Jan,& Forum
I think there is a danger in revealing the response to your RFP to Claire,
Your RFP is based on your unique business requirement and therefore I fail
to see any relevance in your actions. Firstly your application will be
wildly different to Claire's, other than in common departmental environments
that may have similar record types, such as Finance, HR etc. However the
records in both your respective core competencies will be wildly different,
with a varying degree of numbers of record types, retention and disposition
cycles, and therefore I fail to see how this will help Claire. All the
suppliers with a bit of qualification will part with the cost of their
software , but the software is the least of your worries without a full
understanding of the effort required to define the File Plan to it's final
cut.
I understand that you are trying to help in the spirit of the forum, as am
I, but I advise Claire to be aware this may not be the best way to get an
accurate estimation for the budget. A sympathetic University with similar
issues that has successfully rolled out EDRMs may be a more appropriate
model, however those that have successful EDRMS are few, although many are
in the same dilemma.
There are numerous software Vendors willing to shoe-horn projects into tight
inadequate budgets, to them it's about selling licenses. However to me it's
about delivering successful projects and all I'm saying is that some
consultancy investment up front to define the scope provides a more accurate
cost projection, and a rather easier contract negotiation that isn't heavily
caveated to de-risk suppliers from a bunch of potential unknowns.
The final thing about revealing pricing is the element of confidentiality
that you have with your supplier, who fortunately subscribes to the list. I
would be alarmed to find my customers divulging implementation costs despite
the sanitization of the response. It's not difficult to find out who's using
what. Despite RRP's of software inevitably suppliers granted the period of
exclusivity to negotiate a final contract will take a view on the whole
project and negotiate elements of software, implementation and support to
provide a final cut of the contract. This is sacrosanct confidentiality and
should be treated as such.
The questions are not considered as tiresome as much as the answers. I
sometimes would like to invite the distributors of RFP's to see the effort
that goes into responding to them, and my fellow suppliers will testify to
this, we all do it for the love of business having qualified whether we
think it's a realistic prospect for our products and solutions, always in
the know that there can only be one winner. That's why we ask awkward
questions, and need to have full understanding of the requirement. It's
easier for prospective buyer to be qualified out by the suppliers than
prospective buyer trying to decide between Rolls Royce solutions A-D and
Mid, Low end tier solutions E-Z. Some times some of us just don't belong at
the party and the sooner we know that as suppliers the sooner we don't bore
you with our over accentuated vision of EDRMS/ECM/EDM Hype and Euphoria.
Best Regards to you all in the forum.
Paul Headey
Deltascheme Ltd
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Records Management mailing list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jan Hargreaves
Sent: 08 September 2005 11:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: EDRMS prices
That's all very well, Paul, but when you work for a public body, where your
funding streams are dictated by the governing body's Finance Department,
sometimes you need to give them a rough idea of how much money they're
likely to need to set aside for a specific project, or by how much your
funding stream for that year might need to be increased.
Not all public sector organisations are in the position where they can wait
and see how much the ideal package for their RM needs is going to cost
before allocating the money. Sometimes you get your costings in for your
ideal package, only to be told that the organisation can't commit the funds
that year.
A year ago, we obtained costings for the system that would have met our
needs, taking into account all the points you raise about investing to
achieve long-term improvements and not seeking a "quick fix" system that
would require subsequent modifications. By the time the costings came in,
our funding stream for that year could not support such an investment. I had
obtained ball-park figures from other organisations prior to approaching
companies, which enabled our Finance Department at the start of the
financial year to say that I could go ahead with obtaining specific costings
(which ended up being in the same area as the general figures I had
obtained).
That's why we ask for an idea of how much something is likely to cost.
Perhaps suppliers of systems need to pay more attention to the very real
limitations public bodies have in terms of spending, and be a bit more
understanding when we ask these obviously tiresome questions.
I'll be sending details of the costings we received to Claire, since it
probably will be of use to her.
Jan Hargreaves
Senior Archivist
Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Records Management mailing list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Paul Headey
Sent: 08 September 2005 11:25
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: EDRMS prices
From an EDRMS suppliers' perspective we obviously get asked this question
all the time and usually far too early in the procurement cycle for it to
have any relevance to the reality of the total cost of a successful EDRMS
project. When we are asked this too early it immediately rings alarm bells
as to what the driver and justification behind the investment will be based
on. i.e. we need a system to get a tick in the box to show we have made some
sort of effort to enhance our information management position, therefore
will choose "best value" or the "the cheapest proposal", where as the
emphasis we look for as a supplier to respond to an RFP is whether we feel
the prospective organisation is really interested in providing a massive
difference to their organisations information life cycle management and thus
make a better return on their capital investment by making better use of
their information, reducing storage overheads, providing immediate an secure
access to information, driving cost out of our business processes etc.
I emphsasise successful implementation because as a supplier we come across
numerous RFP's many which we respond with a "no bid" response because of the
obvious lack of commitment in the change management, an overwhelming under
estimation of the preparation required to design departmental file plans,
design disposition schedules and retention policies and without this
understanding of the requirements it's quite impossible to provide any where
an accurate proposal for the project. Setting up the RM properties is a
fairly minimal task when you do it once with minor changes. However
re-configuring RM properties time and time again due to lack of preparation
and the underestimation of the preparation effort can render the whole
project a total failure through going over budget as the specification keeps
changing. non adoption from users if they haven't a clear understanding of
what the system is supposed to be doing for them, and if they haven't been
provided with the appropriate amount design inclusion and user training, and
there are numerous examples I could cite. Examples that we haven't responded
to I might add!
The danger is that cost becomes the paramount consideration, and not the
return on the capital invested. If the £250,000 proposal is chosen over the
£350,00 proposal you should provide the suppliers the opportunity to justify
what they are supplying for their premium. The £100,000 could be the
difference between the system being delivered successfully or not.
If anyone actually responds by supplying you with the tender costs, beware
that you don't set a precedent on the budget which minimises your scope to
pay for an appropriate amount of fileplan design by your own organisation,
user training and up front fileplan consultancy which tend to be areas where
investment is minimised.
The software cost should be least of your considerations without having made
some progress into the preparation of the business
requirements/specification to provide some chance of the suppliers providing
you with a reasonably accurate project estimation. There is plenty of
shelfware out there gathering dust through non adoption due to lack of
proper planning.
Good luck, hope you take on board the point in making the effort on defining
your own business requirements rather than plagiarizing other organisations
RFP's and supplier responses.
Paul Headey
Deltascheme Ltd.
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Records Management mailing list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Moore, Claire
Sent: 07 September 2005 17:17
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: EDRMS prices
Would anyone be kind enough to share, off-list, tender prices/ quotes that
you've received for EDRMS? I'm trying to get budget allocated for a system
here at Lancaster and therefore need an understanding of the range in which
tenders are likely to fall. We're some way off procurement, so I'm reluctant
to call in potential suppliers just yet.
I'm aware this is something of a 'how long is a piece of string'
question: if you have figures relating to systems for university
administration only, or incorporating academic and other support
departments, all of these would be useful - please could you briefly outline
the applicable circumstances? If you'd like to provide any information in
confidence, I can ensure both the source of the data and the supplier name
is anonymised in my use of the figures.
Many thanks in anticipation
Claire
Claire Moore
Records Manager
Lancaster University
Bailrigg
Lancaster LA1 4YW
Email: [log in to unmask]
This message has been scanned for viruses by MailController -
www.MailController.altohiway.com
