The process by which organizations evaluate products, services, vendors, and technologies before selecting them. Buying committees apply requirements; requirements shape confidence; confidence shapes recommendations; recommendations shape selection. It has always been economically enormous and methodologically invisible — inferred only from its exhaust: win rates, lost deals, buyer anecdotes.
How this differs from adjacent terms: market research studies demand; sales methodology studies persuasion; commercial evaluation is the decision process itself, as an object of scientific study.