Choosing a new or replacement system is likely to be one of the biggest investments that most companies will make. It is therefore imperative that the process of reaching this decision is more than just seeing a few suppliers' PowerPoint presentations !

Travology's tried and tested methodology detailed below has a proven track record in selecting the most suitable system to meet your business requirements and budget.

Gathering Business Requirements
The business staff will be users of the system and are most likely to know what the system needs to be able to do. If you have an existing system, they will also know all the things that it can't do at the moment. This is probably the most important part of the whole process and involves gathering the detailed business requirements by questioning your staff using our extensive knowledge and understanding of the travel business. It is also important that the business personnel not only think about what they need today, but what they will need in the future; again our extensive knowledge of how other companies and systems work will prove invaluable at this stage.

Translate Business Requirements into System Requirements
Using the detailed business requirements we will translate these into system requirements that can be understood by potential suppliers. This will form an important part of the Invitation To Tender and ensure that the next stages of the process are successful.

Agree Decision Making Criteria
During this stage, we will agree with the key personnel the criteria that will be used to make a decision on the most suitable supplier. Every company is different: for some the price may be the most important whereas with others, it may be the system that has the most functionality. It is important that this is considered and fully understood to ensure that the right selection is made.

Identify Potential Suppliers
With our extensive knowledge of the systems providers we will quickly be able to identify suppliers that have systems that are most likely to meet your requirements. This will help short cut the number of companies that you invite to tender. With this being software and you having to deal with salesmen, everyone is likely to tell you that they can do everything and if they can't, 'it's only a small change'!

Produce and Distribute Invitation To Tender (ITT) Documents
When all the of the above steps have taken place and you have agreed the detailed requirements an official document (called Invitation to Tender ITT or Request for Proposal RFP) will be sent to the most suitable suppliers. The document will also request information about each company's technical solution, financial stability, customer base, staff and experience as well as cost, contractual and commercial details.

Shortlist Potential Suppliers
Using the pre-agreed decision making criteria each company's response will now be analysed in detail and provided with a score based on  a number of key areas. This information will then be used to agree with you a shortlist of preferred suppliers to invite to demonstrate their solution.

Supplier Presentations and Demonstrations
Each of the short listed suppliers will be invited to come and present details about their company and approach as well as a detailed demonstration of their systems. A structured format to the presentations will be agreed in advance with each supplier and this will ensure that the systems are viewed in detail and the information provided in their ITT response is validated. As many business staff as possible will be encouraged to attend the presentations and provide feedback about each supplier.

Agree Contractual and Commercial Terms
The terms of any agreement that you have with a supplier will ensure that you are fully protected against failure to deliver the solution for any number of reasons. Using our extensive experience we will ensure that you fully understand the requirements and implications and help you to negotiate the best deal with your preferred supplier.

Preferred Supplier
At the end of all the steps above you will be to ready to select a preferred supplier with the confidence that you know exactly what the supplier will deliver, how much it will cost, how long it will take and what the risks are along the way. Armed with this information you can avoid most of the reasons that projects of this nature fail to deliver on time and on budget and sometimes do not deliver at all! 

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