Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to get philosophical at work. We’re in the last stages of purchasing a very important and revolutionary system for the company, which will change most of the way we do business, and I’m part of the team responsible for the purchase.

The team is divided into 3, a super user and eventually the system administrator (not IT related), his boss and the IT department (where I come in). We evaluated three systems in total, one of which is by far the best but too expensive to consider.

From the remaining two systems one is basic and lacks most of the advanced functionality while the other one is more powerful, complex and expensive. From a personal perspective I would defiantly go for the second option since I was too unimpressed by the first, but the super user is much more in favour of the more basic system. His boss is undecided because he likes the better system yet at the same time he thinks that our company is so small and inexperienced that we should start with a basic product then upgrade in the future. I don’t agree with this approach and reasoning, because I’m sure that a basic system will bring along basic work practices which will not result in anything significant enough to warrant the purchase in the first place.

In this context who has the right to choose the software; the super user representing the final user, the boss who is supposed to know which product will return the best benefit or the IT man who knows which is the best technical system?