Comments on: Who’s Your Vendor’s Daddy? http://www.esourcingforum.com/archives/2006/09/21/whos-your-vendors-daddy/ The source of information and best practices in strategic sourcing. Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:17:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: David Bush - Iasta http://www.esourcingforum.com/archives/2006/09/21/whos-your-vendors-daddy/#comment-1899 David Bush - Iasta Fri, 22 Sep 2006 14:37:51 +0000 http://www.esourcingforum.com/?p=257#comment-1899 Thanks for the input, Eric. Obviously, I agree with your sentiments completely. Thanks for the input, Eric. Obviously, I agree with your sentiments completely.

]]> By: Eric Strovink http://www.esourcingforum.com/archives/2006/09/21/whos-your-vendors-daddy/#comment-1869 Eric Strovink Thu, 21 Sep 2006 14:40:19 +0000 http://www.esourcingforum.com/?p=257#comment-1869 What's more troubling than the funding of firms in our space is the overall lack of innovation. Iasta and a few others continually improve their products, but other vendors appear willing to declare software "done," and are riding the same tired horse they rode in on five years ago. The analysts in the space haven't helped sort this out -- with the exception of Debbie Wilson at Gartner, how many have actually sourced a commodity at a real company? Without independent experience in the space, and a solid grounding in reality, analysts fall easy victims to vendor Kool-Aid. Lack of innovation is the kiss of death for software companies. Software that isn't changing, growing, and being enhanced continually is essentially dead. Vendors who are unable to retain key talent often find themselves in a difficult position. There's nobody left who understands the product, so nobody can enhance it. The result? Core technologies remain stagnant, while effort is re-directed toward glitz, glamour, and marketing-speak. To your point Dave, VC and private equity firms can be big contributors to this problem. Their relentless push for hockey-stick revenue growth -- absent the management push-back that is required to control them -- can lead to miserable work environments, high turnover rates, and loss of both intrinsic capability and vision. What's worse, companies with "puppet master" pressure cannot price effectively and sanely. That leads directly to the outrageously expensive deals we've seen in recent years. What’s more troubling than the funding of firms in our space is the overall lack of innovation. Iasta and a few others continually improve their products, but other vendors appear willing to declare software “done,” and are riding the same tired horse they rode in on five years ago. The analysts in the space haven’t helped sort this out — with the exception of Debbie Wilson at Gartner, how many have actually sourced a commodity at a real company? Without independent experience in the space, and a solid grounding in reality, analysts fall easy victims to vendor Kool-Aid.

Lack of innovation is the kiss of death for software companies. Software that isn’t changing, growing, and being enhanced continually is essentially dead. Vendors who are unable to retain key talent often find themselves in a difficult position. There’s nobody left who understands the product, so nobody can enhance it. The result? Core technologies remain stagnant, while effort is re-directed toward glitz, glamour, and marketing-speak.

To your point Dave, VC and private equity firms can be big contributors to this problem. Their relentless push for hockey-stick revenue growth — absent the management push-back that is required to control them — can lead to miserable work environments, high turnover rates, and loss of both intrinsic capability and vision. What’s worse, companies with “puppet master” pressure cannot price effectively and sanely. That leads directly to the outrageously expensive deals we’ve seen in recent years.

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