I just got some feedback from reader Stephanie Bice, the regional manager of Digital Warehouse, about my recent Gearhead column concerning my adventures with Network Solutions’ ecommerce offerings.
I just got some feedback from reader Stephanie Bice, the regional manager of Digital Warehouse, about my recent Gearhead column concerning my adventures with Network Solutions’ e-commerce offerings.
Stephanie wrote: “I am stuck in a similar situation with an accounting/software package my company purchased last year. Your statement that ‘the sheer enormity of the product means you can’t find all of the serious gotchas until you are deeply committed to using the product’ struck a cord with me, as that is exactly what happened in my situation. And with the almost $100K price tag I paid, not to mention more than $50K in support (if you even want to call it that), I feel a bit ripped off.”
I think that using the phrase “I feel a bit ripped off” when $150K is involved qualifies as a serious understatement. I talked with Stephanie and it turns out her tale is another good example of a dirty little industry secret – in this case, the fact that when you implement complex software there’s a high probability you won’t be happy with the result.
Digital Warehouse’s problems started when a consultant recommended Sage Software’s ERP product and Sage, in turn, recommended a reseller to work with. After an expensive needs analysis the reseller recommended Sage MAS 500 ERP.
Much of this happened before Stephanie arrived at Digital Warehouse but she, of course, wound up dealing with the mess that resulted once the software was installed. Stephanie’s biggest complaint is the system doesn’t match the company’s needs and even simple operations require far more effort than is reasonable. In short, Stephanie reckons the company was seriously oversold.
The harder nosed amongst you might be muttering, “caveat emptor,” but let’s consider what it means for a small company to implement something as complex as a new accounting system. First of all there’s the issue that, while the client knows what its business needs are and can inspect potential solutions to see if there’s a good match, the reality is the devil is in the details.
It’s never the big stuff that gets you, it’s the little stuff — the lack of a report you need, the absence of an export or import format, the lack of options for handling just one detail of workflow — those are the things you don’t know about because they are buried so deep.
So a wise company such as Digital Warehouse hedges its bet and retains experts to bridge the product knowledge gap and identify the potential problems. And who knows the product best? According to most vendors it’s the resellers they recommend, but of course the resellers want to maximize their revenue, which creates something of a conflict of interest.
And if things don’t work out as planned, what does the client do? It first looks for support from the reseller. But when that relationship goes sour as it did between Digital Warehouse and the reseller (Digital Warehouse believes it was overcharged and under-served), what is the software vendor’s responsibility?
In this case it appears that Sage has little interest in ensuring happy customers. Stephanie tells me that so far it has ignored Digital Warehouse’s appeals for help.
The worst part of this is that Digital Warehouse’s experiences aren’t unique. Every day some company finds it has been oversold. I’ve read that 80% of all ERP implementations fail or deliver inadequate value. Perhaps the only strategy when it comes to complex software is to assume the worst and plan for failure. Does that count as a strategy?
