Introduction
I article I share some of my observations related to topics that have to be addressed before making a decision about the preferred vendor solution. I am assuming that you are in the position of having the option for a major change, i.e. need more than just a version upgrade.
With respect to the general end-user performance then I have chosen only to handle the application scenario in this article. I find the scenario of selecting of a software platform to be more critical for the business organisation as that will be their tool when operating.
I will when using the term; One Vendor be referring to the IT design, where one primary vendor sources more than 80% of the business applications used – either as a service hosted by the vendor or installed on-site.
When using the term; Multiple Vendors I will be referring to the IT design, where the business applications used are delivered from best-of-breed vendors – either as a service hosted by the vendor or installed on-site.
It is my intention with this article to highlight some of the topics I have seen causing issues at a later stage during the implementation of the selected application(s).
There are more issues at stake
One major activity that often are given less priority are the evaluation of the organisational roles and number of end-users handling the business process versus the role and number of end-users required to handle the process built in the application.
I am aware of that the expectations to the end-user role will be depending on in which country the business resides, but when the business are operating cross borders and cross continents, then this have to be considered.
The consequences happens most of the times to be non-measurable in the monthly financial report, but – next to a sometimes frustrated staff – they do have a long term impact to the total operational cost.
You will also have to consider where the competence should be, i.e. decide to have a pair of internal resources with detailed knowledge of the application or rely on the support from the vendor.
Even the best-of-breed vendors can have bugs in the solution or the next update, so would you like to be conservative with implementing updates/ new versions or do you want to be one of the first to implement?
General reflections to functionality
I have over the years experienced a tendency among decision makers to look for other solution rather than investigate if the present solution would have or could be extended to include the functionality the business team requires.
In my humble opinion then 80% of the end-users only uses 20% of the functions within the applications available for business teams.
Unfortunately then some vendors have managed to set the standards for which applications a business must have. The outcome is that many business owners have invested in (updating) applications that they really do not need in order to service their customers.
My reference here is the development of Microsoft Word the Microsoft Office versions from Office 95 to Office 2016 – many companies would still today be fully supported by the functions available in the ʻ97 version – or maybe even in Word Perfect 5.2.
Have your business chosen to use one of the alternative options within the Open Source community, i.e. Libre Office, your business might exchange documents with an organisation using Microsoft Office Enterprise edition. One of the disadvantages here is the number of built-in features within the Microsoft Office package that are automatically included in the document.
Unless the end-users are aware of these details and their impact and are capable to compensate for them, then you have a risk for the situation, where focus unnecessary are transferred from the content to the formatting challenges.
I will be looking forward to the day, where an exchange of an editable text document will be fully independent to the application used when editing the document.
Data standards – interfaces – migration
Today many businesses are exchanging data electronically with other businesses and/ or authorities. In theory this should be easy to manage as there are several defined standards for this purpose.
Unfortunately then the design for data stored and used internally within the sending or receiving part have not always followed these defined standards, so the exchange of data are often handled by a gateway.
I have experienced an issue caused by an undocumented gateway within the customer data flow design, with the result that data sent were not shown correctly in one of the receiving systems.
When migrating data you have a risk for errors caused by the same issue.
In general then I would recommend that a trial are executed using an extract from the present sources and then see how these data are migrated into the potential new application. You will this way also have the advantage of seeing which fields that remain empty in the new application, i.e. to consider whether the business team shall start using these fields or you just continue as usual.
Been working with both automatic migration of data and manual input of historic data I would strongly recommend to use the automatic solution whenever possible as this one requires an effort in executing a quality assurance of the source data.
The use of the business application – on-site vs mobile
Business teams expects IT to be a service available 24/7 – including an availability to handle any requests (new/ replacement/ change/ etc.) in a rapid pace.
When investigating your potential new business application you therefore will have to consider how the application is intended to be used by the business team.
In many cases then attention is only paid to the licensing models, i.e. single users and concurrent users however you will have to be aware of the potential challenges related to performance, if your business team consists of offices in different time zones and/ or mobile end-users travelling globally.
Some solutions are limited in a way as they are designed to be installed on a defined hardware configuration based on the number of end-users, a hardware design that can only be replaced instead of being extended/ upgraded. This detail is very important if your business strategy shows that activities will be expanding.
The end-user experience
Some business applications are designed with a screen resolution of 1280*1024px or even worse 1920*1200 px – a detail that often are missed when buying new laptops or monitors to the end-users.
Have you noticed that laptops – despite the physical 15” screen – are sold with a 1360*768 px resolution?
Have you noticed that monitors – despite the physical 22” screen – are sold with a 1600*900 px resolution?
The outcome is a frustrated end-user that will need to scroll down in order to read/ fill in information in each view.
Another issue you will have to be aware of is the number of mandatory fields to be filled in/ worked through in each step of the process within the application.
Some vendors allow you to hide the fields your business have chosen not to use, where other vendors do not allow you to skip any fields.
I have experienced that mandatory fields without any relation to the daily operation can cause a negative effect to the general data quality.
An OS limitation to have in mind
Most end-users are comfortable with the Windows desktop. Today it’s possible to run a virtual Windows Desktop on a Linux based computer and a MAC. Some companies have chosen to shift from Windows based computers to Mac’s claiming that this solution reduces the cost related to end-user support.
In my humble opinion then I see no reason for using the virtual desktop scenario unless your business has chosen a solution like Citrix to access the company desktop.
Despite the improvements within the Microsoft Server OS and the Microsoft Platform solutions, then I see a critical need for highly qualified technical resources in order to secure, that only the parts required for operating your business is installed/ activated.
I have experienced installations, where an uncritical approach, i.e. “we want everything nice-to-have” have caused a slow performing platform.
In order to improve the performance the company started upgrading the hardware and infrastructure without executing the critical review of “Nice-to-have” vs “Need-to-have” features.
The critical review might have identified a need for upgrading some hardware or parts in the infrastructure.
The IT platform design is complicated
I am convinced the companies will need to catch up on having the full overview of the match between the Business Strategy, Business Processes, Data Processes and Legal requirements are documented.
I can recommend to use the models mentioned in this post with an open mind – I do believe in it is better to use a reference model with identified holes than no reference model at all.
In a previous post I mentioned the importance of having everything documented and not just relay on the knowledge within the employees.
Having the approach of replacing staff members to fit the required skills rather than giving them the required training, increases the risk for loosing knowledge about the real configuration of the IT platform.
In this post I addressed why securing the match between the Business Strategy, Business Processes, Data Processes and Legal requirements are critical.
When talking about the option to either use one primary vendor or a group of preferred vendors (Best-of-Breed) then your list of topics to consider will have to include end-user GUI (Design/ open for customising), number of mandatory steps in the use scenarios, stability, version control, security, patch support, open standards, interfaces, migrations, reference to defined standards, how changes to GUI flow are configured, etc.
This article was published initially on LinkedIn on 2 November 2017.
Image Credits:
| Multiple Tools | Photo by Ashim D’Silva on Unsplash |
| Europe from the sky | Photo by USGS on Unsplash |
| Glasses with focus | Photo by Kevin Ku on Unsplash |
| Monitors | Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash |
| Work In Progress | Dreamstime Free |
Thank you for having read this article – hope you have enjoyed it and that it has given you some ideas of where to start improving your own business or individual role, when it comes to the use of IT.
Best wishes for the future.