Using search theory to determine an applications selection strategy

The literature on software selection focuses mainly on identifying and ensuring the evaluation of those attributes of alternative commercial software products relevant to meeting the functional and non-functional requirements of the acquiring organisation. Once these attributes are determined, however, the firm acquiring the product must still decide on its selection strategy: which products should be evaluated, in what order, and at what point is it no longer beneficial to continue to evaluate additional products. We applied search theory to solve this problem of determining the selection strategy. This resulted in an optimal strategy but changes the way we view and manage software acquisition. In particular, the approach suggested that software acquisition may be better managed as an ongoing process instead of as a project with a distinct start and end. The approach formally incorporated the strategic importance of the application to the firm in determining the optimal strategy, a consideration that does not appear in the normal requirements-based approach to software selection.