What buyers asked vendors before signing, what they put in writing, and how formal the evaluation actually got. Built from verified buyer interviews — not vendor material, and not a template pack.
The questions buyers say actually decided it — and the ones they wish they had asked at the demo.
Most of what buyers regret was knowable at the demo. The questions that surface it.
Three things to make a vendor prove in a sandbox, four to get in writing — and why the renewal date starts the clock.
Where buyers describe a real RFP in enough detail to be useful — its sections, and the selection that runs around it.
Five or six vendors, an RFP to three, two finalists — and two committees that both have to say yes.
Eight sections — after the question that comes first: whether you’re buying at all. Plus who signs, and the risk the document never covers.
Where the artefact buyers describe is a business case rather than an RFP, and the process is what matters.
The parts of a purchase buyers describe running: what they asked vendors and which answers changed their mind, what they put in writing before signing, who had to approve it, and where the process caught a problem late. Each guide covers one software category, because what a purchase demands differs sharply between them — the questions that decide an email platform are not the ones that decide a customer data platform.
Yes. Every guide is built from Alium’s own interviews with verified software buyers — the people who ran the evaluation, not vendors describing how they wish it went and not advice assembled from public sources. Buyers are verified at interview time as someone who selects or operates the software, then anonymized before publication.
Buyers describe a spend line above which their company requires a formal RFP, and where that line sits varies enormously between companies — far more than the category being bought. The same team can run a two-week decision on one tool and a months-long committee process on another. So the honest answer is that your own organization has already decided this, and the useful question is which internal threshold your purchase clears.
No, and that is deliberate. A downloadable template would suggest every category has a standard document behind it, and buyers do not describe one. Where they describe the sections of a document in enough detail to be useful, the guide sets out those sections. Where they describe a process rather than a document, the guide covers the process and says so.
Running an evaluation now and want this against your own situation? Do a 15-minute interview and get a personalized read — how formal a process your purchase actually warrants, and what peers at your size pressed vendors on.
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