OSS Awards - "Brochureware" or Useful Guidance? By Barbara Lancaster, President LTC International

When the new crop of cars appears each year, the car journalists all respond with "Best of" awards that skeptics sometimes think are closely related to how many free days each writer gets to keep driving each car. Or how much advertising the car manufacturer buys in the magazine, or perhaps some other incentive that is not quite so obvious. Nevertheless, "Best of" helps sell specific models of cars. With far less fan fare, consumers can figure out just how well those "best of" models really are performing, two, three or four years later.

An investment in an OSS application has far more impact on a service provider's future than buying a car does for the typical consumer. Get a lemon? There are laws on the books that even make it possible to turn in that "bad" car for a "good" one. Just try that with an OSS purchase.

Yet, each year, we have more "Best of" OSS awards. Just how much credibility should accrue to an award winner? Just how much should winning an award displace a service provider's own due diligence? The answers to these questions are not nearly as clear cut as they are for cars. At least with cars, every person with some driving experience has a good checklist of things the car should, and should not, do. With the basics firmly in place, it becomes a question of style preferences, price, finish, handling and ride characteristics, etc. Things that can be assessed in a hands-on drive test, all without signing even so much as a Letter of Intent. So what weight should accrue to OSS award winners?

The answer in my experience is: not a whole lot. Having been a member of the jury for one prestigious award series for the past two years, I can tell you that it is very hard work. The judges put in a tremendous number of volunteer hours shifting through the nominations, checking facts, comparing notes, talking with other sources, etc. I can also tell you that the panel members try hard to be open-minded and to leave their allegiances at the door. I can definitely attest to the fact that the winner is not necessarily the vendor who buys the best lunch or dinner, or other such perquisite. On the other hand, the nominees are not subject to the type of deep due diligence and thorough fact checking that a service provider must do to select the right solution for their business problem. Winners get chosen based on their ability to present a good case, and the experience of each member of the panel to be able to determine the line between fact and brochureware.

Clearly, winning an award cannot be any substitute for customers or potential partners own leg work. So, what's wrong with the process?

First of all, it's self-nomination. That means that companies with good PR groups and some spare Marketing budget are typically the nominees. Many other vendors who also have excellent products and excellent project delivery track records just don't bother to fill in the forms and start connecting with the jury.

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