Maximize Your Investment: 10 Key Strategies for Effective Packaged Software Implementations

Accelerate packaged (COTS) software implementations, increase returns on investment, and reduce implementation costs and customizations Develop implementation approaches that maximize packaged software advantages and minimize packaged software challengesReduce implementation costs, increase knowledge generation, and reduce non-value-added implementation activitiesEnable customers to lead during the implementation to maximize long term successFollow the Ten Essential Principles for implementing a business solution and learn best practices, tips and tricks

In Detail Using packaged software for Customer Relationship Management or Enterprise Resource Planning is often seen as a sure-fire way to reduce costs, refocus scarce resources, and increase returns on investment. However, research shows that the majority of packaged or Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) implementations fail to provide this value due to the implementation approach taken.

Authored by Grady Brett Beaubouef, who has over fifteen years of packaged software implementation experience, this book will help you define an effective implementation strategy for your packaged software investment.

The book focuses on Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) implementations, and helps you to successfully implement packaged software. Using a step-by-step approach, it begins with an assessment of the limitations of current implementation methods for packaged software. It then helps you to analyze your requirements and offers 10 must-know principles gleaned from real-world packaged software implementations. These 10 principles cover how to maximize enhancements and minimize customizations, focus on business results, and negotiate for success, and so on. You will learn how to best leverage these principles as part of your implementation. As you progress through the book, you will learn how to put packaged software into action with forethought, planning, and proper execution. Doing so will lead to reductions in implementation costs, customizations, and development time.

What you will learn from this book? Identify factors to consider when selecting and applying a methodology for gathering and validating business requirements for COTS softwareMinimize potential risks and maximize opportunities in your implementationsUnderstand the difference between prototyping and modeling, and when they should be usedAccelerate implementations by generating more knowledge and less informationMaximize enhancements and minimize non-value-added customizationsIncrease Return On Investment (ROI) by developing a negotiation strategy with partners and usersLeverage the lessons of knowledge management to assist you in managing the information generated during an implementation

Approach

This is a handbook covering ten principles for packaged software implementations that project managers, business owners, and IT developers should pay attention to. The book also has practical real-world coverage including a sample agenda for conducting business solution modeling, customer case studies, and a road map to implement guiding principles.

Who this book is written for?

This book is aimed at enterprise architects, development leads, project managers, business systems analysts, business systems owners, and anyone who wants to implement packaged software effectively. If you are a customer looking to implement COTS software in the future then this book will provide a strategy to maximize your investment. If you are in an internal IT role and you find that your internal software development methodology doesn't quite work for an off-the-shelf business software package then this book will provide you with perspective on how to adjust your approach. If you are an implementation partner looking to minimize the blood, sweat, and tears shed with implementing COTS software then this book will be a guide to filter out obstacles and enable implementation focus.