Software Implementation: How Long Is Too Long?
I was recently in a discussion about implementing a new software solution within a large multinational company. During the discussion, the question that was never asked was€ how long is too long for implementing a business software solution?€
Part of my frustration was that there was this expectation that implementation should take a long time and high rates of failure are quite normal (someone quoted a figure of up to 60% failure rates for software implementations). Part of my frustration is knowing that when done properly implementation can be quick, painless, meet the customer's needs and be done within a reasonable budget framework.
Why let things like overruns, bad customer to vendor interaction and scope creep happen? One core reason is that the company that developed the software system developed it for a single solution and never designed something from the ground up that was meant to be customizable. Customizable software is needed to meet the needs of today's highly diverse business community. The cynic in me says they were waiting for you to demand changes in their software to match the business requirements and hence be able to charge more for implementation.
The business world is currently filled with single task software that might focus on a single business function such as risk. What almost all of these software packages lack is the ability to be quickly adapted to a particular organization's needs.
While any software can be adapted to do anything, the two questions you should ask your software vendor is:
1) how they will go about adapting their software to your requirements and
2) how long will it take.
If their answer involves extensive coding and long development timetables€¦run€¦don't walk€¦away from that vendor.
Increasingly I hear stories from businesses that, first pay through the roof for a software solution that doesn't really meet their needs, and then are locked into a supplier who chargers extortionist rates for every slowly implemented minor change.
Don't settle for solutions that are not designed with quick customization in mind. Can business really afford to continue to spend more money on customizing a solution to their needs than they spend on the base system? Beyond customization you should also be looking to see how the solution provider can add additional modules, functionality, services and integration onto their framework without having to pay coders to build additional software solutions just for you.
Part of my frustration was that there was this expectation that implementation should take a long time and high rates of failure are quite normal (someone quoted a figure of up to 60% failure rates for software implementations). Part of my frustration is knowing that when done properly implementation can be quick, painless, meet the customer's needs and be done within a reasonable budget framework.
Why let things like overruns, bad customer to vendor interaction and scope creep happen? One core reason is that the company that developed the software system developed it for a single solution and never designed something from the ground up that was meant to be customizable. Customizable software is needed to meet the needs of today's highly diverse business community. The cynic in me says they were waiting for you to demand changes in their software to match the business requirements and hence be able to charge more for implementation.
The business world is currently filled with single task software that might focus on a single business function such as risk. What almost all of these software packages lack is the ability to be quickly adapted to a particular organization's needs.
While any software can be adapted to do anything, the two questions you should ask your software vendor is:
1) how they will go about adapting their software to your requirements and
2) how long will it take.
If their answer involves extensive coding and long development timetables€¦run€¦don't walk€¦away from that vendor.
Increasingly I hear stories from businesses that, first pay through the roof for a software solution that doesn't really meet their needs, and then are locked into a supplier who chargers extortionist rates for every slowly implemented minor change.
Don't settle for solutions that are not designed with quick customization in mind. Can business really afford to continue to spend more money on customizing a solution to their needs than they spend on the base system? Beyond customization you should also be looking to see how the solution provider can add additional modules, functionality, services and integration onto their framework without having to pay coders to build additional software solutions just for you.