Scope-Solutions

How to buy the correct software for your company: Your company and your software growth

As with any other project, it is important to have a vision of the expected outcome of this effort. The first important definition, even if it may sound obvious, is to know what future expectations for your company. This is going to be an important guideline to ensure that your technology solution can support that direction.

Even if this is probably one of the hardest things to do, the best guess will definitely support a better decision. For example: we have seen many cases where smaller companies can have a great handle on controlling the revenue and expenses for projects based on having the correct coding in their chart of accounts. But then the day comes when they face unexpected growth that requires having projects pull information from the inventory. If your research for a solution does not contemplate this type of scenario, you may be in a situation later on where you may be required to spend an important amount of time, effort and money to resolve the situation. Other examples include needs for human resources controls (more sophisticated than just running a payroll) or logistics requirements (such as documentation and controls required for companies that export their products and services).

On the side of the software itself, it is very important to research the publishers of the software, the products themselves and the track record of the company that will implement and support your solution. This will give you an idea of future growth potential with the publisher. This is especially important if you decide to go with a customized developed application. The relationship with all these components can go anywhere from the following 5 years to 20! Therefore I consider this search as important as making sure that the person you are going to marry is the correct one, because if not, the consequences can be disastrous and usually very costly.