In today’s technologically advancing world it is inevitable for your business growth and improvement to have a successful implementation of the new software. But, before you decide to go there, you first need to know what the essential needs of your business are and which software would be the perfect solution to meet these requirements. With a world going forward, everything evolves and gets either better or worse depending on the circumstances and most importantly the decisions we make. Therefore it is very important to carefully plan and make result-oriented strategies when deciding to implement new software as you don’t want anything to go wrong for your business. Our consultants with several years’ experience have shared some useful tips for a successful software implementation:
- Project Manager: The most important thing for having a successful project is to have an internal employee who is the right fit as an internal project manager. This person should be responsible, hard-working, dedicated, a team player and above have leadership qualities to lead the entire team working for the software implementation. Therefore, it is of great importance to select such employee as the project manager who must be familiar with the software and also can train the team comfortably. The project manager has the most important role to play in this process as between you and your software vendor he/she is the main point of contact.
- Establish Value for Stakeholders: More often than not, many businesses when implementing new software have to face the lack of confidence from their stakeholders or senior management team. Hence, taking up a meeting with your stakeholders and senior management at the start of this process is inevitable to make them understand the benefits of using new software and the value it will be adding to your business after its successful implementation. Your stakeholders’ trust and your executive team’s assistance are interconnected with the planning and strategies for successful implementation of the software.
- Software Integration: While you go for the new software implementation another most important thing you should take care of is to be sure that the software is integrated with your existing systems without a glitch. Software fully integrated with your systems will add to the workflow output while making your business a success.
- Planning for Implementation: For a successful software implementation and integration, it is important to develop an effective and step-by-step strategy. When planning for the implementation, make sure that you cover every aspect of the process such as business rules, workflow productivity, and excellent performance. You must also establish who among your staff members rightly qualified person to use the new software is and how the software benefits your business. Also, take into consideration to introduce the software strategically for a trouble-free implementation procedure.
- Managing Team for Software: Once you select the project manager for your software implementation, you must consider providing a managing team as well to look over the whole process. The key to a successful software implementation and its managing is to have efficient and hard-working team members who can be involved in the project on regular basis.
- Hold an Initial Training Session: After planning and strategizing for the software implementation and identifying your project management team and your main stakeholders, now you need to get them together to determine your goals, integration stages, systems and finding answers for any related questions. When you have all of them together it is the best opportunity for you hold an initial training session involving everyone. Once you have that session, try to check in with your implementation team on regular basis to know whether they have any question or any findings to share.
- Internal PR Campaign: Generally, implementation of new software has one main purpose that is increasing the productivity and efficiency; therefore, the employees must have an understanding of how the software is relevant to their jobs. So the best thing you can pull off is to run an internal PR campaign to spread awareness among the staff and establish the value of the software.
- Announce a Launch: Once getting the implementation live it is of great importance to share it with your entire major stakeholders; this will let you get all your stakeholders involved in the implementation. Holding a launch gives you an opportunity to show the positive outcomes of the software and its utilization for business goals. The more you establish the software’s value the more support and time you will get for its implementation.
- Training and Support: One of the most important things to take into consideration is to provide continuous support for successful implementation of the software. Arranging for seminars, meetings, and standard training sessions are some of the effective ways to ensure a smooth and progressive implementation as well as to make certain that your team is on the right track. Furthermore, you can also facilitate your implementation team with supplemental material from your software vendors, tutorial videos, and online supportive material too.
- Regular Evaluation of Software: Once you have implemented the software, it is a good strategy to get a regular evaluation of the software to know whether the implementation has gone according to your business expectations and anticipated results like an increase in positive workflow outputs. It is also important to know how your employees are handling the new software whether they are comfortable with it or facing any problems, so, their feedback is also crucial in the evaluation process. With all the gathered information you can easily determine whether the software implementation is a success or your need to reevaluate its value for your business and improve your strategies.
