Strategy · March 2026 · 7 min
The quiet cost of a rushed selection
A favored vendor is not a sin. Pretending the favor was a process is expensive.
Most selections we are asked to repair were not careless. They were kind. A team already knew the vendor, the calendar was unkind, and a structured process looked like delay. The demos were polite. The contract was signed. The trouble arrived when the first real transaction — the one the demo never ran — met the design.
A favored vendor can still be the right vendor. The cost is in skipping the record. Without scenarios, weights, and a note of what was declined, every later argument reopens the whole choice. Implementation becomes a second selection, conducted under worse conditions, with the license already paid.
The remedy is not a longer bake-off. It is a shorter, harder one. Three vendors. The same scripts, taken from your close, your order, your plant, or your store. A commercial comparison that includes your own people. A decision record that names the dissent instead of sanding it off.
If you already signed, do not perform a fake reselection to soothe a steering group. Write the record retrospectively: what this platform is for, what it is not for, and which risks you are now accepting on purpose. Programs calm down when the choice stops being a matter of opinion.