Core requirements and constraints

Where it is certain, or highly likely, that you will be entering into a procurement process it is worth identifying any fixed constraints before looking further at your detailed requirements. The kind of things you might want to consider are:

• general requirements about the kind of supplier your institution is prepared to do business with;
• your IT architecture strategy and any constraints this might impose on the type of products you are able to consider;
• the existence of a fixed timescale - this might happen if your existing supplier is withdrawing support for a particular product.