You’re worrying too much about the software, and not enough about who’s implementing: a tortured Formula 1 analogy.

Disclaimer: I know nothing about Formula 1, or any sports really. Thanks go to my friends Jason and Simon who checked my Formula 1 reference; if anything is wrong, let me know and I’ll tell them off.

I have been involved in many, many sales cycles with enterprise software. There are always two components, the software and the implementation, and the short version is that most people worry too much about the former and not enough about the latter.
Here begins the tortured analogy: the software is the Formula 1 car, and the implementer is the driver. You need both to be good.

If we extend the analogy, of course you need to compare all the different cars, but assuming it’s a Formula 1 car it’s most likely got what you need to get around the track (stay with me). That is - probably any of them will do the job for you, although there will be some variance in success levels. Same with whatever software you’re looking at.

But even if you pick the very best car, if you put someone in it without the right experience…well, a learner driver would probably crash an F1 car.

The reverse is true of course; the best F1 driver (whoever that is) wouldn’t win a race in a 1993 Ford Fiesta. You do need both.

And yet time and again I see companies put the software companies under a microscope, but just accept whatever implementation team is put forward.

Do yourself a favour and give the implementation side the same care - after all, you’ll be dealing with them a great deal more than the people selling you the software!