Seven kinds of work a buying committee hires out, each with the situation that calls for it, what to put in the engagement letter, and how the work is normally priced. Then the firms whose own sites state they do it — 4 so far, alphabetical, with the page we read on every one.
The guidance on each page is Stackmark’s own and stands whether or not our firm list is long. Fees are described as a shape — fixed fee, day rate, retainer, and which contingent arrangements pull against you — never as an invented rate.
Running the evaluation: turning a long list into a shortlist, scripting the demonstrations so every vendor answers the same questions, and documenting why the decision went the way it did.
Interviewing the people who do the work, writing down what the system has to do, and separating what is genuinely required from what is habit inherited from the current software.
Sitting on your side of the table during the build: holding the integrator to the plan, testing what is delivered against the requirements, and telling you early when a date is not going to hold.
Reading the licence, the order form and the services agreement together, then negotiating the terms that decide what the system costs in year three: uplift caps, user definitions, indirect access, exit and data return.
An independent read of a system or a programme after the fact: whether the software does what was bought, where the risk sits, and — in a dispute — an expert opinion that will stand up outside the organisation.
The work of getting people to use the system as designed: communication, training built on your own processes, and the unglamorous business of finding who has quietly kept a spreadsheet.
Stabilising an implementation that is failing: establishing what is actually built, what the remaining work really is, and whether the sensible move is to finish, restart, or stop.
A firm appears against a service only where its own site names that service. We do not read a general consulting page as a claim to do requirements work, and we do not repeat a claim made only in a press release or a directory listing. Independence is recorded as stated or unstated: 3 of the 4 firms here declare vendor independence on the page we read, and the rest simply do not say, which is not the same as being conflicted.
There are no tiers, no ratings and no paid placement, because nothing here is sold. The list is alphabetical and short on purpose: it grows as we read more sites, not as firms ask to be added.
One gap worth naming: contract and licence negotiation is a service no firm we have read states, so its page carries the guidance and no list.