The Tech Advisor: A Guide to Better Software Selection and Implementation Decisions for Business Managers

This book is for business managers and leaders facing big decisions about software. Read this before you call the salespeople, vendors, and consulting companies.Sometimes an organization wants software for more than just the common tasks like internet browsing, documents, and email – software that will enable it to step up to the next level of business activity, efficiency, and productivity: to automate and expedite a key process, or create a new process; to facilitate collaboration; to connect data with data, people with data, or people with services. Here you don’t just install a conventional program and go through some tutorials. Everything changes. People in diverse roles doing a variety of tasks will become part of a new system. Staff, affiliates, and customers will all be affected, directly or indirectly – and will be interconnected in new and unfamiliar ways. All activities should coordinate and flow easily and in a timely manner. The solution should augment what works in the pre-existing process as well as build new, more efficient pathways, enhanced with powerful tools.To succeed, enterprise-level software initiatives like this require careful planning and considerable effort. The potential rewards are huge – major cost savings, a big boost in revenue, and greater market share – but the risks are significant. Small companies may also face these issues, especially if they have a unique process that is their competitive edge.Software vendors will not necessarily tell you everything you need to know, nor will they do your due diligence for you when you plan, select, and implement the technology. If you do not have sufficient expertise in-house you can make serious mistakes. A number of issues might not get the attention they deserve, including:• Is the technology being considered really the best choice?• Are you getting the features, capabilities, and scalability you need now and will need in the future?• Security and change control. What are the risks in the cloud and software-as-a-service?• Loading, migrating, and connecting with data – an easily underweighted challenge.• Connecting with legacy systems. Is the original knowledge still in-house?• Will all the users be represented? How about the customers? Who will make sure?• How will you know you are getting high quality, “industrial strength” custom work?• What about system configuration, training, knowledge transfer, and maintenance?• Will your organization really “own” the system, or will you remain dependent on the vendor?• What happens if your vendor goes out of business or the platform you bought is discontinued?• Have you really identified all the tasks required, their costs, and business impacts?• Are your preliminary requirements gathering and planning sessions really focused, or are you wasting time?• Will your staff and your business be downgraded by a software upgrade?• Will your new system last for years, even decades? A premium price tag won’t guarantee it.This book offers information to help you make good choices and avoid the pitfalls. It explains how a software professional – “the tech advisor” – can come in on a short-term basis to support your work before you call the vendors. The cost is often offset by the time it saves your highly paid managers responsible for the preliminary work. The tech advisor protects your interests and is your advocate standing between you and the vendors. The book explains how to find and hire one. It also sheds light on the advisor’s crucial methodologies.Whether or not you hire a tech advisor, the book will help you make wiser technology choices. This book is your tech advisor, and will help you become your own tech advisor. It will help you ask the right questions, do your due diligence, and apply some of the approaches and methodologies the tech advisor uses. This way you are far more likely to get the timely answers and the powerful, cost-effective solutions you seek.

Patrick Russell has worked with software for over thirty years, and has been a programmer, successful entrepreneur and business owner, system architect, project manager, and practice manager. Currently, he develops original software applications, and helps companies to design and build network- and web-based systems for automating business processes. He also consults as a tech advisor. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1973 as valedictorian, and did graduate work at Princeton and Oxford. However, he got his street credentials developing software for manufacturing control equipment, where he refined his programs in factories and on shop floors. By the end of the 1980s he transitioned into business software and shrink wrapped product development. Over the years he has proven his ability to solve very difficult, sometimes seemingly impossible problems in software. In 1993 he co-founded Cambridge Software Group, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company had many consulting clients that are household names, covering a range of industries, including manufacturing, banking and financial, consumer products, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, data processing, entertainment, business services, electronic media, and retail sales. The company also developed its own line of well respected software products. In late 1997 Cambridge Software Group was acquired by Renaissance Worldwide, a large international consulting company, where Mr. Russell served as Director of Technology. Mr. Russell currently resides in Southern California, where he does software consulting, and recently founded Russell Kennedy Partners with Brian Kennedy. He is a passionate tech advisor, and likes to work with small and large companies. He also enjoys writing and giving presentations. He is the President of the San Diego Chapter of the Institute of Management Consultants, and is authoring the forthcoming book, Holographic Process.