As we engage on another customer project for Salesforce.com, we are ever mindful that we are not simply implementing a new solution, but delivering a new tool to make people more productive, improve their morale and deliver improved sales, customer satisfaction and profitability to the organisation in question.
If you leave out the people in a new implementation, it doesn't matter how well you think you've designed the system, if it doesn't 'fit' the users then you are on a sure course for failure. Change management is a serious consideration for any project. You can't please all of the people all of the time, the saying goes. That may be true, but if you show that you have listened and will continue to listen, there will be greater tolerance to work things through. People are only human!
We encourage our customers to walk through the solution with their users and try and shape the system to work for them, whilst still achieving the desired objectives for the business. You would be amazed at how many different features people use, compared to each other. We all have our own way of doing things, so if the system allows users to do the same thing differently, then let them do it. (Did you know you can send an Email three different ways in Salesforce.com?)
Considering your people puts the human element into a solution, and so long as that helps productivity, customer satisfaction, sales and profitability, who cares how they go about it.
Get the details right, and the results will be positive and naturally occurring. So, don't worry about getting a new system online1 quickly, worry about getting it online first time at the right time.
1. The beauty about Software-as-a-Service is that it is online and ready-to-go. So, you are able to spend more time thinking about your people, workflow and processes. You can try things out in real-time without the risk and worry of hardware, set-up and consultancy costs.
Friday 19 March 2010
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