Proof of concept vs pilot: what the agreement leaves out

01

Proof of concept vs pilot: what each tests

A proof of concept tests whether the product works in the customer’s environment.

Common Paper describes a pilot agreement as a short-term contract to try a product or service before a longer-term deal, and also uses the names trial and evaluation. Whatever it is called, its end provisions decide what happens next.

EU and US procurement rules write the step after development or testing into the rule itself, and they bind public bodies only, not a private software purchase.

02

What a pilot agreement covers

Common Paper’s pilot terms govern the trial itself. They cover access and licence, permitted use, customer data, feedback, warranty and liability, confidentiality, and how the period ends.

Common Paper’s Pilot Agreement, a standard form anyone may use under CC BY 4.0, limits use to testing and evaluating the product “to determine whether to enter into a Definitive Agreement”, which it defines as a separate agreement for longer-term access. Its cover page has rows for the product, the start date, the length of the pilot, the fees, the governing law and courts, a liability cap, a data processing agreement and support, and none for the result that would lead to the next agreement.

03

Standalone pilot or pilot period: who must act at the end

Common Paper’s standalone pilot ends access without a Definitive Agreement; its CSA pilot option starts the subscription automatically. The CSA cover page offers an example modification allowing termination during the pilot by notice. Whether that option is available depends on the wording of the completed agreement.

If the customer elects to purchase at Arcserve’s current MSRP before the evaluation ends, its trial account converts to a production account. Netgate’s one-year licence instead follows continued use after the evaluation without its prior written permission, at the fee paid by similar licensees.

The end of access can also affect the evidence available for the buying decision. Arcserve’s agreement says cloud data will be deleted at the end of evaluation, with possible retention if the customer elects to purchase at its current MSRP before the period ends. Under Common Paper’s standalone pilot, if there is no Definitive Agreement, the provider deletes customer content within 60 days at the customer’s request.

04

What evaluation agreements say about the results

Some evaluation agreements limit what the customer may do with the results.

Under Precisely’s Evaluation Agreement, the customer agrees “not to disclose to any third party the results of any comparisons made between the Licensed Products and any competitive offerings”. Arcserve’s agreement requires written consent to “publish or release benchmarks or other comparisons”. Netgate lists “test results” as confidential information, subject to its stated exceptions. When a pilot is one of several in a vendor comparison, read those clauses before the results go into a report that leaves the company.

05

When the buyer brings its own proof of concept paper

A buyer’s own proof of concept agreement can bring its supplier controls into the proof.

Barclays’ agreement has a cover page for the project, the outputs and key dates, a project manager on each side and the charges, and a list of Barclays Policies to tick, among them cyber risk, data privacy and information security control obligations. Work beyond the project needs another agreement, which the parties will negotiate in good faith, “but neither party shall be obliged to enter into such further agreement.”

For the seller, the policies ticked on that cover page form a binding part of the agreement for the proof itself. Find out which ones apply before the proof is scheduled.

06

What the agreement leaves to the buying decision

The standard texts of these named pilot and evaluation agreements do not identify the customer’s agreed business outcomes, buying decision-maker or decision date.

Exabeam’s pilot runs “in accordance with test criteria mutually agreed to by the parties”, without saying where those criteria are written. Xage’s order form can be a “Proof of Concept Playbook specifying details of the proof of concept and Customer’s evaluation”, and an acceptance test set there covers the deliverables of Xage’s evaluation services, not the customer’s decision to buy. Rancher Government Solutions sends a formalized long-term proof of concept to a statement of work covering scope, deliverables, schedule, support levels and response times, and Barclays’ cover page has fields for the project’s outputs and key dates.

In a signed deal, those details may sit in the completed order form, a schedule or a project plan, so check those documents before treating them as missing.

07

What to write beside the pilot agreement

Before the pilot starts, write down beside the agreement what result counts as success, who decides, by when, and what follows.

Those are the points a Proof of Value settles before technical validation: two to four business outcomes, in the customer’s own words, agreed by the economic buyer; success criteria written down and agreed with the people who will judge the result; and a go or no-go, in which the account executive and the Sales Engineer confirm with the economic buyer that “the outcomes, the timeline and the step after a successful proof are agreed before technical validation begins.” The customer’s steps toward the decision, each with an owner and a date, belong in a mutual action plan.

Keep the buyer’s agreed decision date separate from the pilot’s end date. For an automatic transition, check the completed terms for any right to stop it and any notice deadline. If continued access is needed, letting the pilot end before deciding may leave a gap.