ABSTRACT: This guide provides a step-by-step framework to assess vendors, align priorities, and make informed decisions about enterprise data and analytics tools.

Read time: 8 mins.

There are hundreds of data & analytics products on the market today. How do you choose the right one for your organization? How do you convince colleagues and division heads to endorse a new enterprise tooling standard? This article describes a methodology that Eckerson Group uses to assist clients in evaluating and selecting various types of data & analytics products.  (For a shorter two-page outline of the methodology, click here.)

Why Should You Conduct a Formal Evaluation?

A formal evaluation process helps decision-makers align on priorities, validate vendor claims, and mitigate long-term risks—ensuring the chosen enterprise tool fits both business and IT requirements. 

There are three reasons why you should undertake a formal evaluation process: 

• Gain Stakeholder Buy-in – The primary reason is to achieve consensus among individuals and teams that will use the tool. This becomes challenging if some already use another tool and want it to become the enterprise standard. 

• Find the Right Product – When no one has prior experience with a technology, then, an evaluation process is a great way to educate key stakeholders about the technology and find a tool that aligns with the organization’s requirements. 

• Mitigating Organizational Risk – A formal evaluation helps avoid cost overruns, security risks, and poor adoption by validating vendor claims, ensuring compliance, and identifying long-term costs.

When Can You Avoid a Formal Evaluation?

Not every technology purchase requires a structured evaluation. Organizations can bypass a full evaluation if: 

• If They're Alpha or Beta Testing a Product – This fast-tracks a decision by moving directly to a proof-of-concept phase. This works if you have staff with time to do this testing in a rigorous way that addresses enterprise needs.

• They've Hired a Third Party to Build and Run Your Data Environment – If your staff won’t use the tool directly, then it makes sense to let the service provider decide as long as they make a strong case of why it’s the best product for your organization. 

• If It’s a Local or Departmental Purchase – Departments have smaller and more homogeneous user bases, so there may not be as much of a need for a formal evaluation process, especially if there is no enterprise standard. However, even local purchases have a long shelf-life, so department heads may still want to ensure they’re getting the right product for the job. 

Common Pitfalls & Roadblocks in Evaluations

Despite best intentions, organizations often encounter challenges during the selection process. Without a structured approach, teams may struggle to balance technical and business priorities and fail to reach consensus.

• Lack of Clear Use Cases - Evaluation teams need to define business use cases in which the tool will be used to flesh out requirements and provide fodder for proofs of concept testing. 

• Lack of Clear Evaluation Criteria – Evaluating tools without clear objectives and criteria leads to misaligned expectations and wasted effort.

• "Johnny Come Latelies" – Late involvement of decision-makers can disrupt progress and introduce new priorities.

• Unexpected Costs – Vendors may disclose full pricing only after selection, leading to budget overruns.

• Overcomplicated Criteria – A long checklist of features can slow decision-making without adding real value. A structured evaluation helps organizations focus on key priorities rather than being distracted by excessive, unnecessary comparisons.

How Long Does It Take to Conduct an Evaluation Process?

The evaluation timeline depends on many factors, including vendor responsiveness, stakeholder availability, and governance requirements:

• 1 Month or Less – If evaluating a departmental tool with minimal integration needs, a lightweight process may be sufficient.

• 3 Months – A typical evaluation takes 3 months when a team shortlists three products for review and conducts a proof of concept of one chosen product. 

• 3+ Months – When the evaluation team shortlists more than 3 products for vendor interviews and decides to test more than one product in a proof-of-concept, then the process can take more than 3 months. 

How to Conduct a Structured Evaluation

Understand Stakeholder Needs

A successful evaluation involves a range of users, from technical teams to business professionals. Engaging stakeholders early ensures alignment across departments and helps prevent conflicting priorities later in the process.

• End Users – They provide insights into usability, functionality, and day-to-day impact. Their feedback helps identify must-have features and potential adoption barriers.

• Decision-Makers – Department heads and executives ensure alignment with strategic and financial goals. Their involvement prevents costly missteps and guarantees that the tool fits long-term business objectives.

• Data Architects & Security Teams – These teams validate integration, security, and compliance requirements from the start. Ignoring their input can lead to security risks and implementation challenges.

Conducting user interviews helps uncover pain points, technical needs, and operational gaps. Mapping these insights to user personas ensures that the selection criteria reflect both technical and business priorities, preventing mismatched expectations and underutilized tools.

Gather User Requirements and Prioritize Key Features

• Conduct Research on the Technology and Products: Compile a Superset of Criteria and Products - Start by researching the technology landscape, and identifying major vendors, emerging trends, and industry benchmarks. At this stage, compile a broad list of available solutions along with key evaluation criteria that matter for your use case. This ensures a comprehensive starting point before filtering options down.

• Gather User Requirements and Use Cases: Sort by Persona & Prioritize by “Must Have” and “Nice to Have” - Identify how different personas—such as business users, analysts, and IT teams—will interact with the tool. Gather input from stakeholders to define key use cases and separate requirements into essential “must-have” features and optional “nice-to-have” functionalities. Teams often formalize these criteria in an evaluation spreadsheet, sometimes weighting them based on their importance to the organization. (See Eckerson Group’s Evaluation Worksheets.)

• Gather Company Requirements: Architecture, Price, Preferred Vendors, Support Needs - Consider organizational constraints such as budget, existing technology stack, preferred vendor partnerships, and long-term support requirements. These factors help ensure that the selected tool aligns with enterprise-wide policies and strategic objectives.

• Filter Technology Criteria by Requirements: Create a Prioritized List of Criteria - Based on user and company needs, refine the list of evaluation criteria and assign weightings to essential features. This structured approach helps eliminate unsuitable options early and provides a clear foundation for vendor comparisons.

Create a Shortlist and Conduct Vendor Evaluations

• Create a Short List of 3 to 4 Products by Eliminating Products Missing a “Must Have” – Filter out solutions that fail to meet essential “must-have” criteria, narrowing the vendor list to a manageable set of strong contenders.

• Create an RFI for Vendors and Request a 3-Hour Meeting – Develop a Request for Information (RFI) to gather detailed insights on vendor capabilities, technical specifications, and pricing models. Schedule a dedicated session with each vendor for an in-depth discussion and demonstration.

• Create a Vendor Evaluation Form and Explain the Process to Vendors & the Evaluation Team – Standardize assessment by preparing a structured evaluation form. Ensure both vendors and internal stakeholders understand the process, scoring criteria, and expectations.

• Schedule and Conduct Demos, Then Compile and Present Results – Arrange vendor demos to assess usability, integration, and alignment with key use cases. Collect structured feedback from the evaluation team and present findings in a comparative format.

• Evaluation Team Selects One Product for a POC – Based on demo results and evaluations, choose the most promising product for a proof of concept (POC) to validate real-world performance before final selection.

Validating Through a Proof of Concept (POC)

A proof of concept (POC) helps organizations validate whether a tool meets their real-world needs before full deployment. A POC can help organizations avoid discovering too late that the tool lacked critical integration capabilities or required extensive manual workarounds. 

For example, companies that rushed into AI/ML platforms without testing often found that their models required far more data engineering effort than anticipated, leading to costly rework and adoption delays. While vendor demos showcase the best-case scenario, a POC allows teams to test the tool in their environment with their use cases to assess usability, integration, and governance requirements.

However, a POC may not always be necessary. If the tool is straightforward, offers a flexible trial period, or has been successfully implemented in a similar organization, teams may opt to move directly to implementation. On the other hand, for complex integrations, enterprise-wide use, or tools requiring long-term commitments, a POC helps mitigate risks and validate assumptions.

Assessing Long-Term Viability

Selecting a tool isn’t just about meeting today’s needs—it’s about ensuring the product and vendor offer a good fit in the future. 

We’ve noticed that how a vendor interacts with an evaluation team provides insight into how the vendor will support your team post-contract. Some vendors are eager to partner and provide exemplary responsiveness during the evaluation and selection process. Other vendors might coast on their market size and prove less attentive to evaluation teams. How the vendor navigates the selection process should be part of the evaluation! 

Organizations should also evaluate vendor roadmaps, scalability, and support for evolving business and technology needs. A tool that fits well now but lacks the flexibility to grow with the enterprise may require rework or replacement down the road. Here are some tips to understand whether the product is future-proofed:  

• Vendor Commitment to Innovation – Review product roadmaps and investment in R&D to help assess whether a vendor is committed to long-term improvements.

• Integration with Future Technologies – Make sure the product is compatible with evolving cloud architectures, AI capabilities, and automation frameworks.

• Community and Ecosystem Support – Evaluate whether the vendor has a thriving user base, third-party integrations, and vendor partnerships.

By taking these factors into account, organizations can make informed choices that sustain business growth and minimize cost.

The Next Step: Beyond Selection to Sustainable Adoption

This evaluation framework is part of Eckerson Group’s proven tool selection methodology, designed to help organizations cut through vendor hype, avoid common pitfalls, and choose solutions that stand the test of time. If you’re ready to take the next step, download our Tool Evaluation Framework and start the process today.

But the selection is just the beginning. Sustainable adoption requires a smooth transition from evaluation to implementation—where tools are chosen and effectively integrated into workflows, governance structures, and long-term enterprise strategy. Eckerson Group helps organizations bridge this gap, ensuring technology investments translate into real business impact rather than sitting unused or underutilized.

Our team has guided enterprises, universities, and nonprofits through complex selection processes—ensuring alignment between business, IT, and long-term strategy. Let’s connect over a discovery call.