I have been a business owner for the last 12 years and
I have easily spent millions of dollars on business software
or trying to develop software of our own to accomplish
exactly what we want.
One of the divisions in my company started selling enterprise
software. We sold millions of dollars of software per
year. We soon learned that we had to really access the
need of the company for the software or we would have
tremendous problems with that client down the road.
When you get the right business software package, you
feel like celebrating. You wonder how you ever got a long
before you had it and how your competitors stay in business
without such a package.
When business software goes wrong, at the minimum it
is annoying and frustrating, at worst it can mean the
death of your company. I have either been involved with
or seen too many horror stories regarding poor business
software. In my experience, it seems that the problems
arise from several avenues:
-
Exaggerated Claims by Salesmen -
Software salesmen are driven to meet their quota for
the month, quarter, or year and are pushing to get that
commission and bonus check. The purchaser asks "Will
we be able to do this?" "Certainly, it will be easy
to do," responds the salesman, with no actual knowledge
if it can do this or not. Later, when you have found
out that the software really can NOT do that, the salesman
has moved on, or has selective memory.
-
Inadequate ROI Analysis - Many large
and small software manufacturers will offer ROI tools
that help the purchaser to evaluate if the total cost
of the software can be paid for by increase in productivity,
efficiency, or some other gain. Often faulty assumptions
are made in calculating the ROI and the true ROI turns
out to be something much different.
-
Inadequate Understanding of the Implementation - Cost and Process For many of the large Enterprise
software packages, the implementation cost will exceed
the cost of the software. Some can be a multi-year,
many headcount installation process. Often, a number
of firms will get part way through the installation
and give up under the sheer complexity of the transition
and fall back to the old legacy systems.
-
Faulty Understanding of the Ongoing Maintenance - Costs and Requirements Software companies are generally
more interested in the ongoing revenue stream from maintenance,
support, or upgrade protection programs, than from the
one-time revenue from the initial sale. It is critical
that a firm have a thorough understanding of the true
cost of these ongoing fees.
-
No Buy In from those in the Critical Path
- A number of times I have seen one team evaluate,
gather bids and select a vendor and then throw it over
the fence to the team that will implement. For one reason
or another, the other team hasn't bought into the process
and sabotages the process where they either delay, or
make it seem too difficult to implement and finally,
out of exhaustion, the business manager abandons the
project.
I have tried to put together a site that contains a broad
range of software and solutions that would be valuable
for a business. Most applications are oriented toward
a mid-size or large enterprise, but some are applicable
for any sized organization.
Software and technic companies in europe | http://www.aessoft.com/
I have visited and reviewed every application listed.
I have tried to list the most popular and most full-featured
software applications. In many categories I realized that
I was leaving off some great packages, but I keep my list
to 5 applications per category. If you feel really strongly
about a software application I have missed, please email
me atand I will review it and see if I should add it in
or replace it with another.
