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Research and business strategy

Vendor screening

Identify a vendor landscape and screen candidates against confirmed acceptance criteria before deep evaluation. Use for vendor shortlist, which vendors to consider, help pick a CRM or platform, supplier landscape, or pass/fail vendor screen. Produces a cited shortlist with rejection themes and research gaps; it does not select, buy, or contract with a vendor.

Works with the context you provideVersion 3.1.0

# Vendor screening

Use this two-phase method to narrow a broad market to candidates worth deeper evaluation. Keep the screen separate from a final recommendation: it answers who clears must-haves, not who should be selected.

Phase 1: clarify before researching

Gather the use case, users, current systems, integration needs, deployment and security constraints, geography, budget signals, timing, and deal-breakers. Ask in small batches. Turn the result into:

  • three to five must-haves, used as acceptance criteria;
  • three to five nice-to-haves, saved as evaluation criteria for a later deep dive; and
  • explicit deal-breakers.

Summarize these criteria and obtain confirmation before market research.

Phase 2: screen the landscape

  1. Build a candidate set from official vendor sources, independent market coverage, peer-review aggregators, relevant directories, and sources specific to confirmed constraints. Aim for breadth before deep research.
  2. Capture each candidate's category positioning, target customer, deployment model, integration evidence, commercial model, public pricing or quote-required language, and source URL.
  3. Apply every must-have consistently. Mark each as `Meets`, `Doesn't Meet`, or `Unclear`; treat `Unclear` as non-advancing while recording the gap.
  4. Advance only candidates that meet every must-have.
  5. Group rejected candidates by reason rather than writing a long list in the summary. Keep individual rationale in an appendix or evidence table.
  6. For advancing candidates with thin decision-critical evidence, prescribe a specific follow-up such as a reference call, proof of concept, security questionnaire, or vendor briefing, and name the question it answers.

Evidence and gate discipline

Separate acceptance criteria from evaluation criteria: acceptance criteria are non-negotiable pass/fail gates; evaluation criteria compare candidates that clear them. Use a common evidence record for every candidate with source, checked date, claim status, and uncertainty. A vendor claim or a missing answer is not a pass. Do not use a weighted score to rescue a failed gate.

Keep the source hierarchy explicit: supplied first-party requirements and contractual facts, official vendor material, attributable customer evidence, independent coverage, then discovery-only directories. Preserve conflicting evidence and name the exact follow-up needed to resolve it. The screen produces an advancing set and a handoff to deep evaluation, not a final selection.

Output

```markdown # [Use case] vendor screen ## Decision and confirmed criteria ## Advancing vendors ## Rejection themes ## Thin-data flags and follow-ups ## Recommended next step ## Sources ## Appendix: per-vendor rationale ```

Before a durable or client-facing write, present the advancing vendors, rejection-theme counts, and thin-data flags for confirmation. Cite external claims inline and list sources with short descriptors. Do not perform procurement, contracting, system configuration, or a system-of-record write; return a proposed handoff to the authorized owner.