But it's always about the money. If the current UV system is perceived
to be incomplete, management is FORCED to decide between buy or build --
both take money. And they will automatically lean towards the solution
they are familiar with (just like we do.)
As UV professionals, we need to address this human dynamic: Mr.NewGuy
came from a place where he used "Feature X". Your UV application
doesn't have "Feature X", so Mr.NewGuy sees the it as "incomplete" or
"lacking". Mr.NewGuy knows first-hand that this feature benefits the
business (i.e. makes or saves money). Have too many of these missing
features and Mr.NewGuy has no choice but to SPEND MONEY and replace the
whole system. Real or not, Mr.NewGuy feels the pressure to do SOMETHING
because he FEELS the old system is losing money.
So how do we address this?
Strategy 1: Don't fool yourself. Just because you have a working
application in production doesn't mean it couldn't be significantly better.
Strategy 2: Anticipate and implement useful features. Study your
competitor's systems and stay informed of the latest solutions to
business problems. Don't have Excel export capability? Get it. Don't
have mobile applications? Get them.
Strategy 3: Always make your managers look good. Mr.NewGuy has revenue
and budget goals -- build an application that meets those goals. If
Mr.NewGuy is meeting his business goals, there's no reason for him to
tell the CEO or board to buy a new system.
Strategy 4: Always have a higher ratio of revenue projects vs.
infrastructure projects. Face the fact that GUI'izing you legacy
application is an infrastructure project and will more than likely cost
the company more than it gains. Balance infrastructure projects against
a larger number of revenue projects, or perhaps even rolling
infrastructure changes into your revenue projects. Stop doing those
quick and dirty reports that everyone wants but don't generate any
revenue or savings.
Strategy 5: Sell your U2 application to management. YOU need to
constantly market your "product" to management (but of course you really
need to believe in it first). By "product" I mean both your U2
application and the services you provide to benefit the company.
rex
Jeff Schasny wrote:
> Unfortunately, its not always about the money. In many cases its about a
> change of leadership where the new guy on top wants his own personal
> favorite software. I have been personally involved with at least 2
> instances where a new CFO has insisted that the ERP solution with which
> he/she/it is most familiar was instituted without regard for cost...
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