What is the True Value of a System Selection Project? (Part 5 of 5)

Hint: It’s not just selecting the system

In our final article on System Selection we tie a bow around the question “What is the true value of a System Selection project?” and fully explain why it is not just about selecting the system. In past articles we looked at the risks of skipping a detailed system selection project, ways that a detailed system project will set you up for implementation success, indicators that you will benefit from a detailed system selection project, and what it takes to do a system selection project. In this article we will dig into the business case for a detailed System Selection project.

How will your organization benefit from a detailed System Selection project?

A detailed System Selection project will give you the immediate intuitive results: confidence that you are selecting the best solution for your organization while also negotiating both short- and long-term pricing from a position of strength. The detailed System Selection project will also provide you with longer term results realized during system implementation.

Confidence that you are selecting the best solution for your organization

When you conduct a detailed System Selection project you have the opportunity to quantitatively measure the system’s ability to meet your organization’s needs. This is done through the process of collecting detailed requirements from each stakeholder group, requesting vendors to demo (and prove) how they will meet each requirement, asking stakeholders to score the vendor’s ability to meet their requirements, and then consolidating the scores to compare each vendor’s performance.

You get to know the vendor’s culture and working style during the sales process. Through the process you will learn if they have a culture of quality and accountability starting with your first phone call, throughout the RFP and demo process, then during reference checks, and finally negotiations and implementation planning. In some cases, you may identify a good product that lacks a good internal support team – something you wouldn’t have known without the frequent interaction facilitated by the detailed system selection process.

Through detailed requirements gathering and detailed vendor demonstrations you can confidently select a system without making any assumptions on available features and customization needs. The well documented process with heavy stakeholders involvement and the System Selection Steering Committee eliminates any risk of selecting the wrong system or encountering an organizational perception that the wrong system was selected.

Long Term Cost Savings

By notifying vendors that you are conducting a System Selection project you are also letting vendors know you expect a competitive quote to win your business.

Most likely, the first quote you receive will have both accurate and inaccurate assumptions about what you need, shown as generically termed modules, license packs, and support bundles. After the vendor demos and the technical Q&A process, you’ll gain a better understanding of what is proposed on the quote allowing you to analyze the quote against what you really need. For example: Do you really need the expanded data visualization pack? Are user license types and counts appropriate? Is top tier support necessary?

Once you understand what each line item of the quote is, you’ll have the necessary knowledge to request an updated quote that aligns with what you actually need from all vendors. Each time a new quote is received your multi-year Total Cost of Ownership Model and the comparative analysis of vendor quotes should be updated.

Taking this approach helps you recognize how various pricing models can have long term impacts and how you can avoid surprise and recurring costs that really add up. For example, a quote may show $5 per month for every customer or vendor portal login. When applied to your business 500 customer and vendor logins adds up to $30K per year! Negotiation on a single line item could save tens of thousands per year.

With all competitive quotes in hand, all facts available and the due diligence of a multi-year Total Cost of Ownership Model, you will be able to negotiate from a position of strength. Savings negotiated here have the potential to influence implementation costs, determine long term licensing fees, and likely pay for some or all of the investment in the System Selection project.

Ensure Implementation Success and Save Time

While a detailed System Selection project requires a lot of work, it is easy on the organization in comparison to a System Implementation project.

During a detailed System Selection, the project team is small, nothing in the business is changing, build is limited to documentation, timelines are relatively predictable, and operations are not disrupted.

System implementation is the opposite: Implementation teams can be large and expensive, business changes are imminent, the future system for your enterprise is under construction, a bug, unknown, or incorrect assumption could devastate your timeline, expectations are high, and there is a high chance for disrupted operations.

The System Selection process is your best tool to prepare for system implementation and mitigate system implementation challenges. By conducting a detailed System Selection project, you have already begun organizational readiness, you know what to expect, and you have already completed key activities required for system implementation.

• Organizational Readiness – By conducting a detailed System Selection project you have already engaged stakeholders and brought them along the journey of why the software is needed, what options were explored, and why the selected system was chosen. The business case has been defined and widely communicated for several months, and stakeholders have been given both formal and informal opportunities to provide feedback. Stakeholders are enabled to be change champions who can advocate for the selected system and generate positive sentiment for the upcoming change. Any swirl among leadership regarding the system selected or the project purpose has been quelled by the formal structured and documented selection process.
• Knowing What to Expect – Not only have you reviewed the software capabilities in depth, you also have a pretty good idea of what the software does not do. Preliminary decisions have already been made regarding which customizations and integrations will be needed and vendors have built these decisions into their implementation quotes. The vendor timelines and quotes are more accurate because you did the upfront work of thorough requirements gathering during the system selection process. Although it is still possible that future change orders will be needed, there is a realistic detailed plan that minimizes any significant scope, schedule, or budget impacts.
• Head Start on Implementation – Getting started on any large initiative can be challenging, but in this case, you started preparing for System Implementation months ago via the System Selection project. As a major benefit, you can now minimize and skip time consuming tasks in the Planning and Design phases of system implementation. Through the detailed System Selection project, you have already established your business case, defined project scope, identified and engaged stakeholders and sponsors, documented high and medium level requirements, documented the current state, and initiated the requirements gap analysis.

The Biggest Value of a Detailed System Selection project is found during System Implementation

You may have heard some challenges to performing a detailed System Selection project…. “Just ask the team to do some research and pick something”, or “I already know what we need”, or “The systems are so close to the same, it doesn’t really matter”, or “We just had a great vendor led demo and we’ve already made our selection”.

A word of caution to those quoted – a detailed System Selection project is really about setting yourself up for success during System Implementation. A detailed System Selection project will absolutely give you the obvious – confidence that you are selecting the best solution for your organization. More importantly, it will also give you the not so obvious and save you time, money, and stress when you conduct System Implementation. By conducting a detailed System Selection Project you will have:

• Negotiated the best rate on licensing
• Organizational awareness of what to expect
• Leadership alignment on project scope and the proposed solution
• A head start on your implementation
• Accurate planning that enables a reliable timeline and budget
• Mitigation of missed requirements (One of the most expensive and stressful system implementation problems)
• Overall faster realization of technology benefits

Ultimately, the biggest value of a detailed System Selection project is found during System Implementation.