The Power of Sourcing the Right Solutions
In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, successful digital transformation hinges on selecting the right solutions tailored to your specific needs. The integration of enterprise software has revolutionized countless industries, ushering in a wave of compelling benefits. Enhanced productivity, increased profits, improved agility, soaring customer satisfaction, and unparalleled insights into customer behavior are just the beginning. So, why do businesses often lag behind in adopting new software solutions?
The answer is simple yet profound: the decision-making process is plagued by protracted timelines, pervasive bias, and significant risks. CIOs and tech departments find themselves juggling an ever-expanding array of requirements, while vendors and market comparison sites often prioritize solutions that align with their own financial interests. It’s akin to ordering a meal at a restaurant, only to receive the most expensive menu option despite your allergies or preferences.
This disconnect between buyers and providers creates a barrier that dissuades businesses from harnessing potentially transformative software solutions. In an era of economic instability, seizing opportunities and implementing effective solutions becomes paramount. By bridging the gap between buyer and provider, businesses can unleash the true potential of their digital transformation journey.
“Executives face an increasingly complex landscape of technologies, methodologies, and both regulatory and compliance pressures to ensure that new processes are standardized and traceable.” McKinsey Report.
Driving Business Value with the Right Software
In the world of software selection, both buyers and end users often face the risk of missing out on cost savings and process improvements.
Because of the long and arduous Software Selection Process, the losers are the buyers and often the end users. Losing out on cost-saving and process improvements are two of the biggest risks.
Imagine your trusted, honest mechanic who carefully inspects your car, diagnoses the issues, and presents you with the necessary information before proceeding with repairs. This is what having the right software solution is like. It empowers you with up-to-date reports on various systems, ranging from operational processes to marketing campaigns, enabling you to make informed decisions.
Is your business grappling with efficiency issues? Are you losing valuable time and money across various assembly phases? Just picture the possibilities if you could effectively track your customers’ buying patterns.
Olive scythes through all the BS. The process of buying the right software can take up to 2 years in many cases and still not be the right solution for you. Olive starts with your needs and goes to the market on your behalf to find what fits. Compared to the typical 6-12 month evaluation cycles, Olive’s typical evaluation time from idea to decision is 6 weeks. Unlike other platforms, we are not beholden to fee-paying vendors as we don’t collect commissions to feature their solutions. This means that the right vendor for you isn’t excluded simply because they are not paying to influence. This allows you to get right to work on reaping the biggest benefits of your digital transformation.
Unleash Digital Transformation Success through Smart Software Solution Selection
If you have faced the arduous task of collaborative enterprise software selection before, you undoubtedly, have reservations about plundering financial and human resources into it again. While often laborious, the steps involved in selecting software are vital, and skimming through would be a mistake. Set the time, trust, and patience issues to the side for a moment.
Tips for Ensuring Success in Choosing Best-fit Digital Solution Selection
Include the Right Stakeholders from the Beginning
Including the right stakeholders from the beginning of any enterprise software selection project is vital as it brings diverse perspectives, aligns needs, garners buy-in and support, mitigates risks, enables efficient decision-making, and ensures a smooth implementation. By involving stakeholders early on, organizations can tap into their unique insights, address potential conflicts, gain ownership and support, identify and mitigate risks, streamline decision-making, and facilitate a seamless transition during implementation. This inclusive approach maximizes the chances of successful outcomes and allows organizations to fully leverage the benefits of the selected software solution.
Identify Stakeholders for Requirements Gathering
Gather, Rank and Align on Your Business Requirements
While many vendors you might have encountered are busy trying to stick square pegs in round holes, each business ought to remain true to its unique needs. Your unique organization may be thriving or obstructed by inefficiency; either way, there are always areas to innovate or improve.
Conduct an in-house analysis.
Review your current processes, pain points, strengths, weaknesses, and any obstacles. Capture everything you can from the stakeholders to form a clear picture of what areas you are experiencing frustrations.
Perhaps your need is not pain but instead a desire to innovate and stay ahead of your competition. It is important to ask yourself questions to complete the next step of ranking your preferences:
- What are your business goals for the next 6, 12, or 18 months?
- What areas are expanding or contracting?
- Where do you foresee the market shifting to next year?
- What do you need to unlock a new market?
- What information would make life easier for the team?
Collaborative Requirement Classification and Prioritization: Setting Clear Goals and Filters
To effectively classify your business goals and prioritize requirements, it is crucial to engage stakeholders in a collaborative process.
Through this exercise, you will likely identify numerous areas that can be improved.
Take the time to list each of these areas and initiate discussions or discovery surveys with your team. Approach these discussions as if you were at a doctor’s office, ranking the severity of each issue from mild inconvenience to urgent attention. Additionally, consider the importance of each requirement for future growth and success. While teams may not always align completely, it is essential to facilitate fair discussions and establish a list of achievable goals. With a clear understanding of your software solution needs, you can then establish filters to guide your decision-making process.
Set Parameters to Guide Choices
The reality of every company is making choices with limited resources. Your decision will be impacted by several variables. It helps to keep a list of features and demands required along with any other disqualifying factors.
– Cost v Value – Do they fit your budget? Is it important enough to spend a little extra? Does your forecast consider cost increases year after year?
– Needs – What are the non-negotiables? What would be nice but isn’t imperative? Does it solve your needs?
– Adaptability – Will your choice work within your current systems? Is it a simple integration or a potential time vacuum?
– After Care – Will you need a provider that conducts regular maintenance and troubleshooting?
This step is likely to have a before and after element in the shortlisting phase.
Develop a Long List of Potential Software Vendors
Here is where it can start to get a little taxing as you go into the market. The main goal is to find someone who resolves your aches and pains rather than dazzling you with flashy features.
In this step, leave no stone unturned as you search for providers. Investigate what others in your industry use or companies that encounter the same issues as you. Call them to ask. Check reviews and references and even YouTube demo videos if that is your thing. Remember, unbiased information is what you really need.
As with many industries, there are a host of market comparison platforms that look for the solution on your behalf. While helpful, this is where bias comes into play. Pay2Play style bias can be a problem with these platforms but a bigger problem is often that the reviews are generic and not tailored to your needs. This is where you can slip up, being pulled down a rabbit hole by vendors who were great for a bunch of large banks, but not great for your company size or industry.
Narrow Down Options to Shortlist the Best Vendors for your Needs
Pit each option against your parameters and eliminate those who will bring the least amount of value to your organization. Aim to whittle your list down to 3 or 4 alternatives if possible as the vetting process from here is more acute and time-consuming.
– How did they fare with your parameter list?
– How many of your priorities do they excel at?
– What ancillary benefits are available to improve on your issues?
– What are the potentially harmful shortcomings?
Only Demo the Shortlist
If you have found yourself at this stage, great! Keep the energy and momentum, as there is light at the end of the tunnel. Remember, as you reach out to each vendor with an RFP, or AI powered RFP Alternative, your needs are clear and must be satisfied.
Vendors typically prefer a simple evaluation process and like to own the sales cycle, but as the buyer, you need certainty. It is well within your remit to ask for a detailed demo.
Go back to our restaurant metaphor, except at this stage you, the buyer, are now looking at the wine list. The customary practice is to be offered a taste to ensure it meets expectations. Most people nod approvingly regardless of satisfaction – avoid this.
Even if the wine is made from grapes raised like children in the south of France, if it doesn’t suit you, send it back. Bring a fellow taster with you from the office to confirm your preferences or suspicions and do keep an open mind.
Choosing the Solution that Yields Successful Digital Transformation
You’re almost ready to push that big digital transformation button!
Just kidding! When it comes to purchasing software, it’s crucial to assess a demo based on how well vendors address your needs, rather than being swayed solely by impressive features that may be irrelevant. What truly matters is the effectiveness of the solution for your business. During demos and vendor meetings, you have the opportunity to uncover valuable insights that may have been overlooked during requirements gathering. However, exercise caution, as these “educational” moments can sometimes steer you towards a path that benefits the vendor more than it aligns with your needs.
As you navigate the demo process, consider posing the following questions either during or after the demo:
- How were your specific requirements demonstrated?
- Did you have a personal favorite among the vendors, and if so, why?
- Which vendors took the initiative to research your business and follow up with you?
- Were Salespeople trying to win you over, with gifts, fancy dinners?
- Were the vendors showcasing flashy features or focusing on personalized, tailored solutions?
- What are the implementation and post-sale plans?
- Ultimately, how does the solution improve your enterprise, and in what specific ways?
By asking these insightful questions, you can evaluate the vendors’ responses against your unique requirements and gain a deeper understanding of how well each solution aligns with your business objectives.
Don’t Skip Any Steps
We understand that the software purchasing process can be challenging and may tempt you to take shortcuts. However, we strongly advise against cutting corners whenever possible. Skipping crucial steps may seem like a time-saver initially, but it often leads to longer implementation times and difficulties in driving user adoption. Remember, prevention is better than cure!
If you find yourself under time constraints or lacking trust in the process, we encourage you to reach out to Olive. We specialize in streamlining and expediting the lengthy software selection process on your behalf. With Olive, you can bypass the most frustrating aspects while ensuring impartiality and credibility. Our goal is to simplify the process for you, our valued client, and establish a collaborative system to find the perfect software solution.
Get to a solution faster, with Olive
Software providers, while extraordinarily talented, have disrupted the balance of power in the sales funnel for buyers. Each potential buyer is a sale waiting to happen regardless of fit. Olive inverts that relationship, by bolstering your hand at the table.
We appreciate the career risk of making large scale software decisions on behalf of a multi-branch company and carry that understanding with us through the process. Furthermore, we know the benefits other clients have received from drastically reducing costs and man-hours, to streamlining processes and more effective systems. We have lived and breathed every win with our previous clients.
To ensure you receive the same, we discuss your needs to refine the exact answer you are looking for. We deliver a range of best-fit options within a timeframe that suits you and at a budget point that suits you.
Our loyalty to our clients is a defining part of our reputation and we aim to build more trust in the enterprise software solution buying process.
Find out more about how Olive Works.
