In a perfect world, buying enterprise software would be like ordering ice cream: Pick your flavor, add some toppings, and pay the price on the board. In the business world, the buying process rarely proceeds with such ease.
In recognition of that, Forrester Research recently published the second version of its Enterprise Software Licensee’s Bill Of Rights.
“After speaking to about 1,000 customers who’ve been dealing with software contract negotiations and having a lot of trouble, it was important to put [together] a best practices document,” said primary author Ray Wang, who has since left Forrester to join digital strategy consultancy Altimeter Group as a partner. In the end, “There’s got to be a right balance between [the price] paid for the solution and the value that’s being achieved, and it really requires two parties to make that happen.”
Those parties, of course, haven’t always danced a perfect tango, so Wang and team created a list of rights that should govern each stage of the technology-buying process, from selection and implementation to utilization, maintenance, and retirement. Forrester has added 11 rights to the latest list. During the selection phase, for instance, licensees should expect full disclosure by the vendor of the software’s “in the box” functionality.