Adopting software for your integration business and not fully utilizing the software’s capabilities is like buying a Ferrari and only driving it in first gear. You’ve got power and performance sitting idle because you never learned to shift.
Unfortunately, many integrators only utilize some of the features or modules within their end-to-end business management solution.
“The software is designed to do exactly what you do as a system integrator, so the most important thing is to take it on… swallow it whole,” says Randy Stearns, CEO of D-Tools. “You should take on the entire product and the entire feature set because it's designed to work as one entity.”
During a panel discussion at CEDIA Expo, Stearns pointed out that often integrators will only use specific modules within a software set because they don’t believe certain other aspects of the software match their business processes exactly. The result is the generation of a data stream from one piece of software that needs to be inserted into another piece of software, and vice versa.
“The amount of work that goes into moving data between pieces of software is massive,” Stearns comments. “So, it's not a situation in which any individual feature in the software is overlooked; it's not taking it on fully and making the commitment to it, even if it doesn't match your process exactly. That I think is the biggest oversight and causes the most problems.”
Moreover, having all the data emanating from a single piece of software can be greatly beneficial for data-driven business owners who want to analyze certain metrics about their company. The software becomes a tool that enables the business owner to recognize areas of the company that are not performing at peak efficiency, and then pull certain levers to fix them.
“If you choose not to invoke certain modules, you use them wrong, or you go half in, what you find is that the data output that would enable you to manage that business unit doesn't exist. It's incomplete. So then you're operating in a deficiency. But if you invoke all those parts and pieces, it lets you trim and tune the machine in a different way,” explains Stearns.
Designating Internal Champions in Each Department
Industry consultant Chris Smith of TheCoTeam says one of the common reasons integrators only adopt particular modules in a software set is because they just don’t what they are missing.
“They don't know all the parts and pieces of their software because they haven't had them previously. They're not sitting down saying, ‘I'm not going to use a payment processing feature because I don’t want it.’ They never had access to a feature like that before so it's really hard for someone to determine what's the most beneficial part of using this?”
Smith believes the best way for integrators to adopt an end-to-end business software solution is to adopt and digest each module one at a time. He also believe it is imperative that individual teams within an organization understand the usefulness and value or certain features, even the features that they may not directly use. For example, the accounting team might want to use a particular feature in a certain way, but the purchasing team wants to use that feature differently.
“You can't let the accounting person validate what the purchasing person needs,” he warns. Both Smith and Stearns believe integration companies should designate an internal champion within each department to vouch for the specific needs. “It goes back to the evaluation process,” says Stearns. “You've got to have representation from the different areas of the business on your task force to make good decision. Something might be a phenomenal sales tool, but it is horrible at project management, service management, accounting integration or inventory management. If you don't have representation from all the different departments, you can have buy-in, which is critical.”
