| After you have agreed upon the preceding vendor selection approach, you are ready to compare competing vendors. The following criteria will help you make the appropriate choices. Note that we include certain "generic" criteria along with those specific to RFID deployment to make the comparison more meaningful for you. Vital Statistics: This includes number of employees, recent revenue/profitability figures, geographical reach, and the number of customers. Although these metrics should not be the only determinant, they provide a good health check. In fact, for a fast evolving technology like RFID, small start-up companies with few employees and few customers are nimble and adaptive and are likely to possess the very skills that may not be available at larger, more mainstream companies. The Management Team: This provides insight into the overall expertise of the vendor. Particularly with smaller vendors, it is important to have a management team that has a solid history of industry experience and expertise, and a demonstrated capability to lead and manage its staff effectively. Customer References: Although the number and brand name of the references are important, it is more important to determine if these references have deployed projects similar to the ones you are contemplating. The reference should also confirm a track record of high-quality work, on time and within budget. Experience in RFID Technology: This criterion is important to consider if you believe that RFID experience is critical to the particular phase of the project for which you are considering the vendor. For example, if you are looking at a consulting firm to help your organization implement change management processes, it is more important to find a firm that has experience in change and process management rather than in RFID-specific technology. On the other hand, if you are looking at a vendor to help with a new IT architecture design across your enterprise, it is best to look for a vendor that has adequate RFID architecture design experience, rather than a vendor with a solid history of IT architecture design but only small amount of RFID design experience. Experience in Your Industry: This criterion is important regardless of the particular phase of the project for which you are considering the vendor. You want to make sure that the vendor has adequate experience and expertise in your particular industry. Without this experience, a vendor is not likely to do a good job that requires taking a holistic approach to implementing a solution. Intellectual Property Rights: Because of the great amount of innovation going on around RFID technology, it is likely that either you or the vendor will end up creating new intellectual property (IP) to implement your solution. The willingness to share your IP with the vendor will open up a new leverage point for you. For example, a consulting firm may be willing to reduce its fee in exchange for the capability to retain non-exclusive rights in the IP it creates for you. Conversely, you may be able to negotiate more attractive licensing terms with a software vendor if you agree to share the IP your engineers may cocreate (for example, a connector you build to connect your commercial warehouse management application to the vendor's middleware). Note that this has the side effect of potentially arming your competitors with your IP because the vendor is free to reuse or resell it. Partnerships and Alliances: A vendor's ecosystem of partners and alliances speaks to its track record, experience, and credibility in the industry. This is particularly true with smaller vendors. Always look for vendors that have a wellknown set of partners and alliances that are willing to be used as references. At the same time, a large vendor may also need the backing of small, niche industry-credible vendors that can help fill any gaps the large vendor may have in its offerings. Adherence to Standards: It is important to assess the importance and impact of standards for your project. For example, if you are a Wal-Mart supplier and have to comply with the EPC standards, you need to make sure that the tag vendor offers compliant and tested EPC tags. Open Architecture: Products that offer an open architecture can save you from vendor lock-in and ease the integration efforts. This is necessary for any medium- and large-scale RFID project.
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