Vetting the vendors

Here’s a little business test for you. Which best describes your organization’s purchasing preferences?

• I like to buy best-of-breed products.
• Buying from just one vendor lets me leverage synergy between devices and applications from a single source.

In times of plenty, it’s easy to take the first approach, but now that times are tight, perhaps its time to reconsider. The leverage you can gain on volume purchases can significantly lower your total cost of ownership, because vendors are more anxious to move that inventory and make their quarterly numbers.

Still, it’s a dilemma. When you make a policy decision to designate a preferred vendor, you give up some flexibility in return for easier integration and, one hopes, a better financial deal.

Actually, the integration argument doesn’t always hold water. Most of the large vendors pad out their product lines through acquisitions, and depending on how recently a division was purchased, the parent may not have had time to integrate a point product with the rest of its product line. Be sure to uncover those management and interoperability issues before shelling out money simply on the strength of a familiar label.

Of course, sometimes you have no choice but to branch out from a happy single-vendor haven. Not all vendors supply the broad spectrum of devices you need to run your enterprise network. But if you purchase your switches and routers from Cisco, Nortel Networks, Enterasys (formerly Cabletron), IBM, or another infrastructure giant, chances are that that vendor will be able to meet most of your needs, and its hardware will be on your short list of products to evaluate for firewalls, load balancers, and other devices.

That corporate attitude makes it harder for worthy startups like Foundry or Extreme to compete. Startups have to be a step above the usual suspects if they hope to gain a toehold in many companies. They often are able to do so, thanks to innovative ideas and the ability to put them into practice. But check out an unfamiliar vendor’s technical support response time and staff knowledge before you buy, even if you’re satisfied its product is technically superior.

Another argument in favor of the single-vendor solution is accountability. If you run into problems in a patchwork network, each vendor tries to point a finger at others before taking responsibility for tracking down problems. If your equipment comes from the same source, you know who’ll have to minister to it.

Sometimes the question of which way to turn comes down to budget. On the one hand, you’re likely to get volume discounts from a vendor who provides you with large volumes of equipment. On the other, smaller players need to be nimble on pricing to compete. Often times you can play off one argument against the other when negotiating prices with vendors. Never take the list price as the last word.

1 Comment

• 

  By sandrar, Thursday, September 10, 2009 @ 6:13 pm

  Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. :) Cheers! Sandra. R.

Other Links to this Post

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment