Validating the Wildcard: How Data-Driven Selection Enabled Innovation at INMA

INMA's technology selection process came down to a strategic crossroads. After narrowing the field, two finalists remained: a well-established, brand-name vendor, and a "wildcard-" a newer, international platform that aligned closely with INMA's culture and future goals but lacked the same name recognition. Choosing the wildcard meant the team would need to bring hard evidence, not just conviction, to secure leadership approval.

To cut through the uncertainty, Dennison & Associates ran the evaluation through a specialized technology platform built for rigorous, data-driven vendor selection. The process scored each option against INMA's specific requirements down to the percentage turning a subjective call into a defensible one. When INMA's CEO and International Board pushed for validation, Brooke had the documentation ready to make the case. That rigor gave the team confidence to look past brand recognition and choose the partner with the greatest long-term potential.

Brooke said, "Having Dennison & Associates along for the ride kept me from making emotional decisions. They've encountered all of these challenges before, so they have solutions ready to go.”

Bringing this vision to life required more than vendor management from a distance it demanded a project manager willing to drive the relationship day to day.  Susannah Mechem from Dennison & Associates essentially embedded herself with the INMA team, working alongside staff as a true partner rather than an outside vendor. Recognizing early on that INMA's team was stretched thin, she stepped up as project lead to protect the internal team's bandwidth.

"Susannah was absolutely phenomenal. She made herself one of the team," Brooke notes. "She knows exactly when to step in and step up, and exactly when to step back. She's an absolutely unique gem."

That leadership was tested when the project's scope expanded to include a complex financial systems migration. When the team hit a wall reconciling their internal accounting processes with the vendor's capabilities, Dennison & Associates closed the gap from both sides, bringing in accounting specialists to help INMA adjust its internal processes, while pushing the vendor to adapt on theirs.

Brooke observed, “Dennison & Associates was able to go above and beyond the scope and bring in experts that could help my team internally figure out what we needed to change.”

Dennison & Associates also put its standing in the association technology industry to work, holding the vendor accountable to its commitments. When challenges surfaced along the way, the firm drew on its industry relationships and credibility to keep the project moving turning potential points of conflict into collaborative solutions that got the platform live.

The strategic value of this partnership showed up most clearly in how the project closed out. Despite significant scope creep — including the addition of a complex financial migration Dennison & Associates kept the project moving and drove it to a successful close.

That success went beyond the numbers. By managing the intangible  team morale, internal stakeholder alignment, the day-to-day friction of a major overhaul Dennison & Associates let INMA's small team stay focused on its core mission instead of getting consumed by the transition.