Software consultants to large organizations face many obstacles beyond securing a contract. For a successful engagement, there are four groups of stakeholders whose needs must be met: 1. The scientists who will be using the software provided; 2. The manager or executive who owns the budget; 3. The IT department or informatics team; 4. The legal department. Ignoring the needs of any of these stakeholders can jeopardize a project or your company’s reputation. The key to mitigating risks starts with understanding your client and answering the questions: Is your sponsor organizationally savvy? Does your sponsor have the support of all stakeholders? Are your sponsor’s expectations realistic? Officially, your client is the organization, but your sponsor will be the final arbiter of whether you have met your obligations. Therefore, building a strong relationship based on mutual trust is far more important than trying to enforce a detailed contract. In this presentation, the author will share some of his experiences of engaging providers of scientific software development services for large organizations. He will share tips for qualifying an opportunity sooner and maximizing the likelihood you will meet the needs of all stakeholders.

Perspectives on selling custom software development services to R&D scientists in large organizations

251st National Meeting (2016)

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