Stop Asking for Referrals
Posted from the LIMSexpert.com
Stop Asking for Referrals
Originally Published Wed Jul 30 13:54:37 2008
In order to acquire a viable LIMS you will either have to build or buy one (see here for discussion on build versus buy costs). If you choose the ‘buy’ route you will be confronted with bewildering choices, a variety of costs, and a smattering of options. You will also, invariably, run across LIMS pundits who offer this advice — seek references before buying a LIMS. It is so popular and so often repeated that we take for granted that it must be true. But this advice on its face is a bunch of nonsensical bunk. If you would like to know why, please read further.
The question is this: can you trust a sample of customer references to identify whether a system is going to work for you? The answer is that It depends upon how you came upon these said references. If you got them from the vendor, what is the likelihood that these references are tainted or selectively chosen? Vendor XYZ is unlikely to include a referral from a client who threw them out on their ear and demanded a refund.
A second option is to do your own research or, “ask around.” But you may find difficulty getting good information here as well due to legal concerns or plain old embarrassment. In the case of the fore, making statements about a company’s products that negatively affect their brand may invite legal action. In the latter case, a poor LIMS decision may be cause for major embarrassment and, as such, there will be a cap on the amount of information dispersed about it.
Lastly, and this is one that is most often ignored, the individual or group providing you with a reference may know so little about the system they are using that they are unqualified to provide any kind of reference at all. These include companies that have not even gone live with the system; groups “down the hall” who hear great things but are not really using it; and groups that did not bother to produce any metrics that establish that the current system is worth the money.
With all these “don’ts” what can you do? Well, the first order of business is to understand that the referral has become outdated for complex software purchases. Yes, you heard correctly — it is out of date. A phone call to a list of previous buyers is going to net you either lukewarm responses or biased ones. It has become a waste of time. You do, however, want to gather CASE STUDIES that are in written form that have actual companies listed in them. Armed with case studies you now have details about the implementation, the problems that were solved, and hopefully some metrics about how important this implementation was to their organization. You will be able to deduce whether the problems your organization is looking to solve are similar to the other organization’s. Your verification process, at that point, is reduced to simply asking someone at the company listed in the case study if the information therein is true and correct.
In today’s LIMS marketplace we lack an entity like Consumer Reports that can independently evaluate the quality of the systems and/or how well they work. You will have to do your own homework with case studies, even if you have to dig up the information yourself.
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