibility and a clean user interface seemed to clearly carry the most weight in the analysis of the applications.  People seemed to appreciate a good design.  I am sure many nontechnical people can’t describe a well designed system but actually do know one when they see one.

I don’t know how many silent points were gained or lost by vendors for choosing to arrive in person or to demo via the web from out of state. All vendors did a good job of covering their respective applications.  I’d hate to think that a vendor would loose because they demo’ed a system online while a less effective application would fare better because a person arrived to hand out Powerpoint slides they had ‘thoughtfully’ printed and assembled in advance.  That doesn’t really seem like the wave of the future.  Some vendors traveled 6 hours in a car each way to make their presentation.  Another vendor had staff travel farther, by commercial air carrier.  Wonder who pays for those expenses in the end? 

If I get to leave you with a couple of thoughts I’d like them to be that we should always try to understand what our partners’ hot buttons. While those issues or items may not make sense to us we should make note of them and in some manner take them into consideration when working with that partner.

Can you imagine having a great product from both a functionality and a technology perspective and ultimately loosing the sale to a larger competitor with a product written in COBOL.NET? Think of the time we’d probably spend analyzing what went wrong. I’d rather not find myself in that situation - but I’m certain those guys in cufflinks are going to close another deal sooner or later and COBOL.NET will not slow them down too much with some of their prospective partners.