Tech selection, implementation pitfalls

Is your current tech stack running on fumes?

Most tech projects grow out of one particular technology challenge. Common ones include:

• Being able to report across systems.
• Living and dying by the Excel spreadsheet.
• Entering the same data manually multiple times.
• Gaining valuable data and analytics.
• Managing an aging and on-premises financial system.
• Dealing with the lack of a consistent project management process.
• Connecting disparate systems.

No matter the original need, when you actually kick off your journey, it can quickly become clear that the real problem stems from foundational gaps in your organization’s technology and/or a misalignment between technology and your organization’s overall vision and strategy. And that’s where a project can get stuck or stall out.

Before you get this far, take a look at seven common implementation challenges and how you can solve or avoid them:

1. Looking for Band-Aids

Moving forward with the immediate low-cost solution versus the long-term investment often won’t solve your organization’s tech challenges. The reason why all comes down to people.

Everyone you work with is getting a digital experience in every part of their life, from Amazon to their bank. How easy are you making it for them to do business with you? Do they receive digital invoices that autoload into your system, or do you send them paper invoices that slow down their billing process?

And how are you attracting and retaining employees in today’s competitive labor market? You need to offer them a more digital experience, too — one without the manual, duplicate and time-consuming processes, the technology workarounds and all the paper. Allowing them to concentrate on value-added activities and their highest and best use is critical.

Think about the full scope of your technology needs, not just the one pain point that’s creating the most friction today.

2. Looking for a silver bullet

Organizations also need to quickly come to terms with the fact that there is no silver bullet — no single product that will give them everything they need to modernize their tech right now.

It’s common for organizations to try a specific software, have it fail and walk away with the perception that “their operations are different” and write off planning for technology growth into the future. 

Organizations should be coming together to plan their future technology and architecture versus hanging their hat on a single solution.

There are fantastic solutions in the marketplace for project management, customer relationship management and back office, but individually they will still leave gaps in your technology ecosystem if you are not creating a technology roadmap that identifies your true requirements and discovers what you need to get there.

3. Not tying technology to your long-term strategy

Speaking of creating a roadmap, the process of creating one is essential to aligning your technology to your organization’s corporate strategy and future vision.

Your organization needs to evaluate your current technology state, where the industry is headed, where your organization needs to be in five to 10 years to accomplish your strategic goals and then how to get from point A to point B.

Your organization will always have competing priorities: You’re too busy with large projects, you don’t have enough headcount, margins are tightening in a time of recession, you have M&A opportunities to pursue …

Tying technology into your organization’s vision — making it clear how critical tech is to the company’s continued success and longevity — is essential to getting the buy-in you need to go from Band-Aid to long-term solution.

4. Overlooking today's modular architecture

Historically, organizations have looked for an industry-specific enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to address all of their technology needs — that silver bullet we mentioned earlier. However, these systems still resulted in a lot of manual workarounds to fit the unique specifics of the organization.

With the workforce challenges firms are experiencing, today’s systems need to eliminate manual processes and improve on automation.

That’s why organizations are now implementing a decentralized set of systems that connect via integration platform as a service (iPaaS) tools such as MuleSoft. These tools connect your CRM, ERP, data warehouse, project management system and more so that changes to a record in one system (such as contact info, budget or timeline) get automatically changed in the other systems. 

5. Not bringing in the right mix of positions and departments

Getting the right people involved in the project is critical to its success. You’re going to need a mix of people from all levels of seniority and across departments. A technology ecosystem can’t be “corporate’s baby.”

The changes your organization will undergo throughout your technology journey need the input and buy-in from various organizational levels.

Senior leadership will secure the investment budget, gain approval from the board and provide the highly visible buy-in and communication the project needs to gain adoption once it’s implemented. Mid-level management will drive the technology implementation process and paint the vision of how this will benefit everyone in their day-to-day roles.

Those across departments will work together to determine individual and overarching pain points and put together the technology roadmap. They’ll bring the insights needed to determine what you need to improve the employee and client experiences.

6. Not talking to your peers — or asking the right questions

When it comes to technology, where have your peers and competitors had successes and failures? These insights can be critical to help you avoid mistakes right off the bat and set expectations for how your future technology journey may unfold.

Make sure to ask the right questions, too. You may be tempted to ask them which tool they picked and how much it cost when you should be asking what led them to move forward with their investment, how they built their vision and how they structured their roadmap or created a program for digital transformation. How did they think through their business case and determine their ROI?

And talk to them to better understand the corporate governance and capital allocation elements of getting approval for technology projects so that you can better set yourself up for success.

7. Not understanding how to effectively find a return on your investment

At its simplest, ROI is determined by subtracting the costs of the investment from its determined benefits in some number of future years. But what goes into determining the benefits and what are the costs you need to consider?

Direct benefits include items such as increased revenue or changes in headcount. Indirect benefits are items such as higher client or employee satisfaction.

A project also has costs and risks to factor into your ROI calculation.

• Direct costs: Examples include hardware, software licensing, implementation consulting, integration consulting, training and change management.
• Indirect costs: Perhaps the best example of an indirect cost is the short-term impact to productivity for your internal workforce as they devote time to the technology implementation while still performing their normal day-to-day work.
• Potential risks: Examples include budget overrun and the project taking longer than anticipated.

How Wipfli can help

It’s not easy to embark on a digital transformation even when you know your organization needs it. You simply can’t afford to lose your competitive position by continuing to operate with less-than-optimal processes and systems. From digital strategy and data analytics to enterprise solutions, Wipfli Digital can help your digital do more.