Lesson learned from improper software evaluation

There are many reasons for a failed implementation and today's blog post will highlight a few lessons learned from not doing a proper software evaluation.  A methodology that is clear, concise, systematic and provides qualitative results are the starting point to avoid these mishaps during a software implementation - after all it starts with an evaluation leading towards software selection. 

Lessons learned from not placing the correct importance on this step have far reaching and sometimes detrimental effects if not done properly.  A few lessons learned from our past experiences on not using a methodology for selecting software and some of the consequences are listed below.

• Strategic Fit: A company that had just engaged us in an evaluation. It turns out the company's CEO was coming back from a business trip and as luck would have it he was sitting next to an SAP account executive.  After several hours of speaking with SAP it was decided by the CEO that this was the system that they selected and the evaluation process was subsequently scrapped. This was a mid-sized company and they were sold the Enterprise Business Suite.  After implementation was completed a follow up with company revealed that the system was too large for their capacity.  The external scope creep, clouding of objectives, management of the project (both internal and externally), budget over-runs, time delays  and administration proved to be problematic in this installation.  It turned out that SAP was too much of a resource drain on this particular company for financial resources, people and essentially paying for what was not used.   The lesson here strategic vendor fit, and software fit are crucial when selecting enterprise software.   

• Wrong system type:  We had a customer contact us about how slow their ERP system was.  We had tried some database tuning techniques to speed up the system.  This proved this was a slow and costly process as outside programming help was needed to tune the proprietary database.  This however did speed up their ERP but that still was not the problem.  After speaking with the company in more detail we discovered they were sold a discrete ERP type system and they were indeed a contract manufacturer as their core business. The ERP they had selected was not the correct fit for what they had set out to accomplish originally. The lesson here is don't let scope creep or a fancy vendor demo win you over, stick to your guns.

• Unnecessary vendor disqualification:  A lesson learned from doing a proper software evaluation is that do not withhold information on how you run your business to vendors.  After all vendors are future business partners not just suppliers.  The vendor would also like for you to be a customer who is truly happy with their software purchase and can be used a reference site.  When organizations hold back information and see if the vendor can fill in the blanks within their industry and own company can disqualify a very capable vendor.  A best practice here is to fully disclose what your needs are so that the vendor can guide you as well as put forth their best effort to solve what you are looking for. 

• Previous selection experience becomes the method for evaluation:  A common mistake made by organizations is that people who have been through a software selection at previous companies become the subject matter expert for the software evaluation. Often a familiarity will introduce biases (political, organizational, technical) in the evaluation process. An evaluation procedure is a procedure that precedes the implementation.  This is a certain set of skills validated with a proven method that drives consistent results to finding the right software for your company.  While someone with previous experience is a valuable tool it should be added in conjunction with a proper systematic method of software selection.  If also that person were to leave for another company as is now quite common you may be stuck with system that does not have full support and does not meet the original intended requirements.  The lesson here is take under advisement the previous experience and add that  to the methodology of software selection to create a full functional roadmap for the selection process.

As can be seen there are many reasons why companies struggle with software selection but hopefully these lessons learned can help mitigate some of your own dilemmas and make you more successful at selecting the correct enterprise software for your business.