Good Software Deals Improve BT Project ROI, Not Merely Reduce Cost

This report describes the metrics that form part of Forrester's solution for sourcing and vendor management executives who are moving to strategic software sourcing. Too many sourcing executives lead their software buyers astray by measuring them primarily on price savings while giving insufficient weight to other important contract attributes. The result is a great price, but a bad deal. This report will explain why it is so important to look beyond the so-called "benchmark" discount when assessing a software purchase and what other qualities you should measure. This report is an update to the January 2, 2013 "Good Software Deals Balance Price, Flexibility, And Risk Mitigation" report. We have added analysis of the commercial model's likely impact on project outcomes to the list of evaluation metrics to better align it with Forrester's Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) methodology.