Note: Use the next worksheet tab -- Measure Satisfaction & Momentum -- to measure customer satisfaction with vendors.
The prior vendor research confirms the leading or emerging vendors. Using those vendor solutions, connect with peer organizations in or outside your industry—target 3 to 5 organizations. Template space is limited to encourage brevity—focus on the most important criteria.
Add or remove rows depending on the number of peer organizations you collaborate with.
Peer organization from an industry or functional perspective.
What is your objective in connecting with this organization, e.g., benchmark a function or capability, assess vendor performance, or both?
List the vendor(s) used by the peer organizations. Note that vendor strategic partners are used, e.g., in implementation and cloud.
Highlight the vendor solution's functional or business process the peer organization uses. Note added value capabilities such as workflow management. Also, note implemented integration such as office suites, collaborative tools, communication, and networks. Highlight SMAC (social, mobile, analytic, and cloud) solution aspects.
Note vendor depth and breadth in releasing new or enhanced capabilities, service and support responsiveness, leadership and specialization engagement, security, education, and training. Also note how the vendor has deployed their solution at the peer organization, e.g., on-premise, cloud, or hybrid.
Highlight the pros and cons of the vendor's solution, services, support, and responsiveness.
Highlight lessons learned by the peer organization. What would they do differently? What were they surprised by?
Highlight the organization's contact information, source, dates of the information gathered, and other information as appropriate.