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June 18, 2008

What should you watch out for when purchasing a Document Management solution? 3. BIG INTEGRATORS

Many people believe that the BIG INTEGRATORS are the best at implementing solutions because they have done them before. It seems logical, if you have done something before you will be better at it. What is often ignored is the fact that companies don't implement solutions, employees do. With turnover rates averaging 25% or more, what are the odds that the team that implemented the last project is still at the company?

What about all of those senior people that they have on staff just waiting to implement your project? Well, they aren't waiting for your project and there aren't that many of them. Those people need to bill out at $250 to $300 per hour to cover their costs. It's much more cost effective to have just a few of those senior people around mentoring the junior people. Guess who is working on your project! I have heard some customers even comment that when management selects one of those BIG INTEGRATORS for a project, they see the school buses in the parking lot dropping off the "Consultants" to tell them how to do their jobs. The teams are full of very smart people, they just typically don't have the experience. Once they have gained the experience, they get moved into management to make room for more junior people that cost less. Small companies tend to have more senior people doing the jobs they love. Since they typically pay less than the BIG companies, the people have to love what they are doing or they wouldn't stay.

BIG INTEGRATORS can deliver the BIG teams needed for Enterprise implementations. Yes, they can deliver big teams. Many times the team will consist of their sub contractors. Guess who the sub contractors are... you are exactly right, small companies that specialize in delivering a document management solution. Is it really a good idea to implement the entire enterprise all at once? It depends on the problem you are solving, but not usually. Most companies should start small and build on successes. Why sink $1M or more into a into a traditional, enterprise, license-based project before determining if it's going to work?

Posted by Dave on June 18, 2008 09:46 PM

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