How to Choose a Software Vendor in the ‘New Normal’…

Have the criteria for choosing a software product changed post Covid-19 pandemic? Should businesses select a best-in-class software product or a free product, or something else? Has the pandemic created a need to augment companies’ virtual readiness using various software but with a limited budget and a super-fast deployment? Should you choose a product or a vendor first?

Have you faced these three problems in the past with your software vendor?

1. The vendor created a marketing hype, made huge promises, but disappeared immediately after you bought the product, leaving your team struggling to deploy the software on their own with no support from the vendor.
2. You downloaded the free basic version from the website. Still, after using it for a couple of days, you realized that you need to upgrade to a paid version to access the essential features and functionalities for your business. Your team wasted a lot of time and resources in this process, with unmet needs.
3. The new software you just bought is not compatible with your existing systems, and you need to spend significant time and money on making it work.

Now is not the time to experiment. COVID-19 pandemic has already put a strain on available resources for various businesses, small and large too. This is when you need an approach to be right the first time!

Here is a 3-step guide to choosing the right software (and software vendor) for your business

Step 1 – Define your software requirements

• Take an inventory of the existing software – free, paid, legacy – used, partially used or unused – by various teams, departments across offices
• Discuss with the team and department leaders and categorize these software products into two buckets – continue or replace
• Identify unmet needs created due to the ‘new normal’ or which were unmet even before the start of the pandemic
• Get inputs from the actual users of these software products within your organization
• Compile the requirements received from various stakeholders and synthesize them into one master requirements sheet
• Convert those requirements into features and functionalities while categorizing them into must have’s and good to have’s

Step 2 – Make an informed decision involving the relevant stakeholders

• As soon as you start searching for software that perfectly fits the bill, you will be bombarded with hundreds of options listed on various websites coming up in the Google search result pages. Or the software aggregator portals such as Software Suggest, Technology Advice, Capterra, G2, etcetera, online magazines and sites like CIO.com, Computer World and the social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the largest professional networking platform LinkedIn. Most large-sized software companies spend a sizable amount on doing online advertising and social media marketing, but smaller companies may not have enough budgets and may get overlooked.
• Many users have experienced that sometimes the smaller software vendors have an equally good product and may offer a discount and more personalized support. Hence while shortlisting the software vendors could help to consider an SME. Where can you find such a good SME software company? I can think of a couple of credible sources

1. Linkedin company pages
2. References from your peers and employees

• Just like planning makes any project delivery perfect, objective evaluation based on the predefined criteria will help ensure that your teams actually use the software you invest in.

• It is good to form a selection team representing these three groups

• Share your requirements with the shortlisted software vendors and request for a customized demo instead of a general all features demo.

• Ask for a reference from an existing customer. Know more about the recent implementations, training, and support capabilities of the software vendor.
• Get buy-in from all the selection team, and make the purchase decision

Step 3 – Facilitate organizational change in the virtual ‘New Normal’ with the help of your software vendor

• Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit us, implementing new software in an organization was a challenging task for the leaders. With this new normal, the virtual, sometimes a hybrid reality that all the businesses are experiencing, it has become more difficult to introduce new software, a new way of working and making employees adopt it with ease.
• The key objective of implementing a new software during this difficult period in more than 70% of the business cases, is to cut the flab – the multiple productivity software tools or single-point tools that the businesses were using till now and find the most suitable, one, integrated software that will help address all the new needs of these businesses
• In the current situation, all C-suite leaders and managers need to make an extra effort to encourage employees to use the newly selected software. Along with the software vendor, the internal team needs to design plans for training employees on the features and functionalities and also to train for managers to manage cultural change

Hope to help organizations succeed in the virtual ‘New Normal’ created due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Stay Home, Stay Safe. Enhance WFH productivity with Whizible!

About Whizible

Whizible is an Integrated, Cloud Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) software for SMB and large project-based enterprises in IT services, engineering services (ER&D), BFSI and Fintech verticals.