Dealership technology vendor scorecard

What to check before you decide

Assign weights. Decide how much each group matters, and keep the total at one hundred.

If security and the DMS connection are non-negotiable, treat them as pass or fail gates before scoring begins. Do this with the people who will use the tool, and write the weights down.

Define the scale. A score of five should mean verified in your environment with your data.

Three might mean demonstrated by the vendor. One might mean promised.

Zero is absent. Separate verified capability from marketing, roadmap and assumption, and mark which is which.

Score independently. Have each evaluator score alone, then compare.

Where scores differ widely, discuss and find what each saw. Average the scores, and keep the notes.

Include cost as a number, not an impression. Use the total cost model from your pricing work, and score it by formula.

Review the result with a skeptical eye. If the top vendor wins on features you rated low, ask why. Check that the scores match your own notes from references and pilots.

File the scorecard with the date and the names of the scorers. It becomes evidence at renewal.

Review the scorecard with someone outside the buying team, such as the controller or the dealer principal, and ask them to find a weight or score that looks wrong, because an independent reader quickly spots when a criterion was added to favor a preferred vendor, and the exercise makes the final decision easier to defend.