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The Harley Davidson Manner of Choosing a Software Provider Essay

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The Harley Davidson manner of zeroing on a software provider adopted the thorough process of weighing the offerings of the software provider in a quantitative and consistent setup. Exhibit 10 provides an overview of the factors, both quantitative and qualitative, the SiL’K team rated the providers on to aid in their selection process. The factors listed though impressive and quite thorough, lacks in three crucial factors we believe would make a deep influence in choosing a provider. They are future scalability and expandability, flexibility to adapt to probable changes during development and maturity of technology being used. Elaborating on why the above stated factors are important to be considered during the selection process, we believe …show more content…

Provider 1 came across as a seamless cultural fit for Harley Davidson. As we stated above, the factors which we believe need to weigh most heavily can be put under the umbrella of qualitative, ideological and cultural fit, both in terms of processes and people. And Provider 1 fit into this criteria perfectly. They showed a high level of enthusiasm and passion both about their product as well as the opportunity to work with Harley Davidson, as exhibited by the Harley Davidson gear they wore for the presentation. They were thoroughly prepared to offer a solution to every requirement that was asked for and also to offer a work around when a direct solution wasn’t possible. We believe that a provider’s culture, style of working and willingness to adapt and please supersedes other factors and this was what Provider 1 offered. It also scored high on Architecture Compatibility, Training, Understanding Harley’s requirements and Enabling the SMS. They understood Harley’s working ideology and philosophy (For example, Provider 1’s understanding of the importance of brand imagery adopted by the company as demonstrated by the Harley Davidson shirts they donned). And, this was their distinguishing factor. Although they didn’t score highest on the functionality side and did not provide support for Web enablement in their package (they provided a work around though), the above stated strengths made Provider 1 the best choice. The software provider selection process employed by Harley

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