Darren O'Shannassy

It’s important to help your customer to make sure that they have the right business and executive leadership in place. If it’s a true end-to-end ERP implementation the project will impact the whole customer organisation. Therefore the CEO should be the executive sponsor. My advice to my customers is always that they need their best people working on their future. In this case the ERP project. If the day to day business operations are not taking some pain because their strongest people have gotten involved in the ERP project then they need to take another look at who they have leading the ERP project and who they have working on it. The consultant can configure the software but they can’t make the customer adopt it and use it well.

Have a plan and a schedule for the negotiations so that everyone knows what is to be negotiated where and when. Make sure the whole team has read all the documents to be negotiated, or to be referenced in the negotiations. A basic activity. Often overlooked. Don’t have more people in the room than needed. Only have the relevant leaders, negotiators and experts. Don’t have people in the room because of their title alone. They often don’t know the deal you’re negotiating and feel obliged to speak up to “add value”. They undermine effective communication and interrupt the flow and cadence the negotiators are building. Do the negotiations in person. You build better connections and pick up interpersonal cues in person than on a VC.

It’s important that you have a focus on achieving the best possible outcome for the customer. Not just making the sale. You need to aim to always bring value to the customer in every meeting you have with them. Customers work out pretty quickly if you truly have done you homework and prepared for the meeting with them, if you really do understand their business and care about their issues and challenges and where they’re trying to get to. Be aware of anyone who writes that they are a “trusted advisor” for their customers. Whilst you must always operate in trustworthy and ethical fashion, only the customer can decide if they see you as a trusted advisor.

No. The first step is to make sure that you understand your legislative, policy and business requirements and then understand how they drive your technical and security requirements. Then make sure those business aligned requirements are captured in the requirements documents. Far too many customers don’t properly consider the requirements of the business that the technology and security is supporting before they proceed with outsourcing. Once the vendor is selected and the contract is signed it’s difficult and expensive to change it retrospectively.