At my work we bid out a job several years ago. We’re a government org and we wanted a camera and audio system for our public meetings.

The folks in charge at the time selected the cheapest vendor, who cobbled together a bunch of random parts and called it good.

Ironically, the person who made the decision left and somewhere between contract approval and installation, I was hired in their role.

Within a year, the company folded and was bought by one of the vendors we passed over for being too expensive.

We have spent at least the value of the original contract to improve reliability of the original system. We’re also upgrading things and slowly working to more or less replace the system piecemeal - using components and designs from the vendor we originally passed over. Their stuff is reliable.