The Small and Midsize Business's Guide to Choosing a Partner for Business Systems Deployment

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1 The Small and Midsize Business's Guide to Choosing a Partner for Business Systems Deployment New Technologies and Models of Engagement are Changing the Consultative Relationship The CRM market totaled $26.3 billion in 2015, up 12.3 percent from Modern companies have a wider variety of business systems and tools to choose from today than they ever have. Tasks that organizations have handled internally for years often via a laborious spreadsheet and based process can now be accomplished using a variety purpose built online applications. These solutions promise to help companies save time, achieve more and, ultimately, contribute to better earnings. This productivity revolution has shed new light on the importance of business tools, and made their development an incredibly popular industry in its own right. Today, many of the world s most valuable and popular companies and startups, from Box to Slack to Salesforce, are almost entirely focused on making it easier for companies to get work done. While many infrastructure, communication and collaboration tools are within the purview of internal IT departments, other systems think Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), automation or even machine learning tools are another story entirely. These complicated platforms are the base from which entire branches of a company operates, with functionality that extends into every aspect of doing business. Industry leading CRM platforms like Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics, for example, support hundreds of enhancements and integrate with other business technology systems to support complicated accounting, quote-to-cash, workflow and other industry specific functions. Complicated, modern business systems also are typically cloud based pieces of software, which require new ways of thinking about data, workflow and IT investments. The cloud has numerous advantages speed, flexibility, cost and scale among them but deciding to take advantage of one of these platforms is just the beginning of the process. Due to the complexity of the platforms themselves as well as the integrations necessary to get the most out of them, CRM and ERP solutions are difficult for even large corporations with significant IT departments to implement. For smaller businesses, they can feel unobtainable. Recognizing this, Microsoft sells their Dynamics line of business solutions exclusively through a network of approved resellers with the training and expertise necessary to deploy the platform successfully. 1

2 Salesforce, on the other hand, offers internal experts capable of offering support and training to organizations that buy their Sales Cloud or other products directly. Still, huge numbers of organizations turn to dedicated consultants. For enterprises, this is often because their size puts their projects beyond the scope of standard support cases. For small or medium sized businesses, working with an outside consultant means that they get access to professionals with experience specific to their new systems. The Deployment Landscape for SMBs Traditional routes Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) have generally had a couple of options for deploying business technology systems. If they re confident in their technical sourcing capabilities, they can hire or train an internal resource. This is probably the most difficult course of action for a number of reasons. There s a high potential for failure inherent in any hire, and the cost of failure increases when that individual is responsible for managing a significant investment. An administrator or developer would also have to integrate with a small company s existing IT team, which can vary widely in size and experience. More than twenty percent of bad hires occur because the organization didn t or was unable to test or research the potential hire s skills well enough 2 Another option is to engage a consultant in a traditional arrangement. These contracts can be based on a number of different factors (deliverables, capacity, etc.) but they have, essentially, the same results a company pays a premium for experts to build and deploy a platform that fulfills their requirements, then the consultants leave and the client is left to handle their own platform. If things break or the customer wants to implement enhancements, they go back for another contract. This is a great way for certain organizations to get access to business technology solutions. While it is expensive, it s less costly than a permanent hire and finding a reputable agency is a more straightforward process for small companies than sourcing an individual engineer would be. Contracting takes a huge amount of time, however. Organizations must go through a series of steps, including producing a Request for Proposal and reviewing bids before they can choose a contracting partner. The other drawback to a traditional consulting relationship is that it s expensive and, once it s over, clients are essentially cut adrift. They can spend money on a proactive support agreement, but that s another expense, and if/when they need enhancements or tools the only choice is to sign another pricey consulting deal. Other options While those are the two most common ways for SMBs to implement complicated business systems, they aren t the only options. An increasingly popular way for smaller organizations to deploy CRM solutions is via fixed price programs that offer CRM implementation through a standardized process. These quick start packages have their appeal, especially for smaller companies. The one-time cost, in particular, is important for companies without a large IT budget or who are unwilling to sign a traditional consulting contract. The promise of having their new solutions deployed within weeks is also exciting, as many companies are reasonably wary of getting bogged down in a multi-month project. A final route for small and mid-market businesses searching for a technology implementation partner are new, subscription based consultative relationships. Under these arrangements, which are provided by a select group IT consulting companies, clients pay a subscription to get access to consultants, developers and engineers for a set number of hours over each chosen period. While subscription consultative relationships initially seem similar to support arrangements, they differ primarily in their flexibility. Unlike support agreements, which usually are designed to provide a single service, long term consultative relationships typically include hours that can be directed towards any of the client s priorities. This includes everything from implementation and enhancements to training or support. 2

3 A consultative relationship also means that the client and consultants can proactively plan their technology initiatives, which helps businesses align their technology with their business goals in both the long and short term. Hours can also be grouped in flexible ways, depending on the hierarchy of the client s needs. For example, if a contract includes forty hours of assigned technical work hours during a quarter, those hours can be used immediately for feature development as long as both parties are confident that no other major projects are needed during the period. With a more traditional ten-hours-per-month support agreement, it may take two or three months to implement the same enhancement. SMBs face an important choice It s clear that hiring internal talent to deploy business technology solutions is time consuming and comes with a high potential risk of failure, while engaging consultants in a traditional relationship is expensive and presents management challenges. Large corporations or rapidly growing organizations with significant free cash flow can mitigate or simply absorb some the issues that these arrangements create, which is why they re well suited for them. Smaller and more cost-conscious organizations, on the other hand, should and are thinking twice about whether the traditional methods for business systems deployment offer the right value proposition. Quick start and subscription consultative partnerships are, accordingly, important options to understand. Understanding the Project Lifecycle Management literature has written for many years about the impacts of organizational change. One prominent, recurring aspect is the tendency for organizations undergoing change whether the result of external factors or internal initiatives to follow the initial, enthusiastic honeymoon phase with a frustrating period of inefficiency and low morale. This is referred to by a number of names, including the valley of despair. Organizations only rebound once all parties understand and are engaged in solving the issue. That s assuming, of course, that all parties are able to come together with a positive agreement rather than canceling whatever program the change was associated with. 3

4 This concept certainly applies when organizations undergo major business system upgrades and implementations. Even a well-designed CRM implementation (with custom targeted fields, well designed interfaces and industry specific adaptations) necessitates a redesigned workflow, which can cause confusion and result in poor adoption. Because business technology services have such a large impact on operations, it can take weeks or months for issues to become apparent. This is where the biggest flaw with quick start CRM initiatives becomes apparent. They deliver a reasonably company specific implementation within a specific period of time, but the delivery period is only a small section of the project lifecycle. Quick start packages are affordable for a reason they end around the peak of the honeymoon phase, when company leadership is dreaming of where their new CRM, for example, is going to take them. They typically provide little in the way of long term support or training without signing a new contract, which negates the cost benefit of using a quick start in the first place. There are a number of reasons that a valley of despair is essentially inevitable in a new implementation, many of which are exacerbated by the very things that define quick start solutions. Even talented consultants with industry experience are unlikely to know exactly what fields, configurations and customizations are necessary for a specific business s workflow. It might take at least a month or more for the organization to realize that they lack certain functionality, by which time the quick start consultants are no longer able to make changes. The way quick start programs force clients to arrange their budget can also cause problems. Because they promise a fully featured, finished product, customers can be willing to spend a significant portion of their budget on the initial project. This leaves little left over to fix issues and incompatibilities that arise in the following weeks and months, which means that organizations are forced to make tough decisions about their priorities. At a glance Quick start Affordable upfront costs Doesn t contain training and post project support Provides minimally customized solution Subscription Consultative Relationship Encourages long term alignment between technology and business goals Technical hours available for training & support Low upfront cost, affordable monthly payments Subscription consultative relationships, on the other hand, take an approach that shows a greater appreciation for the totality of the project lifecycle. Rather than spend a significant amount upfront on a complete system, the idea is to put together a suitable initial implementation in collaboration with customer stakeholders, then iterate over time. This eliminates the issues that arise when organizations realize that their complete solutions don t support particular business cases or features (or support them in an inefficient manner). Instead, customers get a right-sized initial system and can plan for enhancements when they re sure that they re an effective use of time and resources. A solution that s built more gradually can also be easier for users to adapt to, as they have fewer features to take advantage of and be confused by. Once users have a grasp of the tools available, more can be added, which helps insure user satisfaction and adoption. At first glance, the downside to a collaborative subscription relationship is its cost. A twelve-month agreement at $2,500 a month (for an annual price of $30,000) seems like a significant financial obligation compared to a $15,000 upfront investment. The $30,000, however, pays for itself in different ways. For one, subscription consultative relationships include time built in to the subscription that can be used for training and support purposes when necessary, which obviates the need for a support specific arrangement. It also means that new features can be added smoothly throughout the partnership, rather than requiring companies to sign expensive new contracts to add specific features. A long term payment structure means that companies can avoid big upfront payments and plan their technology budget throughout the year. A long term relationship also means that consultants and clients get to know and understand each other, which helps consultants align their client s business systems with their growth and goals as a company. 4

5 This means that every addition can be targeted to increase the organization s efficiency, tackle specific issues and help increase their growth potential, rather than adding features based on a checklist of industry specific customizations which may never prove useful. In the worst cases, the valley of despair can be so debilitating for organizations that they are forced to write off projects entirely, which means that they lose out on their new solution and the money spent building it. While a consultative relationship can t possibly mitigate every issue or ensure that companies are always happy with their technology, it plays a huge role in minimizing the downward effects of the valley of despair and offers a lifeline out. The Power of the as-a-service Model Keeping up with the cloud The IT industry has undergone rapid transformation in the last few years. Cloud service providers have made it easy for companies to utilize powerful tools without owning or provisioning their own hardware. This migration to the cloud from engineers and developers taking advantage of remote virtual machines to marketing and sales departments accessing powerful applications via a thin client web browser has also changed the work that consultants do. Solutions like Salesforce and Dynamics 365 are entirely cloud based, which means that consultants are primarily responsible for configuring, integrating and enhancing the out-of-the-box functionality of the products, rather than provisioning the machines they run on. Dynamics also offers a version capable of running in on premise or hybrid cloud environments, but its functionality is increasingly dictated by cloud considerations. The selling points of quick start packages and programs become less attractive when they re viewed in the context of the features of cloud solutions. Unlike the traditional fat client pieces of software that had new features introduced en masse every few years in a brand new version, modern technology solutions can be updated with new features continuously, with lower chances of disruption to end users. This doesn t mean that it s no longer necessary for organizations to work with outside experts to get new features in fact, working with consultants is as important as ever for companies to ensure that they re able to take full advantage of enhancements as they re released. This is where quick start solutions struggle, especially when they promise clients that they re getting everything they need for CRM success for the foreseeable future. Clients then feel comfortable sending the majority of their technology budget on the provided quick start solution, which leaves little for enhancements or configurations if they decide they re like to incorporate new tools later in the year. Delivering Features in a New Way Salesforce s AppExchange program is responsible for more major changes in the way business technology solutions are implemented. Using AppExchange, companies can sell apps that add additional functionality to Salesforce s core product. This functionality, which is also available for Dynamics users through AppSource, has changed the way functions and features are added to business technology. These marketplaces mean that organizations can add many business functions (such as quote-to-cash) or industry specific configurations for a fixed price, without paying for custom development. That doesn t mean, of course, that organizations shouldn t reach out to experts to help with integration, but rather that their consultants can spend more time focusing on putting together the right integrations and less time on development itself. This lends itself well to the subscription consultative relationship model, as it calls for more targeted, meaningful work, and less costly development time that has traditionally made smaller organizations wary of consulting agencies. Quick start solutions tend to include a small, set number of integrations in their quoted price, which means that an organization that decides it needs a new integration can face unwelcome cost to achieve all of their IT objectives. 5

6 Consultative Relationships are the Right Choice for SMBs One of the key historic advantages that small and midsize companies have over enterprises is their ability to establish a personal relationship with their customers and clients. Taking advantage of that strength in a digital first era requires the right tools, however. The CRM industry landscape continues to grow as more companies devote more of their resources to development, design and marketing. That s why it s important that organizations reach out to experts to navigate the crowded marketplace and make sure that they get the right levels of service and support for their organization. It s also important, though, that organizations of all sizes consider how, exactly, they want to engage with outside experts. Many companies may find that traditional consulting arrangements to simply be too burdensome to undertake. At the same time, they may also discover that cheap quick start programs don t offer the same value they advertise over the entirety of the project lifecycle. The new model of subscription consultative relationships, on the other hand, offers a flexible model that puts an emphasis on long term planning and success pr757&ed=12/31/2013 About Celedon Partners Celedon Partners is a business technology consulting agency with expertise in CRM, UX and customer engagement. Celedon engages with its customers to help tackle big ideas in an achievable manner, without the overhead, complexity and high cost of large scale consulting firms. Celedon offers project-based consulting as well as a range of talent solutions to mid-sized and enterprise companies as well as State and Federal agencies. Celedon specializes in solving technology and business challenges through a combination of user experience design, creative approaches and technical expertise. Celedon Partners Present PartnerPass PartnerPass is an innovative new business technology subscription consulting service from Celedon Partners that provides organizations with a flexible model for deploying, developing and supporting Customer Relationship Management, Enterprise Resource Planning and cloud solutions. PartnerPass and operates via regular planning sessions during which customers and consultants determine their priorities for the upcoming cycle. The right expertise from Celedon Partners lineup of engineers, developers and designers is then applied to execute on those priorities using technical hours included in the subscription fee. For more on PartnerPass, visit celedonpartners.com/partnerpass 6