Walk your childhood self into a candy store where you’re told you can only buy one sweet — that’s a surefire way to hone your decision making skills early in life!

The fear is that you could be making a quick decision and missing out on something better.

An amazing study by Sheena Lyengar on The Art of Choosing cites award-winning research showing that the more choice a person has, the harder it becomes for them to choose.

Now try buying software as a growing small or medium sized business – it’s as if you’ve walked into that sweet shop for the first time ever. So many options, and the fear of choosing too hastily means a lot more than just missing out on a tastier option, but compromising your operational efficiency and growth potential.

When it comes to wholesale distribution, any lag in operations can be extremely costly. With complex production and procurement cycles, orders and fulfillment, as well as shipping and logistics to manage, setbacks and delays can leave a bad taste and need to be avoided. Managing inventory effectively is a vital ingredient of your business success.

This can all lead to a bit of resistance in going through the process of buying software, because there can be anticipated risks of:

• outgrowing solutions as you continue to scale rapidly, requiring too many 3rd party Apps to be integrated and implementing solutions which don’t always work well together
• wearing many hats and having projects going over time and budget as a consequence
• lacking the resources to make sure the technology is customized and adopted the right way, first time

But for small business, buying software doesn’t have to be a bittersweet affair.

Here’s our four simple tips, along with key considerations, to help you determine which solution is the right one for you:

1) Beware of the salesman moving you to demo straight away, rather than asking meaningful questions to understand your business first.

When you’re looking to partner with a software provider, it goes without saying that you need to love their product. Just as important though is getting a clear understanding of how an ERP solution provider can support, consult, and engage with you.

Looking at their website and customer community to understand their core competencies and capabilities can be a great place to start. What’s their track record like and what do their past customers say about them? What have they learned about taking their solution past the technical setup alone? Do they have case studies and similar clients you can relate to?

Sure, you might be eager to see a demo of the product and get things moving quickly. But without a good understanding of your business requirements and what’s important to you, you may end up getting a cookie cutter approach to your whole implementation. No two businesses are ever exactly the same, so it’s important to make sure the software provider is taking the time to know your business before jumping straight to the solution.

Consider: On your first call with a provider, are you hearing curiosity to know about your business, or are they wanting to move you quickly through the process without getting a feel for what’s important to you?

2) Is the provider letting you down by not taking charge of evaluating and scoping the project ahead of you?

When you engage with software companies, you’re choosing a partner to help further drive your growth and increase your business efficiency. This really begins with your first conversation, not after you’ve bought and signed on the dotted line.

After all, a software implementation is a project, not an evaluation.

In your initial conversations, make sure you’re building a plan together that includes budgets, timelines, who should be involved (from your business and from theirs) and a clear view of the next steps, complete with a scope of work and training plan. This should be collaborative process, and allow you to continually refine your needs and the framework for your project.

And most importantly, what are the measures of success? This will help ensure you’re able to create the accountability for delivering your project on time and on budget.

Consider: Collaboratively keeping track of your project with your vendor, be it over email, in a Word doc, with a presentation, or another way that works best for you.

3) Are they thinking about your growth? Small wholesale businesses can scale quickly, but be aware of providers who propose a great solution for today without thinking about your ambitions for tomorrow.

It’s been proven in many behavioral science studies that when people solve problems on behalf of others, they produce faster and more creative solutions. Why not allow this to work in your favour? What are the business challenges you’re trying to solve? When you know that, ask the company you’re partnering with to help solve them.

It can be easy to jump straight to the solutions yourself, especially when you know your own business intimately, but you could be missing out on other ideas about solving those problems. They could even work better, faster and provide future scalability that other solutions don’t.

Consider: Ask your provider what their ideas are for your current business challenges. And then ask yourself if their suggestions are only solving your problems today, or whether they can also help shape your future, empowering your growth.

4) Make sure your provider is giving you a well-executed rollout that speaks to your needs.

Finally, don’t let your project fall over before it’s even started.

Any new technology roll out can struggle to get out of the blocks if the right processes and getting your employees’ buy-in is an afterthought. Work with your software provider to create a detailed implementation and roll out plan. It’s in everyone’s best interests to see you started and making the most out of the system quickly, but also by doing it the right way. Ask them what their plan is. A really good partner will seek to simplify complexity by working closely with you to streamline and automate your business processes.

The plan should involve professional services consultants, training and support agents being involved during the implementation process, as they’ll all work together to set your business up for success. Know what to expect with the setup and resources being brought onto the project before you commit to the solution.

Consider: Talking about the project execution and the overall plan at the beginning of your evaluation.

Partnerships are the key to successful software implementations:

The more choice you have, the harder it is to choose – and to know you’re making the best choices for your business for now and for the future. Use the above checklist to know you’re asking the right questions and narrowing the choices down to the right software providers who won’t leave a sour taste in your mouth.

Remember, building a mutual partnership with your provider is the key to the sweet success of implementing small business software that works for your unique business.

We’d love to speak with you about your small business software requirements and explore how we can help you achieve your goals – get in touch to start a conversation today.