Audaxium Blog

Implementing a system like NetSuite means introducing change into your company.  There’s no avoiding it.  So how do you prepare during your CRM Evaluation?  Here are some tips.

Explain Why

Often you’ll have one driving reason why you picked up the mouse and found a NetSuite Partner to chat about a new business system.  But often there are a number of other considerations that pushed you over the edge.  As you launch the investigation into a new tool it’s a good idea to write these reasons down and make sure they are effectively communicated with your extended team.  And by team I mean anyone that has anything remotely to do with the application.

The reason you should do this is first, to get everyone involved, and secondly, because your teammates will immediately begin looking for ways to solve the problem.  They’ll tell you what applications meet their needs and what fixes can be made today to make life better.  At least some will.  Those will mainly be your early adopters.

Get Input

Once you get the project rolling a bit I always suggest polling everyone about their ideas, concerns, and requirements around a new system.  Make this fairly free form. Don’t pigeon hole people into clicking answer boxes.  Just ask; “How should a new system improve how we work?”

If some people don’t respond initially make a note.  Then, gently demand their input.  ”You won’t be able to complain afterwards if you don’t give us your thoughts.”  You’ll get 100% response rate after explaining this a couple of times.

Be Broad

Often people will get interested in NetSuite for one part of the application.  As you’re investigating a new business system use the project as an opportunity to improve other systems and/or other parts of your business.  You may get some spin off projects when looking for improvements in your business processes.  And, you’ll probably start to define phase II and III if you choose to go with an integrated system like NetSuite.

Set Expectations

Once you have collected all the requirements of a new system from your team, it’s time to explain to them that they won’t be getting everything they want.  It’s about compromise.  Have another session where people rank or pick out their top 10 must haves from the very broad requirements list. And then remind them that they might not get all those either.

In reality, most people will get most requirements, especially with NetSuite, but lower expectations now will make implementation and change management that much easier.

Talk one-on-one

Now that you understand peoples priorities you’ll need to talk to them. Hopefully face to face.  You’ll have a good idea what on their list is reasonable and what’s not.  Talk to them about what they think of the idea of moving to a new business system and what’s in it for them.

Also start asking people how they want to be involved with the project.  You’ll need lots of different help over the course of the project so collect volunteers early.

Users – 1/3 Early Adopters

A certain amount of your team will desire change just because that’s who they are.  It’s very important to harness this energy and use it to your advantage.  You need to make sure that you give enough attention to their needs so that they don’t get frustrated later on.

While most early adopters will desire change a lot of early adopters have short attention spans.  Their desire isn’t an actual indication of how easy it is for them to learn new tools.  Keep that in mind when planning training.

Users – 1/3 Followers

Followers look to the early adopters to assess where things are going.  This is the most important group to get engaged during the product evaluation and selection stage. They are often the ones who highlight the project risks for you so that you can mitigate them.

Followers often need to be reminded about previous changes that took place in your company and the benefits that emerged.  These stories are very helpful.

The followers are also a good group to start gathering metrics with.  You’ll want to measure the impact of a new tool and one way to get this group engaged is to get them to look at the “current situation” from a data perspective.

Users – 1/3 Cranky

Ah, yes, my favorite bunch, the pessimists.  They’ll think you’re crazy for trying to change out a CRM system, or even put one in for that matter.  It’s important that you focus their rage on what’s wrong now, and then commit to fixing it.  Try to get agreement on what the biggest issues currently are. Then get them to promise you, that if you can fix them, they’ll help you roll it out.

The cranky folks are those that you’ll hold up as examples when you roll out the system.  Often managers will use the early adopters as examples, but everyone in your company knows that they love everything new.  If they see a pessimist saying that NetSuite is working for them then they’ll be more apt to keep pushing to get the system into a highly productive state.

How Ready is Your Company?

Change is about people.  And sometimes processes.  But more often its about the people involved.  If you prep each individual for the system evaluation, selection and subsequent change then you’ll have done 80% of the work at being prepared.  The rest of it is the hard work of making sure the system and project actually work the way you want.