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Software selections require the alignment of people, processes and technology to ensure that your organization is selecting the digital solutions that integrate into your culture and support your strategic vision
VST is the leading, independent consulting and advisory firm uniquely focused on helping our clients cut through an overwhelming amount of information to narrow down the best software solution options for their specific business needs and digital transformation — at the best price and on the best contract terms.
VST helps you find the software solution matching your company! Our consultants are 100% neutral with regard to vendors and their resellers and they support your with profound methods, efficient tools and their longtime experience.
The selection of a new software is one of a company's more risky tasks: After all, there is a lot of money at stake when a new ERP, CRM, DMS or other business software is to be purchased and implemented. At the same time, the persons involved in the project must bear a high additional workload which may well affect daily business.
Process Design
Sustainable business process management: efficiency and transparency without a half-time.
Requirement Specification
Our requirement specification templates guarantee the efficient and all-over documentation of one’s own requirements.
IT-Matchmaking
Market search and invitation to tender to a qualified distribution list.
Enterprise systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), and HR/human capital management (HCM) have promised great benefits. Few companies today can remain competitive without implementing enterprise software functionality and capabilities.
For most applications, organizations no longer need to build large custom systems. Commercial software is now available for horizontal applications, such as accounting systems, ERP systems, CRM systems, and also for industry-specific systems in nearly every industry sector.
However, evaluating, selecting, and implementing a new enterprise system is becoming more and more difficult. The underlying technologies are changing. Some systems look good on the surface but may not be the best fit for specific industries. Others may not provide flexibility for the future. Still others may be overkill for small and midsize businesses. Vendor viability, software reliability, and ease of implementation must also be considered.
Finally, there have been many mergers and acquisitions among enterprise software vendors since the turn of the millennium, and it is not always clear whether a particular system is really part of the surviving vendor's product road map for the future. This is especially the case when evaluating solutions from vendors that have done major acquisitions, such as Oracle, SAP, Infor, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, Epicor, Aptean, and others.
Cloud-based systems add another level of complexity to the decision. Is the vendor's cloud ERP offering really software as a service (SaaS)? Or is it merely the vendor's traditional on-premises ERP now offered in a hosted data center as a managed service? And, does it matter? How do cloud solutions, such as Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle NetSuite, Salesforce, Workday, Plex, FinancialForce, Sage Intacct, Acumatica, and others, compare with traditional vendors offering cloud-versions of their solutions?
Choosing the right enterprise system requires an organized approach: assessing business processes, building the business case, analyzing key requirements, screening vendors, and organizing demonstrations. But who has the experience, time, resources, and tools to do it right?
VST is the right choice for independent consulting in enterprise software selection and vendor evaluation. Our methodology is focused and effective according to the following principles.
The new system should not just replicate old ways of doing business. Our approach begins with business process framing to assess current business processes, comparing them to better business practices, understanding how the business is changing, what the new system must do to support the future business.
In understanding your business, our software selection consultants focus on differentiators: the things that make your organization different from others and things that make enterprise software vendors different from one another. We structure these into a concise Request for Information (RFI) to use in our initial vendor qualification. The Request for Proposal (RFP) comes near the end of the process, after you've determined the finalists.
Many buyers make the mistake of starting their software selection projects by talking to vendors. Our software selection consultants, on the other hand, shorten the list of candidate vendors in a three-step qualification funnel that gets you to the right solution without taking up inordinate amounts of time from your project team.
Too many software projects fail, not because the customer chooses the wrong system but because the implementation consulting firm is not qualified. Our vendor introduction and reference-checking phases ensure that you not only have the right system but the right system implementation consultants as well.
Because we do not sell software or partner with technology vendors for implementation services, our software selection consultants have the independence and objectivity necessary to give unbiased advice. We sit on your side of the table only.
Nearly all of the free "software evaluation tools" are marketing websites in disguise. They make their money by selling your contact information to vendors as sales leads. In contrast, VST only provides management consulting services. We are not in the business of generating leads for vendors.
Our software selection consulting services do not end with vendor selection. With our execution services, we can continue our engagement through implementation of the chosen system.
Comprehensive
Accelerated
Fit-Gap
We will serve as a project manager alongside the project team to identify the vendors to receive the request for information or proposal, coordinate the responses and demonstrations, and provide evaluation tools to the project team for a successful vendor selection process.
While most start this process with the goal of replacing an existing system, in some cases updating or improving processes within the current system is all that is needed. Additionally, if you're not ready for a full functional needs assessment or have a specific problem you're trying to solve, consider a software check-up. This could include review of the existing software or specific gap to identify opportunities for process efficiencies, upgrades, training, reporting, spreadsheet reduction, third-party add-ons, integrations with other systems, and security to better utilize your people, processes, and technology.
The decision to select new software will affect your organization for the next 10 -15 years. When you utilize our system requirement and assessment services, you can have peace of mind about the whole process. Contact our software selection consultants for an independent perspective.
