Software Selection
Instead of product sellers, our team is led by professional consultants
with years of real-life experience helping business owners and managers
eliminate inefficiencies and improve their business processes. We
have extensive experience with all the leading systems and conduct
ongoing research on emerging solutions.
Business Case Foundation
Software selection starts with an understanding of Critical Success
Factors (CSFs) which we define as those things an organization must
do well in order to be successful. We facilitate a management/executive
meeting where the CSFs are identified as well as the key requirements
and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). There are many ways to achieve
CSFs but our focus is through systems. So we ask what system functionality
would help achieve the CSFs, which in turn become the critical requirements
for a new system. We also ask how the CSFs are measured (KPIs) and
the current metric and the KPI goals for the new system. We think
that it's time to celebrate not when you go live or even if you're
on time and on budget. The time to celebrate is when you reach the
KPI goals.
Business Process Review
The next phase in our process is understanding the existing business
process. We document the business process steps, problems, the impact
of the problems and the requirements. Sometimes we also provide
swimlane flowcharts. We focus on the problems as a new system is
the best opportunity an organization will ever have to fix problems.
In fact every problem should be considered an opportunity. The impact
allows us to know what's important and can also be useful in a business
case. The requirements are based on the strengths of the existing
system and the functionality that could potentially fix the problems.
The swimlane flowcharts provide a simple and effective way to visualize
the business process flow.
Requirements Analysis
We create a requirements document that contains the key and unique
requirements. We strive to be clear, unambiguous and don't waste
time with basic functionality. We also supplement the needs you've
already identified with our own comprehensive industry-specific
checklists. We have each requirement confirmed and prioritized.
The requirements are wrapped into a Request for Proposal, which
is issued to potential vendors. We prepare a preliminary analysis
of the vendors which includes costs, scoring of their responses,
underlying technology, developer and implementer information. We
facilitate high level presentations followed by reference checks
followed by a Proof of Concept, which is a demonstration based on
a day-in-the-life script that we prepare. We also assist in contract
negotiations to ensure favourable terms and the best price.
Click here for
more about our system selection methodology.
For more information, call Michael Burns at 416-485-2200 or contact
us.
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