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Day 2: Evaluate your contract

Today your task is to evaluate the commercial contract with the IWMS vendor.

Today’s Teaching

Your contract with the IWMS vendor is always the starting point of every implementation. In the contract you can find a lot of very useful information about your implementation.

Although many formats exist, the following subjects are typically covered in the contract:

1. Software Modules
2. Implementation
3. Data Migration / Interfacing
4. Support
5. Terms & Conditions

The software modules section of the contract is the most important section to me as it indicates which modules you have bought, and can be implemented. And this is exactly the point. Can be implemented…. But never have been implemented.

5 Reasons why software is not implemented

1. More than needed – In each sales process there are some extremely skilled reps who oversell modules since their sole purpose it is to sell as much software as they can. Although your organization might not need the software it sold and bought anyways.
2. Implementation Problems – Most projects start off very ambitious. However as time passes implementation problems will arise. These problems tend to ensure delays, but even worse in most cases cause organizations to implement less modules than bought.
3. Lack of commitment – As a result of implementation problems a lack of commitment is one the worst things which can happen to your IWMS Implementation. “We don’t have the resources” is said too often. No resources and no commitment ensure that your IWMS implementation is not the best it can be.
4. Organizational Readiness – The project can only be successful if the organization is ready for the project. Ambitious goals and personal agendas sometimes drive projects however, without organizational readiness, the software solution will never be fruitful.
5. Practical Relevance – As you go occasionally you start to understand that modules anticipated in the initial phase don’t appear to be as important as thought they were.

Today’s Task

Today your task is to evaluate the contract and compare that with the actual implementation. Start by listing all contract modules and score them according percentage implemented. In the process of creating this list you already get an overview of what can help you improve your IWMS implementation. Below is an example how to create such as list.

I would suggest to create this list in Excel (or similar) as it allows you to calculate total percentages. In the comments column you write why only X percent has been implemented.

Example

Create a new folder in your IWMS Implementation folder called Commercial and save the Excel list document as well as all other contract related material you can find in that folder.