The software selection process focuses on the decision cycle as a value stream by removing actions that do not create value and streamlining those that do, so the process moves in a continuous flow.

Committing to an enterprise solution is a big investment that can offer organizations exceptional benefits or dramatic risk. Executed properly, it can streamline processes, provide in-depth business insight, and enable organizations to better meet market demand. Executed poorly, the results can range from disappointing to devastating.

The magnitude of the risk organizations face is strongly associated with the quality and impartiality of the information used in their evaluation and selection processes. Selecting a system or service that best matches an enterprise's needs requires due diligence, but exercising due diligence on detailed-oriented processes requires time and resources—time and resources which are taken away from the organization's core operations. As a result, the cost of an enterprise system to a company begins before a vendor is selected.

The entire process of selecting and implementing a back-office system for a small or medium business, for example, can take more than six months. Of this, a cross-functional selection team will have to spend three to four months conducting internal needs assessments and evaluating vendors. During this time, buyer's project teams are inundated with marketing collateral from vendors struggling to differentiate themselves. Functional cross-over, software integration, and mergers and acquisitions have caused product overlap and further compromise the quality of information gathered.

Because selection teams generally do not have the ability to obtain objective, vetted data on available vendor solutions, they are surrounded by ambiguity. This confusion translates throughout the process, and can lead to scope creep, where IT implementation projects exceed their time and budgets. The result is further waste and increased risk. In fact, more than half of all software implementations do not meet expectations, and at least one third are outright failures.

Organizations often assume that by reducing the resources and time spent collecting and gathering information, they are mitigating risk. But in doing so, they actually compromise their ultimate objective which isn't to own an enterprise system, but to remedy their problems. By reducing or skipping the research step, organizations risk biased information and may lose out on technology innovations and advancements that are applicable to their industry or vertical. Ultimately this approach results in a system that does not satisfy the organization's goal.

The objective is not to own an enterprise system, but to improve the organization's performance.

Employing consultancies may use less of the organization's resources, but may still not effectively mitigate risk, because consultancies also face many of the same obstacles as organizations, and may employ faulty methodologies to compensate. To fight information overload and reduce research time, some consultancies deal only with vendors with which they have established relationships or will focus only on industry-specific functionality or fatal flaws when creating their shortlists. When soliciting new vendors, some even withhold which requirements are most crucial to the organization to ensure honest responses from vendors. Industry analysts, on the other hand, encourage in-depth research, suggesting selection teams collect buyer's guides and industry journals, attend trade shows, and contact business associates and industry associations to fill the knowledge gap. These approaches also result in more time spent away from core operations and do not guarantee quality, impartial information. The risk of poorly matched solutions is still present.

Organizations should not sacrifice quality information to reduce waste. Instead, they should remove actions that do not create value and streamline those that do.

In software evaluation and selection, the value is in quality, impartial information on vendors and their products and services. The waste is the time spent gathering and assessing that information. An organization should not sacrifice quality information to reduce waste. Instead, it should remove actions that do not create value and streamline those that do, so the decision cycle moves in a continuous flow allowing an appropriate solution to be implemented.

Streamlining Value