Old Codger Talks About the "old days"
Once upon a time, software selection was done by writing a requirements document. This was then used to get a written quotation from a variety of qualified software package vendors, usually three or four vendors. The vendors were told as part of the bid process that they MUST declare one of defined compliance responses for each reqirement ("Meets in full", "Meets in part", "Requires modifications", "Cannot be met"). The vendors are told that the compliance response will become part of the purchase contract if they win the business.
The buyer then runs demonstrations of each package. The buyer also gets written assessments from companies which are already using the software package, to include comments about how much modification the package has needed.
Finally, the buyer chooses a package (or not).
That was then. Today, it's my understanding that writing a "requirements document" is thought to be not only unfashionable, but useless. This report in El Reg would seem to show that there is SOME merit in old fashioned, unfashionable package selection processes. They may take some time, but perhaps they would cost a bit less than £175 million. Just saying!