Name/address/contact?

When is your company founded?

To give you an idea about the stability of the vendor. Just founded? Always risky. Perhaps it's a follow-up from a company that went bankrupt… Still same management?

What is the company's legal form (e.g. ltd.)?

Is management personally liable? Does it have a stock exchange notation?

Who is the owner?

Who's in the end calling all the shots?

What are your annual earnings?

Gives you a fair indication about the size of the company, again to judge its stability for the long term.

Can you supply us with an annual report?

Some proof is always nice.

Can you provide a brief description of your organization structure?

Is it all the same corporation, or are there separate legal entities? Who does what?

How many employees does your company currently have?

Again, to judge size and stability.

What are the core activities of your company?

Are they a niche player, or do they everything that provides them money? Niche player is great for market knowledge, but makes them more vulnerable for market swings; more activities make them a little more stable.

How long are you active in the field of our interest?

Do they know the biz, or is it a new kid on the block?

How many employees are dedicated to the product you can offer to us?

It's nice that they might have 1000 employees, but if only 1 of them is actually dedicated to your product, you have a problem in product continuity.

How is your support organized in our country?

Do you have a helpdesk, and what are their opening hours, and what is their response time?

Do you develop other products?

Same as the question about the core activities.

How many employees are in your development team?

For the long run you have to get the continuity of the product from the development team; it's nice they have sales people, but you don't have any use for them after you go live.

Could you provide us with references, and a short description on the size of the implementations?

They still are the best resources of information. Also check what versions they are running of the system. It's nice that you talk with them about them same system.

How do you provide training?

How do you provide documentation?

How performs the actual implementation of the system?

Does their approach look a little professional? Do they make the impression they know what they are doing?

Are third parties involved in the project you offer?

If yes, please specify name, task and responsibility.

Be aware of subcontracting… You might judge just the front, and perhaps not the people who will do the actual work!

Are you prepared to take the project responsibility?

Do they put their money where their mouth is?