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To develop the profile, we
begin by meeting with company decision makers
and key members of the selection team. This
executive session can be very illuminating for
all parties; it provides momentum for the
project and highlights major concerns or other
factors that can stall a project. We then
interview functional managers, system users,
vendors, and your customers to develop
requirements/priorities and identify outstanding
issues. The interviews typically are in the
order of business transaction flow, and all
questions and discussions are considered based
on a three- to five-year planning horizon. After
a brief overview of the departmental processes,
the following major issues are considered before
the SoftSelect standard system requirement
questions are reviewed:
 | What work process/flow weaknesses need to
be improved? |
| What work processes/flows are conducted
satisfactorily? |
| What activities are unnecessary? |
| How is information received from, and
disbursed to, other functions? |
| What are current system gaps and what are
the new requirements to cover them? |
Although the SoftSelect
system has standard questions built into its
process, special attention is paid to each
firm's individual and specific needs, and they
are recorded using the Requirements BuilderTM
application.
SoftSelect also provides clients with the
standalone Requirements OrganizerTM
application with which they
can manage their requirements profile during
initial improvement work and support ongoing
system improvements.
Step
#2: Information
System Effectiveness Review
The next step is to compare
the capabilities of your current software with
your system requirements profile. This process
identifies system deficiencies and opportunities
for making incremental or global system
improvements. This step may not be necessary
for firms who have decided to replace existing
systems entirely. The benchmarking of your
current software is done using the Requirements
Builder TM application.
When this is complete, the results are sent to
the SoftSelect research department, where an ERP
Effectiveness Report will be generated.
Based on your requirements profile, this report
compares your current information system with
what the latest software products can offer.
For example, the
effectiveness review might show the following:
| Your accounting and manufacturing software
as currently deployed meets 65% of your
identified requirements. |
| If your current system were improved by
turning on existing system functionality and
making other custom changes, it would meet
80% of the identified requirements. |
| If the current system were replaced with a
system that more closely met your firm’s
needs, the new system would, on average,
meet 91% of the identified requirements. |
Now we have a complete
picture of your firm’s requirements and the
potential for improving existing systems. At
this point, a straightforward ROI analysis will
point to the correct decision on how to proceed.
The ERP Effectiveness Report is
commissioned yearly to determine if changes in
software and technology offerings can justify
software improvement projects.
Step
#3: Improvement
Action – Selecting/Improving Systems
You are now armed with the
data necessary to take corrective action. If the
decision is made to stay with current systems,
deficient requirements are generally addressed
in the following order:
| Requirements easily effected with the
current system considering first the items
with the highest payback. The investment to
achieve these items typically is low, and a
formal cost/benefit analysis generally is
not needed. |
| Requirements effected with the current
system through customizing or third-party
packages. Since there is an investment in
achieving these requirements, we recommend a
cost/benefit analysis. |
If the collective
deficiencies cannot be remedied practically with
the current system, we recommend focusing
resources on the procurement of a new system.
The requirements profile is sent to SoftSelect
for processing and production of a Software
Selection Report, which details candidate
software solutions. The system requirements
profile is not only critical for selecting a
package but for developing an implementation and
training plan.
Step
#4: System
Monitoring
All businesses will change:
new products, new demands from vendors and
customers, new regulation, improved processes.
As each of these changes becomes a reality, a
company's information system (IS) becomes
incrementally less effective. To monitor the
software's effectiveness level, a company needs
to establish a monthly process whereby the
various departments review their IS needs in a
structured fashion. Each month the question is:
What changed this month that changes our IS
needs?
When the periodic monitoring identifies
improvement opportunities, a measured and
managed process is conducted to effect the
desired change. Many of these changes can be
effected with current systems and at a low cost.
For complex or costly improvements, the process
of monthly monitoring against ROI targets is a
superb means to detect when it makes financial
sense to effect these larger changes, and this
usually is years before most companies hit the
crisis zone and take reactive action. The
SoftSelect software tools organize this
important Continuous IT Improvement
Management.
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This page was last updated on
02/15/06
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