Recently, one of the world's largest companies, and a leader in their industry, filed a lawsuit against the German software giant SAP. The plaintiff, Waste Management, Inc., contends that they were duped into investing $100 Million in an SAP software solution for the Waste Management and Recycling industry that was untested and defective. This is a rare bird indeed. It's not that unusual for smaller companies to make a public complaint about a software failure. Smaller companies are normally run by the owners, and if they want to vent in public, they are going to damn well vent in public. When working with the Small Medium Enterprise, one must take special care - a good lesson to remember. However, large companies, where the owners are represented by a board that management must answer to, rarely ever talk about failures of any kind, software or otherwise. More politically savvy, executives at large companies realize that in the end any failure will reflect back to them. In many, or actually most, cases when large, software implementations go bust, both sides eat some humble pie and move forward with nary a public utterance. So to see such a public complaint filed by a company the size of Waste Management is both rare and surprising. What inspired it is quite interesting. Waste Management contends that they were given a series of demonstrations of the software product over the course of eight months that were actually rigged. The software that they saw was just a 'mock-up' thrown together for the purpose of the demonstration, with no 'real' foundation in reality. If true, this is one of the most incredible allegations that I have ever heard in the software industry, for two reasons. First that a software company would do something that stupid, and second that a prospect would not have the wherewithal to see that there was no engine under the hood - those engine noises are just a tape playing. Software and software implementations can fail for an infinite number of reasons. But there are some simple strategies that you can take to make the most of your investment and keep the implementation on track. For small and medium enterprises that are considering a substantial investment in software, please consider the following appeals to the better, and wiser, angels of your nature: - Use a consultant. Self-serving, yes of course. But if I sold canoes and you wanted to cross a deep, fast river, I would do my level best to sell you a canoe. I like to eat, and sleep in a warm bed, as much as the next guy, I won't deny it. But more importantly, I do not want to see you drown. Selling you swimming trunks would be selfish and a disaster. Outfitting you properly for the challenge ahead is value we all profit from.
- Prototype early and often. You can use a free live account of SaaS software, like NetSuite, in most cases. But a free, live account does not by itself suffice. See #1. Hire a consultant to at least help you to understand in 'system think' what your processes are and then help you to prototype them on the system. We do this for many clients: Business Process Analysis and System Prototype are the first two, and the most important steps, in the implementation process. Once you see how the solution goes together, you won't have any problem finishing the implementation yourself, provided you have the time to spend doing system configuration and training. But for gosh sakes, don't just jump in the river and start swimming furiously. You'll be surprised at how easily you sap (no pun intended) your strength.
- Be realistic. It's software folks, and there are going to be holes and defects. There is not a business software anywhere at any time that fully meets all of the challenges that are thrown at it. Human beings can find more ways of doing business in a day than software engineers will ever understand in a lifetime.
But letting the perfect be the enemy of the good is a failed approach, also. One of the important things that all business managers should have before going into a system implementation is a list of objectives, all with a value for importance to the business. After you assess the software, ask yourself if it has met your objectives. The thing that we often see is that a company goes into the implementation with no list of objectives, and by the time they call us they are frustrated because they have discovered some nagging issue with the software. Quite often this issue has been blown way out of proportion as they have no business objectives for the implementation and therefore are not seeing the issue in the context of the entire software implementation. They are focused on one or two minor points to the detriment of all else.
After almost 20 years of doing software implementation, the one thing I can say with all honesty is that it is not getting any easier. It is a rigorous job. It requires a ton of patience and understanding. Finger pointing is a waste of effort. We make a strong attempt at collegiality with our clients because we know in the end that we will have to lean on each other to make it work, and it's hard to form a team with people you are not getting along with. But there has to be honesty first and foremost. If either side feels like the other is hiding something, then there is going to be trouble. No one profits in these cases. Except the lawyers. What a waste. If you would like to read more about the SAP and Waste Management Case, you'll find a good overview, here.
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