About
A method, and a disclosure
What this site publishes, what it deliberately does not, and how product examples are handled.
Shortlist publishes guides on how organisations choose business software: working out what the problem actually is, narrowing a field to three candidates, running a trial that can produce a no, arriving at a five-year cost, and finding out afterwards whether the purchase changed anything.
Why there are no rankings here
Comparison sites publish scores, league tables and best-of lists. We do not, for two reasons.
The first is that a ranking cannot be correct for a reader whose constraints are unknown. The right product depends on the shape of your organisation, your data, your budget model, who has to use it and what you already run. A site that does not know any of that cannot rank anything for you; it can only rank things for an average that does not exist.
The second is structural. Ranking sites are almost always paid for by the products being ranked, through affiliate commission or placement fees, and the incentive that creates is not compatible with telling you that the cheapest option is fine or that you should not buy anything. We would have that incentive too, which is the third reason to stay out of it.
The method: questions to ask, tests to run, costs to count, and the specific places where selections go wrong. What it does not publish: scores, rankings, product reviews, comparison tables of named vendors, or recommendations.
Who it is written for
Organisations without a procurement function. A team of twenty choosing their first proper system. An operations manager who has been asked to sort this out alongside their real job. Anyone who has been handed a shortlist somebody else assembled and is not sure how it was arrived at.
Most published guidance on software selection assumes a procurement department, a formal tender process and an analyst firm on retainer. Very little of it survives contact with a small organisation making a decision in six weeks.
What this site is not
- Not a review site, a comparison engine or a directory. No product is scored, ranked or recommended.
- Not a consultancy. Nothing is sold here and no services are offered.
- Not a reseller or affiliate. Product examples are editorial references rather than referral arrangements.
- The current publication is independent of earlier material that may have existed on this domain; old URLs are handled only for continuity and redirection.
On the advice given here
These guides describe common practice and are written in general terms. Contract terms, data protection obligations, procurement rules and tax treatment differ by jurisdiction and by sector, and change over time. Nothing here is legal, procurement or financial advice; anything with a material commitment attached warrants qualified advice on your own situation.
How the guides are put together
Each guide deals with one step and tries to answer it at a level someone could act on: what to decide, what to ask, what to measure and what it costs. Where a recommendation has a cost — and most do — the cost is stated rather than omitted.
Guides are revised when practice changes rather than on a schedule. The full list is in the index.
For a broader independent reference on technology risk, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework provides a public framework.
For additional independent context on cloud-service risk, NCSC cloud guidance provides public guidance.