Sirius Solutions Blog

When speaking with business professionals, most would say that the hardest part of a big software implementation is the “go-live.”  Some might tell you that it’s the design sessions or the integration testing.  It’s likely that none will tell you that the hardest part of a software implementation is the software selection.

With so much money spent on software each year it is more important than ever to choose the right software tool that fits the business.  The cost of the software license itself, the hardware to run it, the people to implement it, and the maintenance of it can add up to a fairly significant percentage of annual revenue.  Surprisingly, you will find that companies that use a process for picking the decor and fixtures for their conference rooms seldom use a process for picking the software that runs the company.  Imagine using a process that creates assets on the accounting side but doesn’t integrate with the corresponding equipment on the operations side.  Disconnected data?  Sure.  But it is also a sign of a process that doesn’t involve all the stakeholders.

Software selection is an opportunity to highlight many of those areas and address them. It is also an opportunity to find areas where the processes do work together, but where the data is segregated. Segregated data causes the departments to duplicate effort, often with incorrect results and at great expense. And data will be at the core of any software process.

The next time you think about choosing a piece of software—whether to run the whole company or just a part of it—ask yourself these questions:

• Does the software work with my processes, or do my processes have to change?
• Do all of the stakeholders affected have a say in the software decision?
• Will the software investment pay off  before the software becomes obsolete?

Last, but not least, evaluate the software and processes on a regular basis. Technology changes quickly and so does your business. If you rely on software to run any or all of your business, make sure the software can keep up.

   categorized under:  Software, Technology