Buying Enterprise Software?  Find out how well you know your business

Every organization that exists is built around processes.  Companies that improve processes become more productive, save money and retain customers.  One of the most important tools in improving processes with-in the typical company is Enterprise software.  As a result the selection and implementation of major enterprise software should never be made in haste.  Failure in a major enterprise software implementation can result in low user adoption, lower than expected return on investment, potentially unhappy customers and risk placing themselves at a competitive disadvantage.    It is therefore critical to conduct careful analysis that evaluate existing processes, prioritize needs, communicate with all stake holders, seek out multiple alternatives, evaluate top vendors and select a solution that will meet all your needs and accelerate your organizations efficiencies.   The purpose of this post is to introduce a 9 step approach that will help guide your software selection process and ensure that the software you select will truly optimize your business.  Over the course of the next month we will be expanding on each of these steps to help you optimize your organization for competitive advantage.

1. Define the Project Vision – Before you can start anything you need to understand the major problems that require solving.  Write it down in a project charter document and ensure to identify all key departments and stake holders that are involved.  Communication is key and one of the most important factors in making your selection a successful one.  
2. Evaluate the existing Business Process – Meet all your key stake holders and identify processes, prioritize the various process weaknesses and build a business case that reflects a real financial impact to the firm. 
3. Identify Business Requirements – This step may be tedious but the goal is to capture all events and tasks that must be done in order to fulfill a specific task.  The more specific details and pre-conditions that you have laid out, the more effective you will be at identifying the best solution.  
4. Research Alternatives - With the business and system requirements completed you will possess clarity on exactly what you need.  Armed with the captured system and business requirements you can then determine criteria for alternatives, begin searching for alternatives and finally the documentation of your search.  
5. Short List the Vendors- At this stage you will shorten your list of alternatives by considering the options for meeting your business requiremennts.  Part of your short list will include building in house, buying commercial software off the shelf & customizing and bundling several solutions together.
6. Evaluate the Vendors – At this stage Issue a request for proposal and conduct vendor presentations with the vendors that made the top of your alternatives list.
7. Select your Preferred Solution – Based on all of your thorough analysis choose the software that best suits your organization and then negotiate the contract.
8. Plan the Implementation – In this step create the project plan and execute the integration, customization, testing, and final implementation of the final software application.  
9. Evaluate the Project – Selecting a large enterprise piece of software is a large undertaking and it is important to measure your success 3 – 4 months post implementation.  It’s important to your organization to help plan future projects.  Armed with this evaluation you now have a large project that you can benchmark against.  
   

Over the next several months The Strategy Lab will expand and break apart each of these steps to help you experience an optimized enterprise that is efficient and competitive. 

9 Critical Steps in Selecting Enterprise Software from Waggware on Vimeo.