Implementing a New Software Platform
And so it begins…. We have been in the process of preparing to switch the company over to an entirely new software platform. I thought I might share some of my experiences with this adventure here.
A bit about the company. We are a middling sized direct marketer. We sell merchandise via catalogs, a website, retail stores and various face-to-face opportunities. As a big fish in our very small pond, we have enjoyed a pretty solid market share.
But our channels have become a bit stale. In particular, our current web site is getting somewhat long in the tooth. Couple that with the need to pull ourselves out of the small business mentality and avail ourselves of some of the “best practices” our industry has to offer drove the decision to undertake what promises to be a pretty traumatic experience.
One more comment….we tried to bring this same software up a year ago…and failed. Lack of planning on both sides of the equation and some serious problems should have caused us to stop well before we tried to go live. Hubris and a admittedly arrogant boss (me!) forced us to proceed. What a disaster!
So, now we are eleven days from Go-Live.
Why do we think we will succeed when the last attempt failed? First of all, I had to park my ego and take the process much more seriously. Secondly, I had to get a total buy in from all the stakeholders. Last time I somewhat arrogantly pronounced that this software was what we needed and damn all who weren’t on board.
OK, there…I have fallen on the sword for the last failure.
What I want to do here is comment on how the days ahead go. A sort of diary of this adventure. Stay tuned.
“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night” Bette Davis (All About Eve, 1950)
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