IT Vendor Raves

Reports Sell Systems

I was dumbfounded to learn that the PeopleSoft financial accounting system for a major university  used to require seven (7) open screens to enter a single purchase order. I’m not talking about 30 years ago, this was 2003!

My good friend was discussing how a multi-million dollar purchase of such a cumbersome system could ever make it through layer upon layer of committee approval. I have never forgotten her words, “Reports sell systems, and they gave the financial people the pretty reports they wanted to see.” The money guys got their reports, user functionality be damned.      As they say in tennis, game, set, match!   

Top shelf business intelligence companies are suddenly being snapped up by the big software companies.  Today IBM bought Cognos for $5 billion in cash. This follows the recent SAP purchase of Business Objects and the Oracle/Hyperion acquisition earlier this year.    

So enterprise software companies are now realizing the value of getting understandable information out of a system. If only they would focus on making it easy for users to put information IN to the system.  What productivity increases would we see then!   

As another good friend said to me just yesterday, make using any system as frictionless as possible! I plan on keeping "frictionless use" in the front of mind as we continue our development.

The big step.

I'll have much to say regarding B2B vendor transparency in the coming months, but I'm keeping a tight lid on this blog for now.

VendorRate is still in technically in stealth mode, although stealth mode in Silicon Valley is about as secret as shouting from a mountain top. If you want to do any fundraising, you have to participate in an eco-structure full of Angels and VCs. They never sign NDAs.

Even worse, you give your funding elevator pitch in front of 8-12 other smart entrepreneurs. The only hope for not having your idea co-opted by someone else is that the room is full of people so wrapped up their own idea that they aren’t listening carefully to yours.

So the genie is out of the bottle, never to be put back in.  But at least I can have the illusion of secrecy when less than 100 people have heard about VendorRate verbally. It’s another thing entirely to turn this loose in the electronic medium. That’s not just setting a genie free, it’s opening Pandora’s box.

I know one thing. And I’m going to draw the stake in the ground here and now.  10 years into the future I’m going to either look like one really smart guy, or this will fall flat on its face.  I don’t see there being a middle ground.

We have a theory.  If the premise holds true, we will transform the way products are bought and sold in the business world.   I’ve traded the security of a “real” job for the wild world of a Silicon Valley startup. I’ve done this at a stage in life when most people are looking for a soft chair and pondering retirement.  Once the concept was born, I couldn’t put it away. Lord knows I’ve tried to be “sensible” and pragmatic, but the idea kept drawing me back.  I’ve been compelled to take the next steps by an absolutely irresistible force. It wakes me in the morning, and it keeps me from falling asleep at night.  Sometimes I can almost touch the energy and inhale the excitement.

I’d like to say I’ve taken a big risk because I believe this concept is important, that I believe this business can be real, and that I believe VendorRate has the ability to significantly impact the world.  Yes, all those beliefs are true.  It’s scary to publicly or privately state them. Heck, I feel slightly guilty even thinking it. Talk about narcissism and being wrapped up in your own idea!! J 

But at the end of the day, I had to do this.   While the attempt to bring vendor transparency to the business community is an honor, I had no choice.  The VendorRate idea chose me.