Bruce Crozier
Business Software Analyst
Applications
Evaluation
In
the past I’ve offered my services as a software selection consultant. I never
felt comfortable in that role though because, to be honest, I could tell companies most of the “tricks” to good
business software buying in a few articles or
an hour’s conversation. I also used to write RFPs. Frankly, unless you’re
shopping for a custom package, the detailed RFP is largely an artifact of the
past, when more business software was custom. Software selection consulting
also suggested that I would make the final software selection decision for
companies and that is the one thing that I don’t do. I will perform a search
for potential software vendors and provide evaluations of those vendors and
their products. But making the final selection is your job. My reasoning is
that a company needs to take sole responsibility for their software decisions.
More than once I’ve seen management teams let software implementations fail and
excuse themselves because they didn’t select that software.
I
can critique all types of business software but I am especially well versed in
wholesale distribution software. Wholesale distribution is the middleman of the
business supply chain and ERP distribution software covers virtually all of the
bases of business software including retail, service and light manufacturing
operations. But it is also the most demanding in complex areas like inventory
management, warehouse management, pricing, and database reporting. Hardgoods
distribution (industrial, electrical, plumbing, etc.) is particularly demanding
because the customers are contractors or manufactures who are not simply
stocking a retail shelf. If you read my articles you will find that they are
frequently written specifically with distribution in mind. Some were written
for distribution trade magazines. I maintain a list of links
to software vendors who sell distribution ERP, warehouse management or supply chain
software.
