Decision Making in Computer Vendor Selection Process

Abstract: With the rapid technology changes in today\u27s world companies that depend on technology need to strategically choose and plan their technology path in order to maintain competitive advantage and avoid any future problems. In this case we have a company that uses PC computers as a backbone of the information technology and main medium for their business operations. Due to current economical changes, and the obsolescence of the current generation of PC computers the company has decided to upgrade their current computer system in order to stay current with technology and also incorporate the technology with the corporate strategy. In the past they just purchased computers from random vendors and each department had their own preference. This caused a big problem for the company\u27s internal technical support team because they had to deal with multiple vendors and multiple computing platforms. This caused software and hardware incompatibility and some systems worked better than others. The board of directors has identified this as a problem and wishes to replace the current computer systems from one selected computer vendor that will meet their expectations. Their strategy encompasses a standardized computer system with well-defined rules for support and maintenance. Our team assessed the company\u27s expectations and did a computer vendor research in order to meet company expectations and find the best possible solution for the give situation. We have identified two major orientations of our client and five possible vendors that we will explore using pair-wise comparisons. Our client intends to replace their current diverse computer system with a single vendor platform. This is going to span through the next couple years and making the right decision is imperative. Due to the variety of the computer vendors we will go through a decision making process in selecting the appropriate platform while keeping in mind our clients needs and want