The evaluation went well enough. You checked the seven things, sent the note upward, and the answer came back the way it usually does: "Sounds good, let's move forward." Then the vendor sent a contract. It is for twelve months, it renews automatically, and the price assumes every person on your team uses the tool every day.
Nobody in that chain was wrong, exactly. Your boss wanted progress, the vendor wanted a signature, and the contract is simply the shape vendors prefer. It is also the shape that turns a promising demo into a line item you are still defending next September.
Here is where I land on it. "Move forward" does not have to mean "sign for a year." It can mean a short, paid pilot with six terms written down before anyone starts: what it covers, how you'll judge it, when you'll decide, what it costs, what happens to your data, and how you walk away. Vendors agree to this more often than people expect, because a well-run pilot is their best path to the big contract too. The managers who ask for it look careful rather than difficult, and the ones who don't ask usually end up owning the renewal.
