We can all be a bit thick and stubborn sometimes. And it could be affecting the organization.

We’ve had a competitor of a platform we’ve been using calling twice a day and begging us to let them give us a demo for their new product (which system is irrelevant to this post, let us say it was a cloud-based solution).

We were happy with the way things were and, as a solution reseller myself, I had even gone so far as to recommend it to others, even though we don’t sell that particular solution. We finally gave the vendor the chance… and were blown away by the product’s capabilities, pricing, and integrations. After a couple of weeks, we requested a trial of the solution just to make sure they just had a wonderful demo and it wasn’t all a bunch of marketing BS, but it (so far) operates just like the demo. 

The point is that even though we have been happy with our current provider, we didn’t realize we were missing out and haven’t really been watching out for alternative vendors to see what they’ve been developing – which clearly should be a part of any IT department. 

Of course, I had heard about the solution and even read up on it (and others) a bit, but it didn’t seem different enough from what we currently had to be worth the effort of switching. Both products check all the boxes and have all the features. It wasn’t until I got the demo that I realized how much different the execution is, and how much better the functionality is.

So the suggestion is: next time a vendor pings you and offers a product demo, take a look. Even if you’re not looking for it, you may just wind up realizing what you’re missing out on.

-CHT