CIOs are seeking to reduce the risk associated with investing in mission-critical enterprise applications and gain control over how vendor offerings are evaluated and selected. IT investments are no longer allowed to fail and must work correctly the first time. This session will discuss practical considerations surrounding evaluating enterprise applications and provide alternative approaches. The goal of the session will be to walk away with a framework for conducting evaluations of both packaged solutions and in-house developed systems that will work in an efficient disciplined manner. Some of the topics to be discussed include:

• Common challenges that enterprises face during evaluations 
•  Practical considerations methodology to ensure a comprehensive assessment of vendors and in-house developed alternatives
•   A discussion of criteria that should be used for analyzing a set of vendors and their offerings
•   Why industry analysts are not providing recommendations that have consistent integrity