Choosing a software program for your centre can be an important decision.

In addition to the cost of the software program, a significant amount of investment will go into implementation and training. In fact, if you were to calculate the additional costs of training and getting your team up to speed with using the program the time and financial investment can be massive.

This is why it’s vital to ensure you make the correct decision the first time. If you make the wrong decision you will have to start the long road again.

Here are some tips that can help increase your odds of choosing the correct software program the first time.

Understand what’s most important

It is important to have a clear understanding of what functionality is most important to you. The chances are you will not find a solution that does everything you want it to do, therefore you need to understand what functionality is most important and what can you live without. If a program does 80% of what you want at a high level but 20% is lacking, can you overcome the final 20% with another solution or find other workarounds? If you are not crystal clear about what functionality is most important to your centre, chances are you will have a hard time making your decision.

All in one myth

Some centre managers subscribe to the “all in one” myth. This means they are looking for a magical all in one solution to solve all of their problems. The reality is that an all in one solution doesn’t exist and they end up with a generalised solution that does a lot of things poorly. A more effective approach is to look for “best of breed”. This means looking for the best solution to solve a specific problem/set of problems. When looking for best of breed solutions it is important to consider how a particular solution will fit or “integrate” into your entire technology environment. It is important to ensure a new piece of technology will fit nicely into any existing technology architecture and not create addition process inefficiencies.

What is the benefit to cost

Whenever you are looking at a software to purchase, a useful exercise is to attempt to quantify the cost/benefit that certain functionality will provide your centre. For example, a certain feature may save your team 5 hours per week by automating a task they do manually each week. This equates to over 20 hours per month. If you then take the hourly rate of those staff members and multiply that by the 20 hours per month, you can estimate how much that feature is worth to your centre each month. By performing this exercise for the core 3-4 features of a software it can help clarify your decision. If the projected benefit of the software is 15,000 per year in cost saved/gained and it only costs 5000 per year then it looks like a good bet.

On-site visit

Beware! What you see in a software demo may not give a true indication of real-world use. For this reason, an on-site visit to a centre already using the software you’re considering can be a beneficial exercise. This will allow you to see how an existing users of the software uses it in their day to day operations. From this, you can see if the software is easy or clunky to use in a live environment. This also gives you the opportunity to gain insights into potential teething issues that other users have experiences that you can consider before making your decision.

Referrals

This is a must for anyone considering a new software program. Do MULTIPLE reference checks. The key is to do MULTIPLE checks. Most companies will be able to provide at least one positive reference. Even if their product sucks they will most likely have a friend who has used their product and will give a glowing endorsement. This is why you should at minimum ask for 3 references. If a program is poor, they will unlikely be able to provide 3 or more positive references. The additional time spent on doing thorough reference checks will be well worth the effort as a wrong decision will cost a lot more in the long run.