Neglecting to ensure that electronic equipment is thoroughly tested before purchase can cost businesses time and money—not to mention the disastrous consequences of an unforeseen failure. Daryl Cornelius, director Enterprise EMEA, Spirent Communications, asks if your request for pricing is fit for purpose.
The outcome of adding independent pre-testing of equipment before purchase is typically worth a reduction in overall bid prices of up to 20 per cent—equating to £1 million on a £5 million project—quite apart from the clear benefit of avoiding subsequent embarrassing in-service failures. And yet, in our experience, only one in 50 RFPs (requests for pricing) in the network and applications technology space calls specifically for performance testing to be part of the procurement package.
What is the unfortunate procurement officer expected to do when the IT department says they need a hundred new switches, and they specify a chosen make and model costing £12,000 each? By that stage, the IT department has probably been thoroughly wooed by the vendor’s sales team and is absolutely convinced that they have chosen the optimal kit for the job. If the procurement officer starts raising questions about alternative options or the suitability of the chosen solution, it will invoke all the stock accusations about ‘meddling bureaucrats who don’t know enough about IT to make an informed decision’.
In the recent years of hectic business growth, an overworked procurement department may have been glad simply to rubber-stamp other people’s decisions. But pressure to save money is now a major issue, and the person holding the purse strings needs to be involved much earlier in the decision process. Starting at the RFI (request for information) stage, questions that focus on the product’s requirements—questions such as ‘What does your device do?’ and ‘What is its functionality?’—do still need to be addressed but, in focusing on that detail, it is easy to forget that the object of the exercise is to find an answer to the big question: ‘Will it do what our business demands, in the context of our existing network?’ And how can either the vendor or the buyer answer that question unless the actual product is put to the test?
Some RFPs do call for a performance matrix and on occasions this extends to asking ‘How much traffic can the device or application handle?’ However, without independent real world verification—i.e. performance testing in the context of a network’s actual application, traffic types and mix—how can any direct comparison between products be made? How are your technical people expected to differentiate between new technologies of which they have little or no practical experience? What is the difference between the latest state-of-the-art switch priced at £12,000 and an older, well-proven switch with comparable functionality priced at £2,000? What actual difference does the new product’s technology make in the live network/application environment and does it justify the price difference?
Given the complexity of modern networks, questions like these can only be answered by testing. So why do so few RFPs specify the need for such tests before commitment to purchase? It was suggested above that, in times of booming business optimism, an overworked purchasing function could not face the extra negotiation required and was glad simply to trust the engineers to make the choice. But the greater pressure now is to get maximum return on minimum investment. So, is the cost of pre-testing a disincentive? In our experience, the accumulated savings can amount to 50 times the added cost of the test in terms of decisions based around real test results where the risk of failure is reduced, while the ability to negotiate from a position of knowledge is increased, as is the ability to select the right technology at the right price for the job.
At what level does testing become necessary? One would hardly be expected to insist on pre-testing a simple peripheral device like a printer before purchase, and other small purchases of non-critical equipment can probably be made on trust. There are, however, really three key criteria that need to be considered: quantity, quality and criticality.
Quantity refers to the total cost of the acquisition. A suitable rule of thumb might be along the lines of: ‘For all purchases exceeding £50,000 a budget of five per cent of the cost should be set aside for in-context pre-testing’. So pre-testing is only mandatory when a significant amount will be spent, and so significant savings could result.
Quality refers to the quality range of the solutions suitable for purchase. How does one decide between a latest generation top-of-the-range product costing £12,000 and an older model with similar specification now on offer at £2,000? The arguments for the expensive product will focus on the quality of the vendor’s service and support—but if the device works and has proven reliable, does that really justify the extra cost? The expensive item may come from an industry-leading vendor with all the assurances of prestige, company stability and so on, but what if you simply need a cheap solution? IBM was famous for the saying ‘Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM’, and that mentality survives when the purchasing decision is made by people lacking the confidence to trust their own judgment. But solid results from thorough pre-testing provide the surest way to gain such confidence. Time and again our customers have told us that they have no regrets about going for a lower cost solution that proved itself under test.
Finally—criticality. Whereas a bad choice of printer could simply waste time and the purchase price of the equipment, a bad choice of router could bring the entire network and the business to a grinding halt. Clearly, in the second case, it should have been thoroughly tested under every realistic operating scenario before the purchase was made.
Buyers need to be better informed about the relative simplicity of operating today’s state-of-the-art test equipment, and the skills and knowledge available from test professionals. Once this is understood, and the business benefits of reliable, real world test results are realized, then we will increasingly see essential inclusions like ‘Ensure solutions are tested pre-deployment’ included in the RFPs. Contractual negotiations can then be based on solid facts and undisputable evidence of performance.
So, before you sign that purchase agreement, just ask yourself: ‘Is this RFP fit for purpose?’ www.spirent.com
