Want to avoid getting locked in with the wrong vendor? Learn the key red and green flags to watch for, plus expert insights to help you choose with confidence.
It’s not just dating that calls for spotting red and green flags 🚩
When you’re evaluating software vendors for your business, you’re assessing whether this will become a healthy partnership – one that supports your growth and goals – or a slow slide into a toxic relationship where nothing works, frustration builds, and you eventually feel trapped.
And just like a messy breakup, parting ways with a bad vendor can be painful, disruptive, and expensive. The smartest move is to avoid getting entangled with the wrong partner in the first place.
So how do you tell the difference between a good vendor and a bad vendor? What warning signs should raise your guard, and what green flags signal a trustworthy, collaborative relationship from day one?
To explore this question, we turned to the expertise of Csaba Muha, Head of Governance and Operations, APAC at Ollion.
With more than a decade of experience evaluating software vendors across a wide range of use cases – and fresh from implementing Runn at Ollion – Csaba has seen firsthand what makes a vendor partnership thrive or fail.
If you’re curious about the full story of Runn and Ollion, check out the case study ➡️
And if you’re short on time, skip to the tl;dr ➡️
If a vendor won’t let you roll up your sleeves and actually test the product – properly, hands-on, at your own pace – that’s a serious red flag.
As Csaba points out, you need the freedom to validate your own requirements and stress-test the tool with real data and in real scenarios. Without that, you’re likely to discover incompatibilities far too late:
Get your requirements straight, and in your assessment, and when you are doing selections, ask the vendor for hands-on tryout…and don't even consider a tool if you don't have the chance to try it out, because you're going to run into incompatibilities very, very soon.
“Try and buy” is always more convincing than listening to well-tailored presentations and demos with pre-sales experts. They know what to hide.”
If a vendor is really confident in their product, they won’t try to downplay the importance of your requirements and your specific organizational context, and they won’t have a problem with letting you test it thoroughly before you commit.
Another major warning sign is when a vendor isn’t transparent about how your data is stored, secured, or accessed.
In 2025, this should be non-negotiable – any reputable software partner should make it crystal clear that you own and control your data. And if they can’t, that’s a red flag you can’t ignore.
If every little change requires vendor intervention or custom code, you’re setting yourself up for bottlenecks. It should be possible to make small adjustments like renaming cost centers, updating reporting lines, or adjusting roles without needing the vendor to get involved.
After all, your business will evolve over time, and if your software can’t keep up without constant outside help, that’s a serious limitation. Pay attention to the administrative capabilities that the tool gives you.
You wouldn’t marry someone you just met, so why would you agree to a five year contract with a new software vendor before you’ve lived with them for a while?
If vendors are pushing long-term licenses or heavy upfront payments, that's another big red flag.
That approach might have worked a decade ago, but in today's environment? This approach signals an outdated mindset as well as a lack of concern for your priorities.
Any trustworthy vendor should allow you to prove value first before you start looking at long-term, multi-year commitment.
Another red flag to look out for is when a vendor’s technology could create unnecessary dependency on rare or proprietary skills.
If the software can only be maintained or modified by a handful of specialists – or worse, a single person – you’re essentially trapped.
Should that person leave, you could face serious operational issues, even failing audits because no one else can manage the system. As Csaba puts it, that’s a “hostage situation,” and it’s absolutely something to avoid if you can.
Watch out for factors like proprietary languages, closed or non-exportable data structures, and poor API documentation that could restrict you from a technical perspective.
With the red flags out of the way, it’s time to turn our attention to something a little more positive – the green flags.
What are some promising signs that you’ve found a vendor who could be a great fit for your organization?
To dig into this, we’ll turn it over to Csaba:
If a vendor really takes the time to understand your requirements, your context, and the way your business works, that’s a green flag.
After all, when you enter into the process of evaluating software vendors, you're not simply shaking things up for the sake of it – you’re looking for a tool to solve a particular problem or set of problems.
Good software vendors will want to work with you to ensure that their tool isn’t just sticking a band-aid on the issues, but genuinely providing a solution.
They will also recognize that getting real value out of a software solution takes time, and plan for this by offering meaningful support through implementation, migration, onboarding, and training.
Further reading: Take a look at the Resource Management Maturity framework 📕 we often use when working with organizations that want to refine and optimize their resource management processes. It help us ensure that we're delivering impactful, lasting change.
A vendor who offers trial periods, pilot programs, or sandbox implementations before full activation is showing they value a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship.
They’re not trying to lock you in and treat your organization like a cash cow. They respect that you know what you're looking for, and they are focused on building trust and demonstrating value as a priority.
Strong relationships can weather changes and challenges. A good vendor will understand that your needs will grow and change over time, and they will actually want to stick with you through the changes.
Tools and processes should grow with you, rather than becoming a hindrance that gets in the way of growth. Once again, flexibility is a really key point here – you don’t want to be stuck constantly re-negotiating contracts or waiting on custom development.
If your team is able to make essential changes independently without having to touch the code-base, that’s a green flag for a solution that will be able to flex and grow with your business over time.
Evaluating software vendors can feel overwhelming. There are endless meetings to schedule, requirements to gather, demos to attend, and stakeholders to align.
And throughout it all, you’ve got to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism – to see past the polished sales pitch and get down to the real question: Does this tool actually meet our needs?
If you want a deeper look into how an experienced leader approaches this process, watch the full webinar with Csaba Muha.
He goes into detail about how he navigated vendor selection when choosing resource management software for Ollion, sharing his framework and processes, and discussing what ultimately led him to choose Runn 👋
Not to blow our own horn, but we take pride in being transparent and providing an exceptional level of service.
We don’t hide our platform or our pricing behind multiple layers of sales calls and discovery meetings. In fact, we encourage you to jump into Runn and have a look for yourself – start a free trial now ➡️
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