I was contacted by a potential new client about building a web site for them. They’re a pretty big company, so, like all big companies, they have a Process for bidding on projects. In this case, they won’t even tell me precisely what kind of web site they need until I’ve completed a company profile on a system called Ariba.
From what I can tell, Ariba is a tool intended to let companies like this engage companies like mine as contractors. So, fine, I went ahead and filled out the profile. It was onerous and pretty invasive– asking for financial information, proof of liability insurance, employment histories, and so forth. But hey, this is a big company and maybe that means big bucks for a web project, so I forged ahead.
Half an hour later, after I’d submitted the profile, Ariba informed me that based on my company profile, there were 18 other companies who were looking for contracts I could fulfill! Yay!
Curious, I clicked to learn more.
Ha ha, just kidding, Zing Studios! You’re such a sucker.
Nice, Ariba. I just hope this is worth the effort.